Reagan vs. the "Experts"

Ronald Reagan vs. "The Experts"

1980 - Reagan - "The Soviets can't compete with us. I'll get the Soviets to the negotiating table." (June 1980)

1981 - Reagan - "The years ahead will be great ones for our country, for the cause of freedom and for the spread of civilization. The West won't contain Communism, it will transcend Communism. We will not bother to denounce it, we'll dismiss it as a sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written." (Ronald Reagan, Commencement Address at University of Notre Dame, May 1981)

1981 - Expert - "It is a vulgar mistake to think that most people in Eastern Europe are miserable." (Paul Samuelson, Professor of Economics, MIT, Nobel Laureate, Economics, 1981)

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[edit on 15-2-2006 by ElTiante]

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[edit on 15-2-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

Good find there. No politician is ever going to be 100% good or bad, and I think that a lot of people try to use the bad things to bring him down, while ignoring all that he did for the country and for the free world. It's the right vs. left game, and people on the left just wouldn't be comfortable if they actually supported someone on the right.

Wow. You found some statements that Regan was correct about, and that a supposed expert was wrong about.

Your point?

What is it they say about a stopped clock?

In acting (Reagan's first career), what do they say about timing?

Reagan took office in 1981. Mikhail Gorbachev took office in 1985. Gorbachev reduced the authoritarianism of the Soviet government, apparently not understanding that an iron fist was the only thing holding the system together. The system fell apart from 1989-1991, in a series of events that Reagan has nothing whatsoever to do with.

Pure timing. Pure luck. In fact, the luck didn't even extend to having the Berlin Wall come down during his administration, but some people still give him credit for "winning" the Cold War, for no reason I can see except that they want to. And they remain immune to all logic, reason, and evidence showing that the same thing would have happened with Carter or Mondale in office.

Reagan did nothing significantly different from his seven Cold War predecessors. The difference in military spending was marginal (and of no importance anyway since Soviet military spending never varied with ours), the difference in foreign policy nonexistent. Only the rhetoric changed -- only the illusion, something at which Reagan was an expert.

With him dead, though, and 18 years out of office, the only people still fooled are those that want to be.

[edit on 19-2-2006 by Two Steps Forward]