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To: DugwayDuke

Ummm, hate to burst your bubble, but that is exactly the kind of thing Ronald Reagan proposed while getting re-elected in a landslide. In fact, Reagan said explicitly that the majority of functions performed by the government other than defense could better be served by private entities in a competetive marketplace.

I guess Reagan was just one of those crazy old Libertarians, though.


85 posted on 02/27/2005 6:22:18 PM PST by NCSteve
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To: NCSteve
Reagan said explicitly that the majority of functions performed by the government other than defense could better be served by private entities in a competetive marketplace.

That's when I stopped listening to the old hippies and went Reaganaut. That and his confrontational strategy to end the Cold War. Unfortunately, he couldn't foresee how some of the functions taken over would be abused (the corporate prison industry I mentioned before). Without strong oversight humans will almost always succumb to their base temptations.

93 posted on 02/27/2005 7:29:43 PM PST by NewRomeTacitus (Southern nativist peckerwood who believes America comes first)
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To: NCSteve

"Ummm, hate to burst your bubble, but that is exactly the kind of thing Ronald Reagan proposed while getting re-elected in a landslide.

Exactly when did RR call for the elimination of "all agencies concerned with transportation -- including the Department of Transportation, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board, the Coast Guard, and the Federal Maritime Commission -- and the transfer of their legitimate functions to competitive private firms."

When exactly did RR: "call for the privatization of airports, air traffic control systems, public roads and the national highway system."


137 posted on 02/28/2005 6:49:07 PM PST by DugwayDuke
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To: NCSteve; DugwayDuke
I guess Reagan was just one of those crazy old Libertarians...

The late President Reagan, even more directly, called himself a libertarian on several occasions. But that did not make him a libertarian, or any thing close to it. Recognizing the sentiments of a specific category of potential supporters, then identifying ones self with those sentiments, is a way of saying that your concerns includes their concerns and that your ears are open to their ideas.

I can quite comfortably call my self a socialist.; as I view the free market system as the most progressive, democratic, and social, economic system ever to be conceived. All other economic systems are regressive and anti-social. Since I also identify with many of the motivating concerns that lead many people to become socialists, I find that in certain circumstances, the best way to express this, from time to time, is for me to call my self a socialist. By doing so, certain people will take off the ear plugs and at least listen. Where upon, they will learn about ideas that they otherwise will not learn.

As long as the ideas expressed include the bulk ideas that are generally opposed to by the groups claiming such identity for themselves, no dishonesty has occurred. President Reagan was not a libertarian. But he quite honestly identified him self with libertarian concerns and many of their solutions.

161 posted on 03/01/2005 5:03:48 PM PST by jackbob
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