REAGAN'S CRITICS

With reference to the politicians and media types who despised Reagan once but who now are speaking well of him, Armavirumque is pretty acerbic. It says that they were either "fools then or dishonest now".

The current mainstream Leftist line about Reagan seems to be that his triumphs were all due either to accident or just his irresistable personal charm. Ann Coulter rebuts that by pointing out how wide, deep and resolute his conservatism was -- both in word and deed -- and noting how much the Left hated him when he was in office.

Another lame put-down that is coming from the Left at the moment (e.g. Yglesias) says that Reagan in fact showed the impossibility of the conservative agenda by failing to cut the overall size of government. What that failure in fact shows, of course is that Reagan couldn't do everything by himself. He had to get what he could from Congress. He got an amazing amount in some ways and very little in others. No matter which party is nominally in control of Congress, it is an essentially corrupt body that thrives on the art of the deal -- and the loser in every deal is the taxpayer. It is only Congress that can cut back the size of government and there is no sign that it will. And, like Reagan, GWB has bigger (foreign) fish to fry rather than wasting time on trying to make Congress do something that is against its fundamental nature. U.S. Congressmen are very good at keeping their jobs and they largely do it by robbing Peter (the taxpayer) to pay Paul (their supporter groups) and that is not going to change any time soon.

I mentioned a couple of Leftist Reagan-hate sites recently. Wallace of "Big Gold Dog" has drawn my attention to the autobiographical details of the people behind one of the sites. Beth Henry - a "contributing editor" to Axis of Logic describes her beliefs thus: "Democracy is a word politicians use as camouflage for any number of nasty power grabs, murderous campaigns abroad, and capitalist swinery and larceny. Patriotism is a ridiculous concept, designed to separate people of different nations and races, and cause them to objectify one another so that they will be more willing to kill and be killed for the ruling class". Sounds like straight Karl Marx to me. Leftists will never learn.

For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH and POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH. Mirror sites here and here

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Leftism is more popular with young people than with older people largely because Leftism is itself juvenile: They criticize what they don't understand. Which makes it ironic that "We know best" and "It's for your own good" are the basic Leftist messages. Leftists have never outgrown the simplistic thinking or the arrogance that are the characteristic limitations of youth

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