Ronald Reagan had very little to do with "spearheading the deathblow to communism."
A "spearhead" is the tip of a much larger arrow. As Commander in Chief, he was the tip.
Like many a skillful politician before and since, he happened to be in the right place at the right time, is all.
I'd add, the right leader, at the right time, in the right place. To imply the result would be the same had Jane Fonda been Commmander in Chief is hard to believe at best.
What happened to "communism" was the culmination of huge social, political, and economic forces at work over the course of decades, and had much of their origins at a time when RR was playin' cowboys and indians on the silver screen.
Like any prize fight, it is rarely if ever "the knockout punch" that is the sole cause of defeat but rather the cumulative effect of all the pounding that preceeding it. The thing that distinguishes a "champion" from an also ran is the ability to seize upon the weakness of an opponent and "go for the knockout" as opposed to letting the opponent get his legs back. Reagan's policies pressed the Soviets to spend themselves into oblivion. Jane woulda given them aid. Or at least taken a "can't we all get along" posture.
And, speaking of decades, it will be many, many of those before we pay off the huge debt that his administration incurred to build up the military to unprecendented peacetime levels.
Dude, we all know the order. The House, the Senate, the President. He can only sign or veto spending bills. Don't buy the Dem's claims that Reagan was the cause of ballooning deficits. It is the type of intellectual dishonesty I know you abhor. I don't know the precise %'s but I'll give you $$$'s to donuts the rate of increase attributable to defense while perhaps outsized,was undoutedly matched by huge increases in all other categories.
All this, largely to build a military machine which was never to be used, and has now been systematically dismantled
You prove my point, (if you accept my premise <g>) By proceeding the way we did the machine did not have to be used which means people did not have to die to achieve the objective and the fact that it can and is being dismantled to some degree means there was a longer term benefit to acting in the manner he did. IOW, we can dismantle the machine. If you want to see a collar around the neck of American taxpayers, look at the social programs which will continue forever. Look at the generous cradle to grave benefits governments of all levels (city, county, state, and federal) have bestowed upon themselves while in their positions of power. That's what we'll be paying for, forever.
I would also question whether the "communist" markets had any real effect on our current prosperity. Russia certainly is not now, nor has it ever been, a significant trading partner of ours. Only in very recent years has China become a potentially significant player. I don't think our current prosperity has very much to do at all with former communist regimes.
It is the relative lack of military tension in South America, Asia, and around the world that investors have been willing to invest in those parts of the world. No one builds a plant if they think a 500 lb bomb may come thru the roof. Is it mere coincidence that we are only now talking about a global economy? Has the globe changed? What changed is that there is not the military tension which existed before. Look anywhere in the world you want. Where there is military tension there is lack of investment. To say the relative lack of military tension between the communist and capitalist forces around the world is to not understand capitalism.
If nothing else, most (notably, the former Soviet and Eastern bloc regimes) are still in way too much economic chaos to be able to do much more than receive aid from us.
I don't think we'll see, anytime soon, a call from the Eastern Bloc (read, formerly soverign nations till the Soviets came to town) for a return of their Soviet dominators.
In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that Ronald Reagan was the best acting president this country ever had.
It is always pleasant to end a disscusson on a note of agreement and so we have. <gg>
I'd venture to say we'd also agree that an individual's description of a cow depends upon which side of the pleasant beast one stands.
All the best,
D.H. |
