Best leader your country never had

As to the other post that claims economic conservatives and the religious right are the same thing, no, they're really not. Though boneheads on all sides of the political spectrum have been loudly proclaiming that they must be for long enough now that they've largely merged.

I didn't say they were the same thing, I said they were stuck in the same position so they are stuck with each other. If the conservatives come out and say 'this election is going to be about economics, and nothing but economics. We will address no other issues and request that our opposition do the same' their opposition will happily do it and the conservatives will get creamed. The 'religious right' are totally different people, but face the same problem. If they make the election strictly and completely about their issue they too would get creamed.

So these two minorities have to join forces. The religious right concedes 'you can do whatever you want on economics' and in return the conservatives say 'we will back your craziness even if we don't believe in it'. Between them, since they are specifically not the same groups, they may be able to form a majority.

Then there is the small group in the intersection. There were always going to be some, but they have now 'embraced the wackiness'. Not only are they in the conservative minority, they are also in the religious right minority, and maybe a couple other fringe minorities the GOP brought in under the same 'we'll support your unpopular view if you support ours' terms. These folks, having personally embraced all these minority positions, then turned around and branded anyone who only embraced one as a 'republican in name only' and tried to drive them out of the party. This is producing a party committed to taking the unpopular side of every issue and accepting no compromise on any of them. Anyone who doesn't recognize that this process leads to complete surrender of any political power is, in my opinion, just too much of an idiot to even contemplate.
 
The projection here is astounding. Truly astounding.
I see you have nothing intelligent to say, and your arguments have descended into "I know you are but what I am".

According to you...
Kerri wasn't treasonous during Gulf War presidential campaign, but Reagan was (even though it wasn't during a war).

Hypocrisy is really obnoxious.
 
I see you have nothing intelligent to say, and your arguments have descended into "I know you are but what I am".

According to you...
Kerri wasn't treasonous during Gulf War presidential campaign, but Reagan was (even though it wasn't during a war).

Hypocrisy is really obnoxious.

Nope, not what I said. Are you aware of what Nixon did during the 1968 peace talks? It was not a public campaign statement of a new policy but rather a secret communication to the negotiating parties instructing them to hold out for better terms when he was in office. Same thing with Reagan and the hostage negotiation.

You also seem to be quite hung up on treason defined as overthrowing the government. I refer you to the US constitution which has relevant language to work with.
 
I didn't say they were the same thing, I said they were stuck in the same position so they are stuck with each other. If the conservatives come out and say 'this election is going to be about economics, and nothing but economics. We will address no other issues and request that our opposition do the same' their opposition will happily do it and the conservatives will get creamed. The 'religious right' are totally different people, but face the same problem. If they make the election strictly and completely about their issue they too would get creamed.

So these two minorities have to join forces. The religious right concedes 'you can do whatever you want on economics' and in return the conservatives say 'we will back your craziness even if we don't believe in it'. Between them, since they are specifically not the same groups, they may be able to form a majority.

Then there is the small group in the intersection. There were always going to be some, but they have now 'embraced the wackiness'. Not only are they in the conservative minority, they are also in the religious right minority, and maybe a couple other fringe minorities the GOP brought in under the same 'we'll support your unpopular view if you support ours' terms. These folks, having personally embraced all these minority positions, then turned around and branded anyone who only embraced one as a 'republican in name only' and tried to drive them out of the party. This is producing a party committed to taking the unpopular side of every issue and accepting no compromise on any of them. Anyone who doesn't recognize that this process leads to complete surrender of any political power is, in my opinion, just too much of an idiot to even contemplate.

Yea, I re-read what you had actually typed and got it better. Tried nuking that quote out before you got to it, but you anti-ninja grabbed it. :)
 
Nope, not what I said. Are you aware of what Nixon did during the 1968 peace talks? It was not a public campaign statement of a new policy but rather a secret communication to the negotiating parties instructing them to hold out for better terms when he was in office. Same thing with Reagan and the hostage negotiation.
Again, it wasn't even unethical what he did. During the campaign, he presented an alternative. Once the president elect, he started to work to make his alternative the reality. That's what you're supposed to do.

You also seem to be quite hung up on treason defined as overthrowing the government. I refer you to the US constitution which has relevant language to work with.
I'm not hung up on it, it is the definition. This isn't 1781, it's 2014.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/treason
the crime of trying to overthrow your country's government or of helping your country's enemies during war.

Please, provide me with your specific definition since you don't use the commonly acknowledged definition (you can agree that Merriam-Webster is pretty widely accepted I hope)?

I want to understand what you are saying, since you've felt it necessary, at this point, to argue against facts (Adams) and dictionaries (Merriam-Webster)... it has become difficult.
 
Again, it wasn't even unethical what he did. During the campaign, he presented an alternative. Once the president elect, he started to work to make his alternative the reality. That's what you're supposed to do.

He did not present an alternative. The only reason we know it happened was because the CIA was tapping the South Vietnamese phones. I don't understand why you aren't grasping this point.

I'm not hung up on it, it is the definition. This isn't 1781, it's 2014.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/treason
the crime of trying to overthrow your country's government or of helping your country's enemies during war.

Please, provide me with your specific definition since you don't use the commonly acknowledged definition (you can agree that Merriam-Webster is pretty widely accepted I hope)?

I want to understand what you are saying, since you've felt it necessary, at this point, to argue against facts (Adams) and dictionaries (Merriam-Webster)... it has become difficult.

Article III said:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.

I have not argued against facts with regards to Adams. I think you missed and are still missing the fundamental point of Smellincoffee's post.
 
He did not present an alternative. The only reason we know it happened was because the CIA was tapping the South Vietnamese phones. I don't understand why you aren't grasping this point.
I'm not sure why you've shifted to Nixon/Vietnam... I haven't.
Nor am I talking about Adam's/treason.

I'm talking about the absurd accusation that Reagan committed 3 acts of treason (even/especially by the US Constitution example.. there was no war), which you decided, foolishly, to champion.
 
I have not championed "3 acts" or what-have-you, I have pointed out the specific similarities between Reagan's Iran situation, which started in the 1980 presidential campaign and extended into his administration, and Nixon's sabotage of the 1968 Vietnam peace talks, which I think is quite clearly treason. You are reading a whole lot into that, and it might not actually be there.

For not talking about President Adams, you have consistently accused me of denying facts regarding his presidency. Something here doesn't add up.
 
I have not championed "3 acts" or what-have-you, I have pointed out the specific similarities between Reagan's Iran situation, which started in the 1980 presidential campaign and extended into his administration, and Nixon's sabotage of the 1968 Vietnam peace talks, which I think is quite clearly treason. You are reading a whole lot into that, and it might not actually be there.

For not talking about President Adams, you have consistently accused me of denying facts regarding his presidency. Something here doesn't add up.
There's clearly a breakdown in communication.

This is where I have been focusing (the Adam's thing was just a quick, hey, he signed it):
I was going to let Cutlass post the followup if he wanted. But I suspect he was referring to one of two things: the Iran-Contra scandal, or undermining the negotiations with Iran during the presidential campaign to go after the Carter administration.
To call either of those "treason" is exaggeration and inaccurate. That's where my points stop. I really don't know enough about the Nixon thing, and you just introduced that a bit ago... the bolded has always been my point. I apologize if it seemed confusing or I transgressed too far.
 
Reagan was a decent -- maybe even good -- executive in terms of foreign policy. At the end of the day I am glad we had Reagan instead of Mondale and H.W. Bush instead of Dukakis, but the economic cost has been high. We had a Democratic executive for the majority of the 1990's that arguably did more to deregulate the economy than its Republican (H.W. Bush) predecessor, so in my assessment Clinton/Gore are just as culpable as Reagan for the suicidal l'aissez-faire project. Probably more, because you know, they were supposed to be liberals.

The Democratic Party has been a disappointment post-LBJ, really.
You are joking, right?
Reagan's initial misadventures with foreign policy started pretty much from the get-go. He savaged the civil service (the long-term consequences are still being dealt with today) and brought in a bunch of nutters who pursued ideologically driven policies with no real oversight or control which flew right in the face of the general trend of the last 30 years of American foreign policy. That about-face made sure we reaped none of the fruits of the earlier policy and instead found ourselves making some very unfortunate friends in our global fight against anything vaguely resembling communism which further trashed our reputation in the Third World and established some very bad precedents with what is expected from our allies.
Furthermore, in our relation with the Soviet Union he engaged in his absurd 'evil empire' nonsense, which when coupled with his ratcheting up of tensions; destroyed detente, made the Soviet leadership legitimately fear America/NATO was planning an offensive operation, and came about as close to total nuclear armageddon as during the Cuban Missile Crisis, without any clear plan to resolve the issue without war and creating absolutely no benefits. The situation only began to calm down and Reagan's 'great peacemaker' title could even vaguely be applied when Gorby became premier and took a very conciliatory approach.
In short, Reagan introduced some near-disastrous trends to our foreign policy we still haven't dealt with.
 
I mean, other than his role in freeing hundreds of millions of people from the CCCP, you may have a point...
He also was credited like this by Gorby, so, do you know more about it all than Gorby?
 
What was Gorbachev suppose to say- this nutter nearly caused WW3 and if I didn't decide to cave there would be nuclear disaster? Gorbachev couldn't make such a statement, that would have been stupid.
 
@Jackiegull
So, you are arguing against Gorby now? Hahahhaha

Yeah, you're right... he had no choice but to fly to the USA and do a media tour where he gave Reagan credit. Makes sense.
 
"Freed" is a very creative word here.
Not really... they were an authoritarian mess.
Even their Constitution said, right at the beginning, the government can go outside of the following when necessary...
Which is basically saying, you dolts may buy this, but it's all BS.
 
I mean, other than his role in freeing hundreds of millions of people from the CCCP, you may have a point...
Way to ignore the people who actually were responsible for ending the Soviet Union and COMECON like Lech Walesa, Boris Yeltsin, or Vaclav Havel.
(And Sakharov, mainly because I like him and he didn't turn into a racist nut like Solzhenitsyn.)
Plus, I'm not so sure you can call the situation in Russia today compared to Gorby's desired state of the USSR 'freeing'. Gorby sincerely believed in a Social Democratic style country, a far cry from the current Russian Fed.

He also was credited like this by Gorby, so, do you know more about it all than Gorby?
Again, your much-vaunted quote supposedly showing Gorby mentioning how Reagan played a critical role in ending the Soviet Union said nothing of the sort. What it instead said was that Reagan played a critical role in ending the Cold War, a statement that I agree with fully. Once Reagan was dragged away from the big red button and began ratcheting down tensions and signing arms limitation treaties he became critical in ending the Cold War.
That is not to say he somehow possessed a magical ability that nobody else had and that he alone was able to sign those treaties. Yes, he had help from the 'only Nixon can go to China' effect but an equally important factor was the eagerness of Gorby to low tensions in a bid to normalize relations and gain access to foreign credit markets.
 
Hadn't seen that quote from him before. I'm getting the impression he's more of a Rand Paul type.


Goldwater represented a type of Republican conservatism which is almost non-existent in the US today. Which in a way is a shame. As much as he was vilified, he was far better than what the Republicans with Reagan and after. It was kind of an 'you leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone' approach to government that was common among the Western rural Republicans of the era.

But that was 1960. The New Deal was still in play, government was activist on economic issues, and increasingly activist at the federal level on social and civil rights issues. And Goldwater thought the government shouldn't be doing those things.
 
He thought the federal government shouldn't be doing those things. And considering the past decade of empowered federal government action coupled with the war of the states on anti-gay bigotry and racial oppression through the war on cannabis one might think, even yes you Cutlass, his concerns about federal government power and state's right were not totally off base. Maybe he was just fifty years prophetic for some of his faults in his day.
 
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