Home » Reagan and me

Comments

Reagan and me — 25 Comments

  1. Reagan and Nancy were treated, after his presidency, like royalty when they visited newly-freed Eastern Europe. Budapest has just put up a statue of Reagan, official and all.

    Maybe it’s the effects of a sustained diet of pierogis, but the folks who knew the score seem to like Reagan a whole lot.
    The ignorant don’t.

  2. Re cakreiz’ RR comment: I recall an Art Buchwald column from 1965 on what that “scary” Goldwater would have done had he been elected. Buchwald then proceeded to list what LBJ did.

  3. I started listening to RR’s radio spots in college in the mid 70s. I remember thinking that he made good sense for a radical right-winger. Voted Anderson & Mondale. But by ’88, somthing clicked- voted Rep for the 1st time. The MSM painted RR as a warmonger. Then the Wall came down and the Soviet Union collapsed. It finally dawned on me that saber-rattling and strength were EFFECTIVE (people forget that the Warmonger Reagan never engaged in a major conflict). Accordingly, 9/11 reinforced my worldview- it didn’t change it.

  4. Wow. Lots of comments on this one. Mine is pretty much the same. I was a Democrat from birth (most Hawaiians are), and was one of the few Democrats I knew while serving active duty. It took years for me to finally realize what you have also realized.

    Funny thing though. Socially my views haven’t changed. Still pro-choice (though anti-abortion and would rather women not make that choice but believe it is theirs to make), still pro-gay rights (but against forcing them on the general population), still pro-union (but always anti-stupidity), have no problem with porn, the list goes on. Gonna cut this short. Big Trouble in Little China is on, and the steaks are ready.

    Kalroy

  5. Milton Friedman‘s “Capitalism and Freedom” is another excellent and concise introduction to economic thinking as pertains to the promotion of liberty. (Given Friedman’s influence as an economic adviser to the Reagan administration, “Reaganomics” might just as appropriately have been termed “Friedmanomics”.) Highly recommendable.

  6. neo, one of the interesting things about Reagan’s book is the pictures of his long-hand writing. Very few revisions. He simply thought and wrote… I am inclined to disbelieve anything a mainstream journalist would say about him because of their own willful blindness, as Shrinkwrapped as so ably demonstrated.

    I was riffed under Reagan and fell on hard times as a result. But I still think he was on the right track.

    If you want to feel less shaky on economics, I recommend Jude Wanniski’s The Way The World Works. Best layman’s book I’ve read, though I don’t agree with all he says outside the book. Still, it remains a brilliant exposition and is written deliberately at the high school level. He’s been kind enough to send copies for free to my congressman and some state legistlators.

    I’ll guarantee one thing: after you read him you’ll understand supply side economics and Robert Mundell.

    ~D

  7. I haven’t read the Reagan book, but I did read a number of reviews of it when it first came out. They all made it very clear that the book was evidence of a first-rate intellect (as I recall, some of the reviewers were rather surprised).

    Huan–great point about the limits of responsibility, and analogy to the butterfly wing flutter.

  8. Second tmjutah’s recommendation of “Reagan, In His Own Hand”. He was a very good writer.

    While the left tut-tutted his calling the Soviet Union an evil empire, the people behind the Iron Curtain knew better and were given hope — the message made it to the gulags. When his speech writers kept editing out his “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”, he kept putting the line back. He will be (is) among the great presidents.

  9. neo –

    I highly recommend ” Reagan, In His Own Hand”, a book that contains the surviving radio scripts Reagan wrote (and delivered) during the interegnum between his governorship and accepting the nomination for president.

    Reading them may help you to round out your opinion of his intellect.

  10. I guess it was pretty imprudent for FDR to force convoys through to Murmansk and Archangel, wasn’t it?

    Look what happened after the Allies won WW2, wouldja???

    Perfect worlds. Pfft.

  11. I really had thought the Left’s notion of the US creating the taliban had about gone defunct. I think this is the most twisted and desperate logic they have ever come up with. It is simply boggles the mind! We help someone fight a common enemy, so then we are responsible for what transpires after the help is no longer needed. I mean, isn’t that like saying we are responsible for any and all corruption that occurs once we give some money to a poor nation? This from the screeching Left we must endure……it gets old, real old.

  12. that the soviet over threw the afghanistan government in 1979 is wrong. that we supported the mujahadeen is because they were willing to fight. and never were they a unified force politically other than to rid afghanistan of the soviets.
    by that point, there was no legit afghan government. no consideration of lesser evil, just the realpolitik of the cold war that some seek now to reproduce to counter US hegemony.

    the taleban came much later.
    and al qaeda after them.

    people are responsible for the actions their take, and the consequences of those action. but the lines of guilt only goes so far, otherwise we will either set arbitrary generational limits predicated on bias, or enter a butterfly wing flutter causing a hurricane bizaaro world argument.

  13. Once again the familiar canard of ‘lesser evils’ dredged up to cover Reagan’s ideological blindness and cynicism. Truth is, there were people other than the Soviets or the mujahadeen who enjoyed considerable support in Afghanistan. But, since they were self-described Marxists who refused to be controlled either by the Kremlin or by Washington, they had to be taken out.

    You’re not a Marxist and neither am I, but all indication were that the left-leaning government that the USSR overthrew in 1979 was doing necessary things in terms of women’s rights, education, land reform, and ending the theocracy.

    Of course, Reagan couldn’t support them. Like most American presidents, his faith in capitalism was extremely shaky, and he didn’t believe it would ever take hold by peaceful means. If he had to choose between arming radical Islamic warriors and a group of embattled social democrats, he knew whose side he was one.

    Besides, whether you like it or not, people are responsible for the unintended consequences of their actions. Reagan might have been too blind or too uninformd to have an inkling of what was going to happen, but that doesn’t absolve him.

    “If you don’t like mosquitos, drain the swamps.”

  14. to some the security of the status quo is always more conforting than the darkness of unknowns. especially if those who must endure the status quo are miles away and quietly suffering. There is nothing more impolite than a public display of suffering. Thank god for the Soviet Union!

    Yet some saw this same impoliteness as a sign of evil and wrong doing that should end, regardless of what tomorrow will bring. Afghanistan was the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union, thanks in large part to Reagan.

    Thank you neo-neocon for reminding those who conveniently reposition history, whether out or ignorance or out of bias, to fit a pre and illconceived agenda of pessimism and moral abandonment. The Taleban did not exist until well after the Soviets had withrawn, and our aid money had dried. And it was even later that Bin Laden entered Afghanistan leading Al Qaeda.

  15. “It always is interesting to see how the left manages to ignore context.”

    And Am*n to that.

  16. “Thank G*d for the internet, which has come into being just in time to help us save our civilization.”

    Am*n to that.

  17. Loyal Achates, you show your usual wise perspective and your customary grasp of history.

    Now might be a good time for me to reiterate the general principle that, if I say something like, “I didn’t see what was so awful about Reagan’s foreign policy,” that doesn’t mean I heartily approved of everything he did. Whether the subject be Reagan or anyone else, that would be the case.

    That said, your comments about Reagan and the Taliban show a remarkable failure to grasp the situation at the time. First of all, the Taliban did not exist until 1994. I assume your question, therefore, refers to the mujahadeen, whom Reagan and the US supported in their fight against the Soviets.

    It always is interesting to see how the left manages to ignore context. Reagan was hardly alone in choosing what he thought was the lesser of two evils in that particular fight, or any fight. In the real world, these hard choices must be made, and that leaves the person making the decision open to criticism from those with the benefit of perfect hindsight. So be it.

    Even Roosevelt allied the US with Stalin in WWII to fight the Nazis, and without that alliance the fight against Hitler might actually have been lost. Stalin was one of the most evil rulers of the twentieth century, and that’s saying a lot. In the fight against Communism, we (and not just Reagan, but every President since WWII) have made many strange bedfellows, some of them worse than others. The Taliban were one of the strangest, but hindsight is 20/20. At the time, they just seemed a particularly puritanical, but not especially horrific, group that was dedicated to fighting the Soviet invasion. The Soviet invasion was a known evil; the Taliban seemed to be a far lesser evil. Subsequent events proved them to be quite evil themselves, just a different flavor of evil.

    However, I am sure that you yourself foresaw–way back in the 80s, when Reagan and the US were supporting the mujahadeen against the Soviet invaders of Afghanistan–exactly what was to happen years later. No doubt, however old you were at the time (and, by your blogger profile, it seems you were not born yet, so perhaps I should forgive you for your lack of historical perspective) you perceived everything that was to come, when no one else on earth seemed to see it. That’s the beauty in being a leftist–you can live in an ideal world of the mind, and criticize others who have to act in the real world of complexity and compromise.

    For a true perspective on how it initially looked to most everyone at the time, see this passage from the previously linked article:

    The Taliban’s popularity with the Afghan people surprised the country’s other warring factions. Many Afghans, weary of conflict and anarchy, were relieved to see corrupt and often brutal warlords replaced by the devout Taliban, who had some success in eliminating corruption, restoring peace, and allowing commerce to resume.

  18. Neo–

    My political past is similar to yours–including raising children and finding politics a form of “background noise” to real life (the pears of your previous post).

    My deviation from the Marching Morons (or more politely, the LLL) began with (1) the unfairness and racism of affirmative action,(2) the insane promotion of bilingual education, and (3) the MSMs’ glorifying the PLO killers at the expense of Israel.

    By the time of the Intifada of Sept. 2000, I had Zero respect for 99% of the writers in the MSM. I knew far more than they did about the three subjects mentioned above.

    However, Sept. 11, 2001, made all the difference, and even then it took me yet another year to stop thinking of myself as “leftwing” and to accept the appellation “rightwing,” even though these terms are not descriptive of the world we live in.

    In fact, I’m working my way through a very dense book on the French Revolution in order to find out what those terms meant originally (besides referring to a seating chart).

    Right now, there are few writers I respect, and most of them are warbloggers, including Belmont Club, LGF, Instapundit, NRO, and Weekly Standard. I’ve subscribed to Atlantic Monthly for many years, but they’re going downhill really fast, so I probably won’t renew it. The Chicago Tribune with its pitiful parade of ignoramuses would never set foot in my house, but my husband wants it. Lucky for them.

    Thank G*d for the internet, which has come into being just in time to help us save our civilization.

  19. That’s nice, so now the issue becomes my perceived lack of maturity and not Reagan’s well-demonstrated imprudence and short-sightedness which is largely responsible for the scope and difficulty of the war on terror we now have to fight.

  20. Thanks for the thorough reply.

    I didn’t much appreciate Reagan, either, until the end of his term.

  21. In answer to someone’s reply, I too, have never registered as anything but independent since J Carter days. But in my heart I know I’m a republican, just haven’t brought myself to admit it on the voter registration box.
    Part of my conversion was the snarkiness of the MSM at Reagan because I thought “why are they so carried away with being like high school kids when reporting on this man?”
    A good example would be the
    comment by loyal achates. It is okay to be said by someone who is not reporting the news but that type remark by a news person is definitely biased reporting. An educated person begins to wonder at why all the bias, cannot straight reporting do the job?

  22. Did you enjoy the time he funded bin laden and compared the Taliban to the Minutemen of the Revolutionary War? That was fun.

  23. Neo:

    We have parallel histories (lifetime Democrat, in my 50’s, professional), but you were obviously a lot more perceptive than I was. I spent college years in Madison, WI, law school in Cambridge, MA, and then post-law-school clerkships in Madison, WI and Chicago, IL.

    Then moved to San Francisco area and joined a law firm in SF in fall of 1980. I was so deeply indoctrinated that I was stunned to find that seemingly intelligent, well-educated lawyers in a large SF law firm could not only vote for Reagan but be willing to admit it in public. (Not a lot of them, mind you, but there were some.)

    So I continued to live in my daze, thinking Reagan an idiot, then voting for Dukakis, Clinton, Clinton and Gore before finally being jolted by September 11 and voting for Bush in 2004. I never really came to appreciate Reagan until he died, with all the coverage at that time forcing me to go back and reconsider his accomplishments.

    Bravo to you for starting to become a neocon way back in the 1980’s.

    Tom F.

  24. Great post, neo-neocon. You’re really striking some chords here. I can’t wait for the next one.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>