Mulu wrote:Though as for Reagan, I think he was a religious zealot too. He firmly believed that God had made him President, and had a "plan" for him. He was smart enough to not speak like a whacko in public, but he sure held at least some of those beliefs, and they did affect his policy. He was originally not going to prosecute the terrorists that blew up abortion clinics and murdered doctors. That's pretty out there. His cabinet ultimately convinced him that he had no choice but to prosecute.
Reagan had deep convictions but he certainly wasn't a religious zealot though modern day Republicans try their best to warp history to make it seem so. The reality is that his record was varied and seemingly in conflict with many of his convictions in order to get things done:
On Immigration:
"The Gipper had commented, in a 1977 radio broadcast, on the dearth of apple pickers in New England.”It makes one wonder about the illegal-alien fuss," Reagan said. "Are great numbers of our unemployed really victims of the illegal-alien invasion, or are those illegal tourists actually doing work our own people won't do?" Of one thing he expressed certainty: "No regulation or law should be allowed if it results in crops rotting in the fields for lack of harvesters."
On Taxes:
"Reagan was indeed a tax cutter — except for the few times he raised taxes, including in 1983 as part of a Social Security compromise with Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill."
On Entitlements:
"He wanted to scale back entitlements — except that the 1983 compromise expanded them."
On the Budget:
"He believed in balancing the budget — except that he left office with huge deficits."
On Free Trade:
"He was a free trader — except when he slapped tariffs or "voluntary" quotas on a range of Japanese imports."
On Abortion:
"He was a convert to the pro-life cause — except that two of his Supreme Court nominees went on to co-author (along with Justice David Souter) the 1992 decision which reaffirmed Roe v. Wade."
On Terrorism:
"He refused to bow to terrorism — except when the slaughter of 241 U.S. servicemen chased him out of Beirut, or when his administration (with or without Reagan's knowledge) traded arms for hostages in the Iran-Contra affair."
On Nukes:
"He rebuffed calls for a nuclear freeze — except that he later came out publicly as a nuclear abolitionist. He pursued a hard line with Moscow — except when he offered Gorbachev a "no nukes" pledge (the so-called zero option) at Reykjavik, much to the dismay of Margaret Thatcher, and then embraced arms-control diplomacy whole-hog."
To sum up:
"As Norman Podhoretz once remarked, "Ronald Reagan was much more of a conventional politician than he was taken to be. It is this that explains why he could so often compromise and sometimes violate even key elements of his putatively rock-bottom convictions; or why he tried mightily to pretend both to his friends and his opponents (and in some instances to himself as well) that he was doing no such thing; or why he was even willing to reverse course altogether for the sake of victory."
Food for thought.
Kate
"We had gone in search of the American dream. It had been a lame f*ckaround. A waste of time. There was no point in looking back. F*ck no, not today thank you kindly. My heart was filled with joy. I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger. A man on the move... and just sick enough to be totally confident." -- Raoul Duke.
