Applesauce » By current extremist standards, Ronald Reagan was a RINO

By current extremist standards, Ronald Reagan was a RINO

November 3rd, 2009 at 01:18pm Pat Cunningham

Bob Shrum NAILS IT – and how!

A few excerpts:

The true believers claim they’re Reagan conservatives, but their politics are a betrayal of the leader they ritually canonize — a betrayal not just in strategy, but in spirit. Ronald Reagan didn’t just tolerate moderates in his party; he valued them. Reagan knew that to be a governing party, rather than an ideological faction, the GOP needed to run and win outside conservative strongholds. So Reagan’s GOP gave all-out support to pro-choice candidates like Pete Wilson in California…

Even while bending history in a different direction, Reagan more frequently quoted FDR and JFK than any conservative predecessor. In announcing his presidential run in 1980, facing an America of gas lines, rising inflation and rising doubt, with U.S. diplomats held hostage in Iran, Reagan rebuked Jimmy Carter’s complaint that he couldn’t govern effectively due to a crisis of national spirit. With a sense of comfort and command, Reagan told the voters that it was time to renew “our capacity for dreaming up fantastic deeds and bringing them off to the surprise of an unbelieving world. . . . We still have that power.” He even retooled one of Roosevelt’s signature phrases: “You and I together can keep that rendezvous with destiny.” It’s stunning to rewatch that speech; Reagan seems less like today’s Republicans than like Barack Obama declaring: “Yes, we can.”…

A GOP mired in anger and vituperation doesn’t begin to comprehend Reagan’s gift for respecting political opponents — or even diminishing them. Instead of dispensing with the opposition with Reagan-like humor, Republicans treat their opponents as mortal enemies, elevating them with paranoid fantasies about their immense power. To one of Jimmy Carter’s attacks during their debate, Reagan famously replied with a chuckle: “There you go again.” It’s impossible to imagine him sneering: “How dare you go Marxist.”

Ronald Reagan was a proud conservative, but not an unthinking, unyielding, or uncivil one. He had an appeal that reached across party lines, not just to a withered and warped political base. The least Republicans could do, having named an airport for him, is to remember how he navigated the political winds — and found the route to a new political era. But it’s Obama who’s doing that now. The GOP has dumped the Gipper.

I would bet the farm that Shrum’s contrast of Reagan’s political style to that of today’s right-wingers will be confirmed by contributions from wingnuts in the comments section of this post. Check it out.

Entry Filed under: Uncategorized

26 Comments Add your own

1. expdoc | November 3rd, 2009 at 2:39 pm

Pat,
I agree with much of the above post except again I think, pot-kettle-black. The politics of yesteryear are gone on both sides of the aisle. Maybe it’s due to the short news cycle and the short attention span of the voting public, but these charges are true of both sides.

http://tom-carter.newsvine.com/_news/2009/09/05/3228431-would-jfk-be-a-democrat-today

I’ve always considered myself a Democrat in terms of party preference. I came to that position in the context of the ideas and policies of people like John F. Kennedy and other liberals and Democrats of that era (such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan). But when I think about today’s Democratic Party, including many of the people who speak for it and the ideology and policies they favor, I have to wonder what happened over the past couple of decades. I have to wonder if JFK himself would be a Democrat today.
2. expdoc | November 3rd, 2009 at 2:47 pm

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/08/30/kennedy_once_meant_tax_cutter/“

It is a paradoxical truth,’’ he once told the Economic Club of New York, “that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.’’ What he had in mind, he said, was “an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes.’’

Those were not the words of Senator Edward Kennedy. The speaker - in December 1962 - was President John F. Kennedy, and his ringing call for tax cuts was no anomaly.

Four months earlier, JFK had called high tax rates a danger to “the very essence of the progress of a free society.’’ In his 1963 State of the Union message, his first priority was “the enactment this year of a substantial reduction and revision in federal income taxes.’’ In the speech he was scheduled to deliver on Nov. 22, 1963, Kennedy planned to report proudly: “We have proposed a massive tax reduction, with particular benefits for small business.’’
3. QuentinK | November 3rd, 2009 at 3:05 pm

Obama just cut taxes for 85% of American taxpayers but instead of being compared to Kennedy he gets called a liar. Go figure.
4. expdoc | November 3rd, 2009 at 3:17 pm

QK,

He cut taxes for 85% of Americans? That on it’s face is impossible as somewhere between 40 and 50% pay no federal income taxes to begin with.

Besides, the current health insurance reform plan will have tax increases aplenty.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/15/politics/otherpeoplesmoney/main4945874.shtml

“On April 15, don’t be surprised if the line at your local post office is a bit shorter than usual. That’s because your neighbors may not be paying any income taxes this year.

An astonishing 43.4 percent of Americans now pay zero or negative federal income taxes. The number of single or jointly-filing “taxpayers” - the word must be applied sparingly - who pay no taxes or receive government handouts has reached 65.6 million, out of a total of 151 million.

Those numbers come from an analysis published yesterday by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. Neither is a low-tax or conservative advocacy group; the Urban Institute was created under the Johnson administration during the Great Society era, and it receives most of its funding from the federal government. “
5. expdoc | November 3rd, 2009 at 4:06 pm

http://www.healthyrockford.com/updates/x880802414/Experts-Middle-class-would-pay-thousands-for-health-care

Government experts say some middle-class families would still face a big budget hit for health care, even with the new help that Democrats want to provide.

A family of four making $66,000 could face a total health-care bill of $10,000 — counting premiums, copayments and deductible — under the House Democratic health-care bill, the Congressional Budget Office said Monday. And that’s after counting $10,500 in government assistance.

The estimates apply to people buying their own coverage, not those in employer plans.
6. Neftali | November 3rd, 2009 at 4:14 pm

Pat - Great article. Reagan was a RHINO. Richard and DingDong, take notice. Your Rush Limbaugh agenda isn’t going to win back any majorities. You would be wise to be more respectful to Republican moderates like Olympia Snowe and John McCain.

expdoc - Excellent posts, and agreed with all your points. Today we do appear to have a lot of extremists of either side of the isle. Now while universal health care proposals have been around for decades, the current legislation is no doubt extreme. Same goes for Cap & trade and union card check. And that’s what Democrats don’t get. These issues are radical in every sense of the word. Sometimes new issues start out as radical, then later they are mainstream. Gay rights falls into that category. But the other 3 will be considered radical 5, 10, 20, or 100 years from now.
7. expdoc | November 3rd, 2009 at 4:21 pm

By the way QK, don’t forget about cap and trade. Remember, energy prices will necessarily skyrocket according to our very own President and it will be much worse in the midwest.

Unless you live in a cave and grow all of your own food, that will be a tax increase as well. Be on the lookout for health care related taxes too that will tax “unhealthy food choices.”
8. Richard | November 3rd, 2009 at 4:55 pm

Neftali
Reagan was a strong conservative and stood for what he believed in. Yes he was tolerant of moderates but he did not base his policy to accommodate them. You feel that you can not vote your pocketbook over moral and social issues?

Maybe not with what I found on your RHINO Political party.

Rhino Party
This Dutch political party could be legitimate - it is the Netherlands, after all - but I have a feeling someone is getting a grand laugh out of it:

Dutch pedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals, sparking widespread outrage.
The Charity, Freedom and Diversity (NVD) party said on its Web site it would be officially registered Wednesday, proclaiming: “We are going to shake The Hague awake!”

The party said it wanted to cut the legal age for sexual relations to 12 and eventually scrap the limit altogether.

[…]

The party wants private possession of child pornography to be allowed although it supports the ban on the trade of such materials. It also supports allowing pornography to be broadcast on daytime television, with only violent pornography limited to the late evening.

Toddlers should be given sex education and youths aged 16 and up should be allowed to appear in pornographic films and prostitute themselves. Sex with animals should be allowed although abuse of animals should remain illegal, the NVD said.

The party also said everybody should be allowed to go naked in public and promotes legalizing all soft and hard drugs and free train travel for all.

The interim party leader was unavailable for comment, and a spokesman had nothing to say except “giggity giggity giggity!”
9. QuentinK | November 3rd, 2009 at 5:00 pm

You know I would be all for a tax on donuts, candy, pop, ice cream, etc. The people that eat this stuff the most use the health care system the most and are in turn are a bigger drain on the system. Use taxes to punish bad habits and reward good ones.

I like imported beer (1-2 a night) and I’m tired of them hitting me with a ’sin tax’ increase every time I turn around. I pay more than $10 a six pack now on some beers. It seems a healthy beer habit is an easier target than an unhealthy diet. Smoking will taxed out of existence, sooner or later, which isn’t a bad thing.

expdoc- I agree with you that the cap and trade is not the perfect solution. Whether or not you believe in global warming we ARE running out of fossil fuels and since no one wants to move in a new direction voluntarily we need to enforce strong incentives to do so. Under W when gas soared to 4 bucks a gallon, everyone wanted to crucify him even though this wasn’t something he could control. In 4 or 40 years we’re going to hit a really big downturn and these same people, agencies. corporations are going to be outraged at whoever runs the government then for not doing something about it. In the meantime they’re going to be outraged that we are TRYING to do SOMETHING.
10. QuentinK | November 3rd, 2009 at 5:06 pm

Dick- Why are you giving some dutch fringe, wacko political party the time of day? None of that stuff has a snowball’s chance in hell of passing. I mean come on, free train travel?
11. Neftali | November 3rd, 2009 at 5:33 pm

QK - You really want to tax ice cream? Man, you are pure evil.

But agreed about the imported beer. I have a fondness for Guinness myself, as well as any stout or ale. St. Peter’s Cream Ale and Paulner Oktoberfest are also two of my favorites. But for the most part, they tend to be higher in calories than American lagers.

Poor Pat doesn’t drink. He doesn’t know what he’s missing.
12. Richard | November 3rd, 2009 at 6:28 pm

Once Upon a Time Quinten….. That is a good liberal party. Surely you do not have a problem with a liberal platform do you?
13. hokumboy | November 3rd, 2009 at 7:06 pm

$10,000 — counting premiums, copayments and deductible per year ???

I’ve got quite a few friends that would love to have a yearly family health care bill that low.
14. Juice | November 3rd, 2009 at 7:55 pm

Hate to make a new topic because Pat won’t, but the election result “tickers” on the liberal networks are so small i can hardly see them on my 50″. How hilarious!
15. Juice | November 3rd, 2009 at 8:06 pm

And a TOTAL damage control scramble by all the liberal TV hosts to disconnect the candidates to the Obama agenda. They are frantic.
16. Pat Cunningham | November 3rd, 2009 at 8:26 pm

Juice: Go away, Bigot Boy. Klan meeting tonight.
17. Juice | November 3rd, 2009 at 8:31 pm

“Bitter, Party of one”
18. FrankyG | November 3rd, 2009 at 10:20 pm

LMAO … the RINO REAGAN Republicans are CRUSHING the LIBTARDS COMMIES in Tuesdays Elections! AWESOME….

Come ON 2010!!
19. Craig Knauss | November 3rd, 2009 at 11:00 pm

Doc, Quentin CLEARLY said Obama cut taxes for “85% of American taxpayers”, not “85% of Americans”. There’s a distinct difference. And how many of those 43.4% of non-taxpaying Americans are retired elderly, small children, non-working spouses, incarcerated prisoners, invalids, students, etc.? You might want to investigate. And maybe you should see how many of those non-working spouses live in those “traditional family values” states like Utah. You might be surprised. The percentage of deadbeats isn’t nearly as big as you might like to imagine.
20. mike | November 4th, 2009 at 10:23 am

Really Craig where’s my tax cut, I have not seen it? Tax cuts my ass. Stupid koolaid drinkers….. are why the country is failing.

Neftali, go vote liberal. Good riddance. We DON”T need you, trust me.
Reagan’s hero, as was my fathers was Roosevelt. Democrats had MORALS then. So don’t think Reagan would approve of you radical kooks now. He didn’t approve of his Nancy brats lifestyles either. Quite the contrast in the Reagan family…..2 oldest with Jane Wyman staunch Conservatives, two youngest with Nancy brought up in 1960’s hippie California whacked out libs. GO FIGURE. Says something about American morals being squashed huh?

Quentin, you are SERIOUSLY challenging Orlando for being top brain dead.

Thank’s for the article pointing out the good old days Pat, when politicians still had morality. You make my point nicely. Ted Kennedy has NO business being buried by his brothers, none whatsoever. I would have spit on his grave if I could of, on my visit. Too many people around and I was running late for my meeting at the Pentagon about Pat.
21. QuentinK | November 4th, 2009 at 10:27 am

Hey Netfali, I fell in love with Belhaven’s ale. Woodman’s was selling it for $7.35 a six pack and a month later it’s $10.99. Wow, this is after they discontinued the Great Lakes line which made the best porter on the planet. Damn. Guinness on tap. Paulner Oktoberfest is excellent.

What? Off Subject? It’s called common ground people,

Speaking of common ground. How about a government being compassionate but fiscally responsible. How about penalizing waste and corruption like the scourge that it is. How about defending your neighbor’s liberties (and eccentricities) as much as your own. hopefully he will do the same.
22. QuentinK | November 4th, 2009 at 10:38 am

mike- Yeah those good ol’ imaginary perfect days of a fifties that never was. A history polished by the censorship of television so we are led to believe places like Mayberry were real and pure and innocent. Not the racist dens of hypocrisy and hate that they really were.
Preach your own twisted view of morality all you want. You try and take the high road in one sentence and talk of spitting on someone’s grave in the next. I didn’t agree with Reagan but I wouldn’t spit on his grave either.
23. mike | November 4th, 2009 at 10:56 am

Me, I have no high road. I’ve said countless times I’m a big sinner, but there are levels of sin.
24. expdoc | November 4th, 2009 at 12:23 pm

Craig,

I never said anyone was a deadbeat. Your supposition that the non-taxpayers I referenced are children etc is wrong. Please read the following link.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/1410.html

I personally think the entire tax code is a scam, only designed to convey power to politicians and special interest groups. We should do away with payroll tax and go to a value added tax or better a flat tax rate.

The calculation for the Democrats as I noted above is to maximize those Americans who feel it is the government that will determine their happiness or position in life. Sadly, they are winning and the overall condition of the average American continues to decline.
25. Craig Knauss | November 4th, 2009 at 10:00 pm

Doc, I am predominantly a Democrat, I have worked and paid my fair share of taxes for the last 42 years, and I do NOT want more people on welfare. I also realize that a lot of the people who are not working now, used to work and pay taxes. That was until their employers, usually wealthy Republicans, got big tax breaks to send their jobs overseas and to third world countries, so that the wealthy Republicans could get even wealthier. America has been in decline for years because this has been going on for years. Take a look around and see how many companies left Illinois and moved their production to third world countries to maximize their profits and then gave their executives huge bonuses for doing all of this. And this is called “good business sense” and other BS.
26. expdoc | November 4th, 2009 at 11:31 pm

Do you have any statistics that prove your point or is it just a line of bull that you’ve been fed by your liberal friends? Mandating that companies stay and provide jobs to our citizens when they can be more profitable by employing cheaper labor elsewhere cannot work.
The idea would be to innovate and provide new kinds of jobs to people by incenting small business and business growth. Creating a tax hell won’t do that. You can’t MAKE the business owners do it via governmental control. They will leave the state or the country as they have done all over the industrial Midwest. States that are smart like Texas and Oklahoma bend over backward to help business create jobs rather than doing stupid s*** like considering an excess profit tax or raising the marginal rate on small business owners.

But back to my original point. If people do not pay income tax and they expect to receive all that they need from the government, we are doomed to socialistic hell. It never works. People have to be given the incentive to work hard, every day, to be the best they can be. Will that make the world equal and fair? Nope, because it never will be. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t encourage people to be the best they can be on their own.

By the way, before I get that heartless conservative crap, I do understand that some people cannot take care of themselves and we will always need a safety net to help those people whether it be from government or the private sector. I feel a personal duty to help people in those very situations and do every day through various charitable organizations. Those of us that have been succesful should all do that and conservatives do it better than liberals. It doesn’t have to money either, it can also be time and or talent.

The problem with liberals is they want to make everything equal and to do that they try and bring those at the top back to the mean, rather than helping those at the bottom move up to the mean.