Latest about NASA AKA My Disgust with the GOP

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Umm..... you haven't shown anything.

Not only that, but a GOP congress certainly doesn't mean that Clinton could not attempt to veto legislation or ignore it.

Additionally, it doesn't really matter whose "agenda" it is on. It isn't as if an "agenda" is a metaphysical entity that always belongs to the person who first has the idea. Clinton, just by implementing the ideas, gets credit for that as his "agenda", at least to some extent.

Finally, given that Reagan didn't come up with supply side economics or anything like that, how can one really say that Gingrich was Reagan's student over being the student of the same sources that taught Reagan or even just someone who learned from Reagan's example? I mean, Laffer(who praised Clinton) is the Father of supply-side ideas, the ideas that are currently dominant in the Republican party, why not give him the credit and trust HIS judgment on who a good president is?


Ok? Clinton still implemented the agenda.


I don't really care about anecdotes about Reagan. I mean, I see no reason to idolize him.



Is speculation as to Clinton's motives a good reason to discard his actions?

Look, here's what I see you doing:
* Clinton's agenda wasn't really HIS for some reason, despite the fact that he implemented it.
* Clinton had a REPUBLICAN congress
* Clinton was (probably) AFRAID of being the next Jimmy Carter.

I mean, the first reason is overly metaphysical, as if a person's agenda isn't really theres if it is someone else's idea.

The second reason is irrelevant to what he ended up doing, as he still signed these things into law.

And the third reason is speculation.

Nowhere have you proven that Clinton wasn't a good president or really undermined Arthur Laffer's appraisal.

I haven't made any questionable claims. You have.


If he did that, he was a monster. Given his criminal actions in the Iran-Contra scandal and other schemes, I wouldn't put it past him. Still, I won't believe it until I see a legitimate source.


It was totally unimportant. It was nothing more than grandstanding; nothing came of it.

The Bush years were basically just a continuation of the Reagan administration. To say G.H.W. Bush didn't follow Reagan's agenda is irrelevant, as Reagan didn't follow Reagan's agenda either. It was just rhetoric and pandering, nothing more.


You are making insane claims here.

1) You have no conceivable explanation of why Clinton would continue his pro-market policies after he was reelected. He was already in his last term, did not need to worry about reelection, and still continued free-market policies, enough even to gain the approval of a right-winger like Laffer.
2) For this explanation to even work in his first term, you have to posit a lot of things that are almost certainly false. You have to believe that an overwhelming majority of Americans really support the right-wing agenda, despite voting for Democrats in large numbers and despite the Democrats being the largest political party. You have to believe that Clinton was so concerned about the Democratic Party being nominally in control that he was willing to basically be a Republican in order that it would be possible to say a Democrat was in office. That is, you have to believe that he was willing to trade in his entire agenda purely to advance the (nominal) power of the Democratic party against its own interests.
3) Clinton actively supported and pushed through pro-market legislation that he could easily have stopped, costing him popularity among organized labor. For a Democrat, losing the support of the labor unions and progressives is far more politically dangerous than a little more enmity from the right wing. If he was just looking out for his political interests, he would not have pushed NAFTA through. And Clinton was not an idiot, surely he would have known this.

So, yeah, your speculation on Clinton's motives is not only completely baseless, but also demonstrably wrong.

To be perfectly frank, the initial point of this thread had nothing to do with Mr. Clinton as it is; he just happened to be brought up somewhere, when I mentioned that one of my favorite presidents is Ronald Reagan.

What I do happen to find funny is that Orwell immediately singled out Ronald Reagan...yet for some very odd reason didn't happen to question me on some of my other choices, including Lincoln, Van Buren, or even Nixon.

I'd also like to point out that I was fully willing to admit Reagan's flaws--despite my admiration of him.

I also earlier remembered some other really important "international successes" of Clinton's administration:

selling our military secrets and nuclear weapons to North Korea
the Elian Gonzales fiasco
Bosnia/Serbia( we all know just how well that worked out)

I would've mentioned the Waco invasion, but that was in Texas of course.

and some classic moments of "true Capitalistic intent" as well:

I've already mentioned the disastrous Health Care bill
the assault on Philip Morris
the Microsoft Trial

If I'm not mistaken, virtually everything I just mentioned--save for the Waco incident--happened during those "positive years" of his second term in office.

And I certainly would not call Reagan a monster for doing what was done in regards to Chernobyl; it was one of the big events that brought the Soviet Union to its end, and knowing the horrible things that went on in the Soviet Union, he likely saved even more lives in the process than were lost in the incident in Chernobyl. It would be like calling Truman a monster for dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; sorry dude...unacceptable.

Awesomelyglorious, while I do not fully agree with your position--as you can probably already tell--I am impressed with how you organized and stated your position, and feel considerably honored to be discussing these things with you.

I like Nixon, I don't have a strong opinion on van Buren, and Lincoln, despite serious shortcomings, did probably about as well as you can expect a person to do with the miserable situation he walked into.


North Korea does not have nukes.


Health care bill was first term, not second. Philip Morris deserved to be attacked, as did Microsoft. All you can demonstrate by those two examples is that Clinton was not a complete laissez-faire capitalist and, frankly, we haven't had one of those as President since Hoover.


Wrong wrong wrong. Chernobyl was not one of the major events that brought the USSR to its end. It discredited the Soviets in some important ways, but the political power struggles and the economic failings were far more important than any other factors. The Soviet leadership was actually relatively unfazed by Chernobyl. The power plant failure cost many lives and a great deal of suffering, it was unequivocally a net negative. And you still haven't substantiated the claim that Reagan was somehow involved in that.

Woah woah woah...the fact that you just referred to Hoover as a laisse-faire Capitalist, and insist that Philip Morris and Microsoft deserved to be attacked immediately indicates to me your political and philosophical leanings as it is...which completely explains to me why you specifically outed Reagan.

I haven't substantiated it yet because I need to get the source from where I got the information...and I need to ask the person I got it from for that information, which I will do shortly.

Then you also managed to jump down my throat when I asked for your sources as well, even though I wasn't the one who instigated the Reagan Vs Clinton thing to begin with.

I started the thread to get the thoughts on the whole thing about the GOP screeching about cutting a federal program that would indeed likely be better off in the hands of private industry, and when I explained that--while I am interested in political history( as well as history in general), no longer even vote, and don't believe either side is for freedom as neither is the public that elects them--I happen to like a couple presidents from both sides, just to offer a bigger perspective on those I admire who held the oval office.

There was no intent from that point on to delve into Reagan Vs Clinton.

I can already tell this is gonna head into a discussion about our economic & philosophical beliefs, rather than the singular issue this entire thread was first started about.

I mean..if you really want to, fine, but it wasn't exactly my intent.

Actually, this was probably going to go this direction from the very beginning. You were pretty open about your economic & philosophical beliefs.

And Orwell is only one president off too. If he just meant Calvin Coolidge.

I would hope so, but ironically enough convention wisdom does seem to follow about Hoover being a laisse-faire Capitalist when he was nothing of the sort.

I stated my beliefs from the beginning for the simple fact that I've mentioned so many times here on the forum about my overall apathy towards politics, and to further explain--for those who may not understand--that I don't align myself with "either side".

However Awesomelyglorious, if you haven't noticed, I haven't demanded anyone insist on backing my argument or "covering for me" at any point yet. While I appreciate your feedback on here, if I can stand my own ground, than Orwell shouldn't need any help explaining "who he means" either.

No, I didn't say who Orwell meant. I only said "Orwell is ONE OFF" meaning that he does seem wrong. "If he only meant Calvin Coolidge". So, you are right, and Orwell is wrong.

Since Hoover=Hoover's inauguration marked the end of strictly laissez-faire policy. That definitely was phrased very poorly on my part, apologies for the unclear communication.

I dislike Reagan for several reasons. There are my reasons to dislike him on his own merits, such as his various criminal activities (which are worse than I previously knew if you are correct about the Chernobyl thing), his poor policy on a variety of fronts, his false, superficial pandering and failure to stay true to any of his declared ideals, etc. My dislike of him is compounded by the misguided hero-worship that his fanboys heap on him- people go on about how Reagan was such a great small-government crusader when the opposite was true. And anyways, I never really said Clinton was a great President (he had some policies I disliked, such as support for capital punishment, interventionism abroad, DMCA, and other things) but that the people who idolize Reagan would be better off admiring Clinton. AG already posted the Laffer quote about Clinton out-Reaganing Reagan, and I think in many respects Laffer was correct there.

Philip Morris and MS needed to be attacked for specific reasons. Philip Morris was and is a public health threat that perpetuated bogus science in order to sell death. Philip Morris could quite easily be prosecuted for fraud and wrongful death without there being any reason to say that such actions are anti-market. And MS has a long history of dirty tricks and anti-competitive behavior- they sign deals with OEMs that basically require that if you buy a computer, you must also purchase a license for MS Windows, whether you intend to use it or not. I tend to have some libertarian leanings, so I usually support uninhibited markets even if monopolies develop (as monopolies, generally speaking, should only form when they serve a market purpose) but there are some limited cases where intervention is needed. For the record, I think the prosecution of MS has gone in entirely the wrong direction, forcing them to ship inferior products (they are prohibited from bundling software or adding significant new functionality) rather than addressing the real problems of vendor lock-in and the attempts to force Windows on everyone.

I appreciate your clearing that up. And to be fair, truth be told we actually had problems getting laisse-faire presidents since around the 1830s or so; with a few exceptions here and there.

Well, allow me to go on record as saying that I don't exactly immortalize Reagan the way that most folks do.

He may be one of my heroes-- and still one of my favorite presidents--but don't even think for five minutes I think he was anywhere near the perfect Capitalist crusader that everyone puts him on a pedestal as.

As I've already stated, I'm more than well aware of how flawed he was in regards to Capitalism, and in many cases I found him to be overly naive, which naturally caused more harm in many cases than good.

It's worth noting on a side note, however--the majority of the folks you speak of who immortalize Reagan that much also seem to put FDR and JFK in high regard, and I think both of them were utter failures in terms of presidents.

It's not simply a couple of the policies of Reagan here and there that I loved; he wasn't called The Great Communicator for nothing: no matter how much the media tried to spin what he said, Reagan had a way of going right over them, to the audience, and stating his position. When Reagan spoke, you listened.

It's also worth noting that, up to the point of his election, we were practically a stone's throw from losing the Cold War, due to decades of appeasement. Reagan managed to turn the tables, and put us right back on the necessary side...and his fight with the Soviets was so intense we were a stone's throw from all-out nuclear war in 1983. Several years ago, one of my teachers in high school even told me a little known anecdote about something that happened at the time, and it blows my mind every time I think about it...which I'll gladly share if you're interested.

It's not just some of the things Reagan did as president that impressed me though; if it were just that, it'd be one thing; it's how he went from being a washed-up B movie actor who's biggest role was on a "ticket" with a chimpanzee to achieving the levels of success that he did do.

Yet again, I'm not saying he was perfect in his positions: this is a guy who was inspired by the work of FDR after all, so he was certainly flawed in his ideals. He also said that Communism 'works on paper, but not in practice". So once again...not perfect.


I completely disagree about both Philip Morris and Microsoft though. Regarding Microsoft, no one forced the computer companies to take Microsoft on exclusively for their computers. You may be saying "but they were the only ones who had that kind of program". That's not Microsoft's problem. The companies simply have to say "we don't want your product; we'd prefer Dos"; it wouldn't be as good of course, but they want the business, and they know what sells.

The attack on Philip Morris started regarding Joe Camel, because it was suggested it promotes smoking to kids. Here's a better idea rather than attacking the company: Kids have parents; let them be responsible for their kids. That ain't Philip Morris's job.

Really? Most Reagan fans I know are die-hard Republicans and, generally speaking, despise FDR and JFK.


I disagree with your assessment here. The Soviets had very severe internal pressures which would have destroyed them regardless of what Reagan did. The conflict between old hard-line Communists and liberalizers like Gorbachev tore the USSR apart politically, and the Soviet people were frustrated by the rampant corruption and economic inefficiency. In the 70s (if I recall correctly) the Soviets instituted some new economic policies that had disastrous consequences that did not fully take their toll until the 80s. Ultimately, Soviet politics were vastly more important than American politics in the collapse of the Soviet Union- exactly as would rationally be expected.


Is it the incident where something was misidentified on the radar screen and, thinking it was a Soviet attack, we were about to launch our own nuclear attack? There were a few close calls. I'm not a fan of brinkmanship, so I do not admire Reagan for bringing us so close to nuclear annihilation.


MS has exerted pressure on computer manufacturers similar to what the "robber barons" of the rail companies did in the early industrial period. They have sought to limit consumer choice at every turn. MS gained early success by striking various deals to ensure that their product would be cheapest (at one point they made it such that anyone purchasing a competitor's product would also be purchasing MS-DOS, thus inflating the perceived cost of the competitor) and then once they had a stranglehold on the market they increased prices like mad. Have you seen what a (non-crippled) retail copy of Windows 7 costs? For the price of Windows and Office, you could buy an entire physical computer and run Linux or BSD on it.


OK, so going after the advertising is also the wrong direction. Still, something has to be done about companies like Philip Morris. I don't think it's possible to really contest the charges of fraud and wrongful death. Certainly the government should at least have the role of ensuring that companies do not outright lie to consumers? A free market must have accurate information on which to base its decisions. And also killing people is usually regarded as a bad thing, so there is certainly a basis for going after Philip Morris there.

Well, as I've already mentioned...I'm not a die-hard Republican; hell, I'm not even a Republican. Like I said...I don't even vote anymore. I've never heard them say they're against JFK, just FDR. They claim they love the "tax policies" of JFK...too bad they don't realize that his tax policies were pretty much the same as Dubya's: cut taxes, then spend spend spend.

I think overall politics is a massive scam( I know; confusing, ain't it?) to make the masses feel like they matter as opposed to them--y'know...actually doing something productive.

They may've had internal pressures, but one thing that kept 'em going--I wish I could make this up--were contributions from the west. And I mean hefty, hefty contributions. I believe around this time, Reagan instituted a freeze/block on any money going to them. Exactly why no other president thought to do this is beyond me, but whatever....

Gorbachev, good sir, was no "liberalizer"; he was as "red" as the rest of 'em. Reagan and Gorbachev even met at a neutral station to discuss dismantling arms. Gorby said "nyet", and Reagan just turned around and walked away.

You are partially right about intense internal pressures; however, Reagan seemed to do the one thing that no one else up to that point was willing to do: give them the extra metaphorical "push" to knock 'em right over the edge.

In fact, I believe he had to increase the number of spies we had in the USSR, after Jimmy Carter reduced them so badly, that at one point they had more spies in NYC than we had there.

The one big difference that Reagan had above all previous presidents dealing with the Soviets was that he wouldn't back down, and he didn't for a second trust them at all. You may've heard a famous quote from Jimmy Carter: "BREZHNEVE LIED TO ME!" Really, Jimmy? The dictator of the evilest regime of the 20th century lied to you? Who'da guessed it?

I do believe in government protecting individual rights; and false advertising is in no way acceptable. One thing I've said many times elsewhere is that I trust most businessmen as much as I trust government.

I believe in laisse-faire Capitalism. I know they don't; they believe in Pseudo-Capitalism..and then they wonder why the economy constantly has problems. It's also why--if the problems you cite with Microsoft are indeed true( though to be honest I heard a lot of the mainstream media citing the same stuff, so I am skeptical on it)--most retailers just wind up "accepting" what they're "forced" to take, rather than getting what they "want"; they don't really seem to know any better.

and btw...here's an interesting economics note you may be interested to know: the economy is usually only really good for about a year or two, then declines slightly. Free-market Capitalism could correct that; it's too bad most of humanity doesn't believe in it.

Some Libertarians also put Reagan on a pedestal. In any case, I did not intend to malign you personally and I'm sorry if it came across that way.


Certainly voting is an irrational behavior.


Compared to Brezhnev, Kosygin, Andropov, and Chernenko, Gorbachev was extremely liberal, more of a social democrat than an actual socialist. He pushed Glasnost and Perestroika and began to restructure the economy along more market-oriented lines.


The Brezhnev administration saw economic and social trends that would keep piling weight on the Soviet Union. By the time Reagan was inaugurated, the USSR was already stagnant and decaying, and left to its own devices it would only get worse. Brezhnev in particular allowed massive corruption and refused to allow any sort of reform whatsoever. His economic policies resulted in factories producing 20-pound frying pans marketed at campers and hikers. The USSR was the world's largest producer of tractors but they did not manufacture spare parts, so if your tractor broke down you would steal parts from a passing shipment. The black market flourished and workers regularly skipped work or stole from their factories. The average person had 75 square feet of living space. Once the breadbasket of Europe, the USSR was a net food importer by the end of Brezhnev's reign. It was a mess. You don't need a senile actor giving you ultimatums to fail when you're already in such a perilous position as the Soviets were.

True, but Gorbachev only pushed those programs because--as you said--the Union was so badly decaying. The diplomatic pressure combined with what was obviously there pushed him even further.

Basically, from what I gathered up, the pressure now coming from the west( and it wasn't just simply Reagan on this one: he was working with Margaret Thatcher and even Pope John Paul II on this) inspired the Soviet population to rise up even more against the tyrannical government, and I'm guessing at this point, Gorbachev was likely scared s**tless and didn't know what the hell else to do.

It's also worth noting that around the early part of Reagan's administration, many Soviet countries were--I'm dead serious--importing American TV shows and fashion to their countries. You may wonder why. Well, they figured if they showed people the "ridiculous and frivolous" look of Capitalism, it would turn the population off. If you want to know how well that worked in their favor, feel free to hit up I believe the Romanian revolution of 1989.

So all that, combined with the pressure from the West, pushed them over.

I'm sure diplomatic pressure had plenty to do with it, especially considering the situation, and the timing. It may not seem like it now, but it may've just been sort of a "we had to be there" thing...or more specifically "we had to be at the right age, and in the know" to really understand the full scope of it. Part of me would like to believe a lot of what happened also gets lost in lots of propaganda, but I'll definitely look into a lot more of this as well.

One other thing worth mentioning is that while it may not seem like there was much Reagan could do to inspire our nation--which in turn would inspire the Soviet citizens--do bear in mind that by the late '70s most Americans felt very demoralized. Withdrawal from Vietnam, Nixon resigning, only to be followed by that hack Ford, followed by one of the lamest excuses for a Commander in Chief in existence, Carter.

Reagan's handling of the Iranian Hostage Crisis brought a feeling of positivity to America that the nation hadn't felt in well over a decade. It's actually sad to think that the nation was utterly demoralized by the time the bicentennial rolled around.

The Cold War is one of my favorite areas of study of history, so I definitely plan on studying more about it.

With Brezhnev, though, I'm more than well aware that they were receiving classified information from spies they had within our government. In fact, one such incident was reported on the news in the late '70s.

As for being importers, I'm well aware, because they pulled a devastating and deadly move on the Ukraine in I believe either the '30s or the '40s called the Holodomor; feel free to check it out. It literally rivals the Holocaust, it was so bad.

I still disagree. I think we are unlikely to come to an agreement here: I will continue to emphasize the importance of the internal problems in the Soviet Union while you will continue to emphasize the external pressures. Perhaps it is just a difference in perspective.

For the record, Carter did most of the work on resolving the Iranian hostage crisis, and he neglected campaigning to focus on freeing the hostages, which is probably a big part of why Reagan was elected in the first place. Overall I dislike Carter, but I do have to respect him for that.


Oh yes, I know of that. They really did not like the Kulaks at all. But even after that, the USSR was a major grain exporter. It took years of Brezhnev to turn that around.