Posted on 03/19/2010 12:25:37 PM PDT by presidio9
Your representation of Reagan's intent is based on your own values as a libertarian. They are inconsistent with a man who would invent and implement anything like the federal war on drugs.
Go ahead and deny it, it was said.......by Ronald Reagan.
This is you being a weasel. You promised to leave, because you couldn't think of anything intelligent to say, but you couldn't even do that right. So you made up a straw man argument. You've brought up that quote dozens of times. On this thread and others. People smarter than me have explained it to you. Yet here you are suggesting someone denied Reagan ever said it. You can't be that stupid. Read the thread and tell me Reagan denied it.
For what it's worth, Reagan and I both agree that Enlightenmnet and libertarianism formed the basis of Conservative philosophy for the Founding Fathers. But even they quickly abandoned classic libertarian ideals as unworkable when they got down to the business of governing.
BTW, Nixon invented and implemented the war on (some) drugs.
Nixon was not a "conservative".
Remember wage and price controls?
People like me are conservative.
Ronald Reagan was conservative.
People who want to parse what Ronald Reagan said about libertarian philosophy are Republican cheerleaders.
We've all seen how productive that has been since roughly 1992.
I'm all for her right to smoke as much Humboldt Happy Herb as she wants, but she's got to know to put down the bong before she starts typing. Every libertarian I know found McCrazy abhorrent. Those that voted for him, like myself, did so because 0 was so much worse.
Conservatives with a knee-jerk reaction to liberatarianism should ask themselves why the left goes out of its way to smear libertarians like this.
Bah, what the heck do I know..
People who waste time commenting on typos do so because they have nothing relevant to add. It's a favortite stategy for losers with a desperation for the last word. As you have commented on my homepage on past threads, and you're so proud of your own lame hompage, we both know that you already knew this. We also know that you you threatened to leave and then didn't and that you continue to hang around this thread and repeat previously discredited quotes and comments. And obviously you have no problem debating historical concepts without understanding the actual history behind them. For example:
BTW, Nixon invented and implemented the war on (some) drugs.
When I first made that point with you, several threads ago, I was careful to add something like "as we know it" or "as it is today" to the end of the sentence. I did so the first five or six times I brought it up on this thread. But since we are, discussing the contrast of the the Drug War on Reagan's standing as a libertarian, the disclaimer becomes superfluous. Nixon recognized a problem, and coined the term "War On Drugs." It was Reagan who expanded the Federal law enforcement initiative against drug trafficing and essentially gave us what we have today. Even libertarians understand this. You do not, because you are too lazy to comprehend even the simplest historical facts. This point is not in contention even among liberals. You are completely on your own if you wish to persue it.
Remember wage and price controls?
No idea what you're talking about here. Reagan abandoned Nixon's wage and price controls. But before you think that makes him an economic libertarian, you need to educated yourself enough to know that that Reagan also imposed tarriffs on several items, including cars, electronics, steel, agriculture, and textiles. The libertarian Cato Institute has attacked him many times on this. You can read well enough to critique people's spelling when what they're saying makes you feel insecure. Google is your friend.
People like me are conservative.
Congradulations. Eva Green wants to have sex with me. Wanting something to be true doesn't make it true. Believing it to be true won't help either. These are the facts: American Conservative political philosophy comes from the same place as libertarian political philosphy. The Federalists, who included Wasington, Franklin, and Hamilton recognised the need for government intrustion into personal liberty as consistent with the principles of the Founding Documents. Libertarians by definition reject those intrusions. In essence, libertarians split from Conservatives during the first presidential term, with Jefferson being the most libertarian Founding Father (BTW, many historians credit Franklin and Adams as much as Jefferson for the content of the document). Paine is otherwise the most noteworthy libertarian.
Libertarian and Conservativism continue to overlap on several important concepts, be the two have continued to diverge to the point where there are otherwise incompatible, and often in direct conflict with one another. When libertarians claim that a particular conservative is not "conservative" enough, what they really mean is that he or she are not libertarian enough on some issues. I have noted a dozen cases on this thread where a Conservative took a correct position that would be in direct opposition to a conservative one. In fact, there actually some conservative positions that I disagree with myself. That doesn't make them any less conservative. Libertarians are their own political movement because they disagree with a large part of conservative political philosophy.
At some point it ought to have become obvious to you that I know a heck a lot more than you do about this subject. I WAS a libertarian for a few confused years.
Ronald Reagan was conservative.
Reagan happens to be the modern conservative litmus test. I have already demonstrated how badly libertarians fail that test.
People who want to parse what Ronald Reagan said about libertarian philosophy are Republican cheerleaders.
There's a big difference between "parsing" and clarifying a quote taken out of context. If Ronald Reagan had run around in the seventies talking about what a big libertarian he was, you still wouldn't have a point, because Conservatives define Conservativism by what Reagan did as president. Conseravatives have a number of bones to pick with Reagan before then. But the fact that Reagan one time in his life said something vaguely positive about libertianism will never translate into "Reagan was a libertian" no matter how many times you repeat it. Churchill said nice things about Hitler in the 30's and Stalin in the 40's. Does that make him a Nazi or a Communist. Of course not. You judge a man by his body of work, and, as we've gone over several times here, no honest libertarian could stomach Reagan's body of work. And yet Conservatives celebrate this. Again, all of this has been covered in detail. You have consistency refused to these facts, because they make your entire argument/fantasy fall apart.
We've all seen how productive that has been since roughly 1992.
No conservative I know thinks we have had a true conservative president since Reagan. You're making stuff up here to help your argument. Bush(43) came close on some points. However, on several key issues that libertarians had the biggest problem with, notably opposition to stem cell research, partial birth abortion, the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay, and others. The point on this thread is not whether Bush was right or wrong here. The point that I am trying to point through that thick skull of yours is that Conservatives agreed (and continued to agree ) with what Bush did. And Reagan would have agreed. Libertarians, obviously, continue to hate it. Calling classic conservative policies "Republican" because they are not libertarian enough to suit you is, of course, idiotic.
What are you going to do when Gary Johnson is the Republican nominee for President of the U.S. in 2012?
Get back to me when that happens. And stop trying to change the subject. I have wasted enough precious time on your drug-addled stupidity.
I am neither stupid nor drug-addled. What is your excuse?
That's all well and good, but the argument we were having was about whether or not Ronald Reagan was a libertarian. As history proves without a shred of doubt that the man was a Conservative, who opposed Libertarianism consistently and on many occasions, and your only justification is a single quote that you continue to misinterpret. In other words, it should be quite obvious even to you at this point that you are wrong, and still you continue to defend that point. There are a limited number of ways to describe this behavior. They include stubborn, confused, crazy and stupid. Two weeks ago you had a moment of clarity and apparently realized you were on the wrong side of a futile argument and announced that you were leaving this thead. Yet here you are.
As most of the libertarians I know found their affiliation at least based on a recreational use of illegal drugs, I offer that as an excuse for your behavior. If you choose to reject that explaination and go with stupidity, this being a free country, I suppose you're still at liberty to do so.
Other people will, whether they post or not.
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