[HDPM]

Reagan did quite a lot. This country was on the rocks after losing in Vietnam (and then having a liberal congress give even more away after Nixon), Nixon's total debacle, and Carter's totally limp presidency. This was a country that couldn't land 6 helicopters in a third world country to get our citizens back. After Carter let them be taken basically. Make no mistake about it, in those years, the Iranians knoew that to jack with the Soviets meant annihalation. To jack with Carter meant a disappointed little reprimand from a weak man. This country was stifled with a 70% income tax. So Reagan came in and correctly pointed out how rotten the Soviets were. The idiots on the American left who apologized for the Soviets have never really been called on it. The Soviets were in fact evil and there was nothing good about them. Contrary to advice from many apologists, Reagan had the guts to say what the Soviets actually were. And he had the guts to crank up military spending. Which we needed. Not just new warheads, but the military had major problems in that era.

I disagree with M some because SDI was destabilizing. The USA talked MAD, but really was about angling for first strike capability. And not just under Reagan. But Reagan at least took the whole thing seriously, unlike Carter, who would yell at the guy with the football and shoo him away when he was on vacation in Plains. Oh, no big deal if you are 20 min or whatever away from the football in the cold war you dolt. Not that the Soviets couldn't have a spy in your administratition.

Even if the Soviet Uniion were going to fall, nobody seemed willing to give it a little push. Reagan was, with helping the war in Afghanistan (justified IMO even with the current problems) or spending on SDI. To use a ridiculous metaphor, even if the USSR was a crippled old man in a wheelchair, it was evil, and I'm glad somebody had the guts to talk about pushing it down some concrete steps. because there were a lot of apologists around, still are I guess. But they should be relegated to university faculties and not have any influence on the world. Not having them teach students would be good too. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

The big disappointment of his presidency is that government spending rose. (Of course there were other problems, Iran Contra etc...)This would have been a truly great nation if we cut spending on social programs while increasing the revenue to spend on a military build up with the tax cut and improving economy. We might be a free nation today. Instead, the Christian right has too much power and the appropriators in both parties spend recklessly. People on the left keep talking about how Reagan changed everything around to the right, but I think the democrats won an important victory and now have a forever entrenched welfare state. Maybe the time to deal with domestic socialism was 1948 not 1988, I dunno.

There is my middle of the road post for today. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]