College of Political Knowledge
Subject: Presidents
NOTE: I apologize for the delay of this post…it was meant to be done on 06 Feb on Reagan’s actual birthday……a cold and a fever have been more than my fingers could take……
We are in the midst of celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the US, that god-like hero of the Right….conservs bow and pray (or should that be prey) at the feet of the giant in American conservatism…..
Let us be real for just a damn moment! The Left (if you will) has its deified leaders……FDR, Kennedy and Clinton….you know those past presidents that did some things right and the country seem to respond well to them….and thus they become rallying calls for subsequent elections…..and what has the Right had to use? Goldwater? Hoover? Nope! The only thing that they have had in the past 70+ years is …..Reagan. And they have used it for all it is worth…….every recent GOP nominee has tried to use the mantle of the heir to Reaganism.
I will give Reagan his props…..I believe that he was instrumental in the ending of the Cold War (a debatable premise) and the demise of the USSR….he helped redefine the conservatism as we know it today and he changed economics ………not that I consider anything good…..the trickle down theory that is still used today and still does NOT work……
If the very name makes you wish for better days then you need to go back and try again….Reagan supposedly stood for lower taxes, deficit reduction and smaller government….you know all the crap that Repubs still cling to but still cannot seem to find the right handle to open that door.
In reality, Reagan could not find the handle either….for all his bolster and vocalization….he could NOT keep the three simple rules of the GOP…..he increased taxes 6 out of the 8 years he was president……he increased the deficit at least two fold and he grew the size of government….
Does lower taxes, smaller government or deficit reduction sound at all familiar? Well it should! You have been promised that by every GOP president for the last many years….Bush I, Bush II, and every candidate for as many years…..and whenever they control Congress they have been unable to keep the promises and in most cases did the opposite….and yet YOU keep voting for the idea that cannot be upheld…..at least NOT in our way of governing…..
The GOP cannot keep their promises and have seldom kept the promises of smaller government, lower taxes or deficit reduction and yet they cling to the past and the crap of the past……Repubs need to find a new tune….this song remains the same…..
People! Stop deifying these people…they do NOT deserve such an honor! Every president is a special person, in their own right, but NOT one needs to be deified…….when the electorate finds that person that can solve the problems and still treat the people, all the people, with respect to their needs, then, only then…..should deification be considered!
Yes – but you summed all that up and got it right all in one phrase alone, though, didn’t you? “at least not in our way of governing”… You all seem to me to believe the system can be fixed – a little change here, a little tweek there. – whereas the truth is that it’s the system that is broken and always has been. IT WILL NOT FIX! It’s like trying to take your average WW1 battle tank and tweek it to be your modern street hatchback runabout/family car… Go figure!
Some of your Presidents (or our Prime Ministers) are better or worse than others, but they are working within a system that will NEVER be what either the left or the right (or anyone else for that matter) dreams of it being – the Earth is the Earth, the Moon is the Moon and you cannot make one into the other – it is simple impossible…
I freely admit I have no definitive answers, but at least I have defined the problem, which is something most don’t even try to do – NO system of government, past, present, or on the horizon, has even a hint of being able to provide what modern humanity needs, so we need to think again and redesign our political systems and structures from the foundations up.
So, THAT’S not going to happen, is it?
Not at all…to me agree with you scrap it! Democracy is a great idea that has NEVER been tried successfully….and as long as we have a select class that does all the governing we will never have a successful government….
But then a select group of elites will ALWAYS rule, whatever the system, or at least whatever the system currently known or tried…
Then again, how many of “the rest” are capable of ruling – even badly?
Common sense would be a good place to start….
Have you found some? Surely not! Where was it hidden? I thought there was none left on the planet – a bit like oil in thirty odd years time. Are you certain it’s not BS heavily disguised using spin? 😆
It is in the Templar Code……and it disappeared about the same time….
Ah, conspiracy theories again 😆
Of course…they are everywhere…….