Journal Marxist Hacker 42's Journal: Ronald Reagan was a Borrow-and-Spend Liberal 30
Or where the governmental debt in the United States really came from- overwhelmingly supply side tax cuts to the rich. I'm sorry- but the record is clear- the Republican Party is *big government* without bothering to *pay for it*- and obviously doesn't believe in subsidiarity enough to overturn RoeV.Wade and battle out abortion on a state's rights basis.
Of course, sometimes the truth has a distinctive Left-wing bias.
"Tax and Spend politician" (Score:2)
I don't like throwing "Tax and Spend Liberal" on someone like Reagan, because he wasn't a liberal. When people are willing to recognize that ANY politicial, Liberal or Conservative are able to be Tax-and-Spend, then we can start approaching the problems in the right way.
Namely, we need Socialist programs to advance the social welfare of the nation in general, but we need small government politicians to ensure that the interests are balanced against paying for them.
So long as we draw the line and claim that
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Reagan is the executive that began the "Liberal Policy" of State gun control laws vs. 2nd amendment provisions.
As Gov. of California he reacted to the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, in sponsoring the most restrictive ownership and carry laws the nation had seen. It set a pattern for other states and the Federal government.
After they shot him and Brady - the other shoe dropped. Poppy Bush made sure that happened - the other great liberal seizer of guns.
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Reagan is the executive that began the "Liberal Policy" of State gun control laws vs. 2nd amendment provisions.
As Gov. of California he reacted to the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, in sponsoring the most restrictive ownership and carry laws the nation had seen. It set a pattern for other states and the Federal government.
After they shot him and Brady - the other shoe dropped. Poppy Bush made sure that happened - the other great liberal seizer of guns.
As noted in another series of posts, authoritarianism is not necessarily a liberal policy, and in fact, is widely used by our current conservatives in the USA.
Anyone who thinks that libertarians are the conservatives in power in this country is retarded, and ignoring facts.
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I think the meaning of these terms has changed in our lifetimes, and it's of utility to be up-to-date.
For example my impression of the hippies, i.e. today's Liberals that are running the country, but when they were younger, is that they were maybe as you are -- social libertarians and economic authoritarians. But then as they got older, most of them realized that you can't achieve your economic ends without forcing social ends. For example, health insurance for all is nowhere near economically feasible unle
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I can't really argue with anything that you posted, except that the Hippies seemed to have an authoritarian bend from the beginning. The quadrant of socially libertarian, yet economically authoritarian (which I will call the "socialist quadrant") has crazy low representation in America, since the population is center-right. (More accurately, the bell curve peaks in the moderate area, but towards social authoritarianism and economic libertarianism) In fact, none of our parties are actually in the "sociali
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NO ONE would suggest that tax cuts are a liberal idea... except apparently MH42, but for what reasons?
Actually, I got this from James K. Galbraith.
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Considering that James wrote his article on this in 1989, during that strange time that I can't seem to find articles on the web, I can't link to it. But his was a Leftist point of view. John McManus of the John Birch Society also wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal calling Reagan a Liberal- in 1993- but I can't find it online either.
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Which is why I say he was a borrow and spend Liberal, rather than a Tax and Spend.
And there's no difference between a socialist welfare program that supports the poor and a liberalizing tax cut for the rich combined with free trade.
And yes, I consider George W. Bush to be a liberal- cutting taxes and increasing spending to give more liberty to the rich.
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Which is why I say he was a borrow and spend Liberal, rather than a Tax and Spend.
And there's no difference between a socialist welfare program that supports the poor and a liberalizing tax cut for the rich combined with free trade.
I feel that you're using Liberal too widely, which is exactly what I was complaining about.
Deficit spending is not an exclusively liberal action.
And yes, I consider George W. Bush to be a liberal- cutting taxes and increasing spending to give more liberty to the rich.
OMG, you're doing crazy amounts of semantic gymnastics right here to apply "liberal" to Bush.
Can we please use descriptive comments about people, rather than slather titles that we hope to turn into epithets? "Liberal" is not everything bad in the world, and it doesn't mean wild spending.
Oh, and there is a difference between a socialist welfare program that is pai
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Deficit spending is not an exclusively liberal action.
True conservatives follow the idea of "Neither borrower nor lender be"; and don't even accept usury in their private lives, let alone in government. But you see, that's the problem- we don't have any true conservatives in the United States any more, at least none that reject liberty in favor of morality.
Oh, and there is a difference between a socialist welfare program that is paid for, and a tax cut for the rich, without cutting
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True conservatives follow the idea of "Neither borrower nor lender be"; and don't even accept usury in their private lives, let alone in government.
Oh, so we're going straight to the No True Scotsman Fallacy, and not even going to try and hide it at all?
Both use government to redistribute wealth from those who earned it to those who don't- so no, I don't see any difference at all between a Steve Forbes getting an unfunded tax cut and a Welfare Queen living off of taxpayer's money. BOTH are socialism.
No, they are not both socialism. Socialism puts money where it is necessary. It isn't just "wealth redistribution", but NECESSARY wealth redistribution to better equalize mankind.
Unfunded tax cuts to the rich in fact isn't even wealth redistribution, it's LACK of wealth redistribution. Unless your argument is that the rich should be paying more taxes...
Oh and "Welfare Queen"... lol, I love the silly
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Socialism puts money where it is necessary.
From the neoconservative trickle-down voodoo economics point of view, tax cuts for the rich IS putting money where it is necessary.
It isn't just "wealth redistribution", but NECESSARY wealth redistribution to better equalize mankind.
Exactly. And the Ronald Reagan voodoo economics theory is that the rich, having more money, will create more opportunities for individuals, and *better equalize mankind*.
Unfunded tax
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Some have seen it with their own eyes- it would be stupid to assume fraud does not exist in the system. But in both cases- it's taking money away from those who EARN it, to support those who don't (merely invest in the first case, a form of fraud, or lie about their inability to earn in the second case, which is also a form of fraud).
Yeah... when I was on welfare, I was living high on the hog with my $350 a month...
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And the Ronald Reagan voodoo economics theory is that the rich, having more money, will create more opportunities for individuals, and *better equalize mankind*.
But isn't this trying to explain Right-wingers in terms of Left-wing values? I.e. given that they're very disparate value sets, isn't that an invalid way of looking at and thinking about it? Specifically, the Left sees life's inequities as a problem, and the Right does not. So your sentence about the Right's thinking is correct up until that last cl
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"But isn't this trying to explain Right-wingers in terms of Left-wing values?"
Not at all, because neoconservatives are not right wingers- and this description of Ronald Reagan's trickle down theory was taken *directly* from his own speeches.
" I.e. given that they're very disparate value sets, isn't that an invalid way of looking at and thinking about it?"
Maybe it is to you- but neocons aren't right wingers, they're left wing liberals who are *specifically* using trickle down economics to engineer society in
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To me the flaw here is that you seem to believe in some kind of Conservation of Conspiracism law, whereby if one side is out to destroy us then the other side must similarly also be. Only one side directly seeks our destruction -- capitalism and America's freedom-based society must be wrecking balled [a new verb I just made up here!] in order to replace it with the Left's ideal systems. The other side could at most
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To me the flaw here is that you seem to believe in some kind of Conservation of Conspiracism law, whereby if one side is out to destroy us then the other side must similarly also be.
Or to put it another way- the Bolshevik theorem of George Orwell. Or at least, that's the first author that pointed it out to me; that any LARGE revolution only succeeds at copying the methodology of that which they are revolting against; regardless of specific ideology otherwise. That was as true with the NKVD and the KGB as
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I'm having trouble trying to find out what this is.
And how exactly was the "Reagan Revolution" like the Russian communist secret police and spy agencies?
You contradict yourself. The only way to enforce all the behaviors you want on people i
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I'm having trouble trying to find out what this is.
The simplest way I've ever heard it put is "That which revolutionaries fight against, they become".
In the case of the Bolsheviks, one of the *big* reasons for their revolution was the Czar's Secret Police, the NKVD. And what did Lenin do as soon as he got into power? Formed the KGB- with many of the spies being former NKVD agents.
The Great Reagan Revolution was formed in the recession of 1979; and proceeded to be just as collectiv
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Did our founding fathers become like the British crown? No. Your mistake is in confusing when one evil tries to wrest ultimate power from another evil, and assuming that that is the only case.
How so?
I thought you claimed to be pro-life (wh
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Did our founding fathers become like the British crown?
Yes, our constitution mimics many of the rights in the Magna Carta, as well as in 49/50 states, English Common Law still stands (the exception being Louisianna, where the Roman Code is the basis of law).
How so?
The Reagan Revolution was actually designed to hand over ownership of the majority of goods (85%) to a minority of people (20%). David Stockman actually admitted that Reagan's economic system was designed to be a Staline
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>> Did our founding fathers become like the British crown?
> Yes, our constitution mimics many of the rights in the Magna Carta
It was hardly the British crown that established the Magna Carta, being a reform aimed at limiting the king's power. So it still doesn't stand that revolutionaries necessarily become what they overthrow.
> The Reagan Revolution was actually designed to hand over ownership of the majority of goods (85%) to a minority of people (20%).
TL;DR, but I read the CliffNotes version [wikipedia.org],
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Hmm, it just occurred to me, I'm sending resumes to companies advertising job openings. Are they "sinners" in your religion for advertising job openings? I guess then I'm a "sinner" according to the Church of Marxists, for "advertising" myself in my resume. I sure hope to God that one employer and I are swayed by each other's advertising to form an employment relationship, and soon.
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In a subsidiarity system- instead of a globalist economy- you'd be protected from competition and wouldn't need advertising. You'd do all your marketing through personal friendships and personal relationships instead.
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And Megan McCain goes on Liberal talk shows and trashes Republicans. If one person sells out his side because he didn't really believe in that side fully to begin with, is not evidence of a grand conspiracy on that side. So a phony Republican says Christine O'Donnell is crazy and unfit, and so a phony Republican says "tax cuts for all" is fake on the Right. BFD. It could only approach credibility if from multiple sources, and from otherwise solid Right-wingers.
IOW if multiple staunch Republicans are caught
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You'd do all your marketing through personal friendships and personal relationships instead.
I'm an introvert (and with less advanced social skills than a normal, non-nerdy person), so I don't really have those. (Not to mention that the last 7 years of my employed life have been working on projects solo, mostly. So no one but my immediate supers know what kind of worker I am.)
So your variation of economic Leftism (redistribution to cure inequity) again falls short due to the gross inadequacy of a one-size-fi
an analogy (Score:1)
Say your wife was making $50K when you met her. She also had $50K in credit card debt. Over the years she had gotten raises and is now making $100K. And she's also grown your household's total credit card debt to $80K.
Is $80K in debt not as bad as $50K in debt?
Do you think your household debt situation has improved, just because her income has grown faster than her rate of piling on more and more debt?
What if there's an economic downturn and she has to take a pay cut for a while? Is it only then that $80K o
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Debt is debt, and all debt is evil. If you're not bringing in the revenue, you shouldn't be spending. And if you have responsibilities, you ALSO have a responsibility to do everything possible to bring in the revenue.
In other words, if you have $80k in debt, you have a responsibility to increase your revenue to pay off that debt.
So therefore- if the government is in debt at all, cutting taxes is immoral.