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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E who wrote (57112)	10/4/1999 11:12:00 PM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

>>Another way of saying this is that I think he would have passed a lie detector test if asked -- whether he had personally participated in the liberating of a Nazi concentration camp Listen, I can easily deconstruct every lie that you spout. You pass along lies because they fit your ignorance and your prejudice. Ronald Reagan was in Army Air Force Intelligence during World War II. Reagan did indeed become one of the first Americans to discover the full truth of the horrors of Nazism. His job included preparing classified films about the progress of the war to be shown to members of the general staff in Washington. As a result, he handled a lot of classified footage that would never be seen by the public. During the final months of the war Reagan and his group began receiving secret Signal Corps films showing the liberation of Hitler's death camps. Reagan described his reaction to those films.

To: E who wrote (57112)	10/4/1999 11:18:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Respond to of 108807

<best Dr. Strangelove "German advisor" accent> The problem you Americans have with the reliability of your lie detectors is zimply a matter of insufficient voltage.

To: E who wrote (57112)	10/4/1999 11:24:00 PM
From: Michael M	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 108807

Dear E, When you were a small child and people asked what you wanted to be when you grew up, was there ever a hoot when you told them you wanted to save the world from an old man who had once been president? Most minds here seem set one way or the other (and well known). I, personally, would welcome a change of subject. Free country though .....keep on if you must (or like). Mike

To: E who wrote (57112)	10/5/1999 12:09:00 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

I wish you could have met my old friend Brian, my erstwhile partner. He reminds me so much of Reagan, and also of Clinton. The thing that you keep talking about, Reagan's belief in facts that just aren't true, isn't unique to Reagan, Brian did it, too. I'd try to argue him out of one of them, and I could refute every reason offered for the belief, and even get concessions on every argument, but he wouldn't budge. And of course, they aren't the only ones, some of the fellows we encounter on this thread are similar. I call it "believing your own bullshit," but that's not all of it. If one is told something that sounds useful, and is useful, one may believe it, without necessarily being delusional. Credulous is more the word I'd use. That wouldn't explain Reagan's belief that he took part in events when he didn't, but oddly enough, Clinton has done that, too. Maybe it has something to do with the type of person who becomes president. Hemingway expressed it well, "Wouldn't it be pretty to think so?" As for lying, well, of course. I'd expect him to lie if it was in the national interest, as he perceived it to be. All that stuff about not being able to hear, etc., was just fooling, and everyone knew it, he didn't intend to make anyone believe it. As for being purely an actor, and the puppet of his handlers, there we do disagree. I think he was more of a politician than most, and his ideas and goals were less things he thought up on his own than most. But presidents are, by and large, the creatures of gigantic interest groups, it appears to me, called political parties. When you elect a president, you elect an interest group, which forms an administration. Reagan's was on a higher level than Carter's or Clinton's, and not so different from Bush's. When George W. is elected, they'll be back again. You don't complain about Bush or George W. being actors, but to be consistent, you should.