Ronald Reagan, Warmonger
https://www.lewrockwell.com/1970/01/...gan-warmonger/
Ronald Reagan was swept into office by the conservative movement, whose leader and spokesman he had become.
He made a raft of campaign promises to that movement, each and every one of which he has broken egregiously. He raised income taxes rather than lowered them, he brought us $200 billion deficits rather than balancing the budget, he entrenched fiat money rather than bringing back the gold standard, his budget is the highest absolutely and as percentage of GNP in American history, he has deregulated nothing, he has not abolished the Departments of Education and Energy, etc. The conservative movement has long been animated by three broad concerns: (a) Freeing the economy and Getting Big Government Off Our Back; (b) using government to enforce Judaeo-Christian morality (so-called "social" issues), and (c) engaging in nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Simply listing these concerns reveals that (b) and (c), the theocratic and the war-mongering, contradict the libertarian (a), to put it very mildly. The conservative movement is so constituted that in a tussle between these three, (b) and (c) always win out in their hearts and minds over the free market.
The quintessence of Ronald Reagan is that he is a master in supplying the conservative movement with the rhetoric they want to hear. In all politicians there is a gulf between rhetoric and reality, but in Ronald Reagan that gulf has become a veritable and mighty ocean.
There seems to be no contact whatever between Ronnie the rhetorician and Ronnie the maker of policy. In that situation it is hard to know which one is "the real" Reagan. The conservatives, feeling betrayed but lacking any guts for a break with the Administration, persist in asserting (publicly, at any rate) that the rhetorical Reagan is the real one, and that if only his evil pragmatist advisers would "let him," this real Reagan would finally emerge. Hence, the famous right-wing slogan, "Let Reagan Be Reagan." But the problem with that slogan is the "let." What do you mean, "let"?
Who picked these evil advisers, and who persists in maintaining them in power? None other than Reagan himself. So in what sense is this visible person not the "real" Reagan?
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