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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JF Quinnelly who wrote (13304)	10/7/1998 9:29:00 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

<<Ahh, the grand old liberal practice of assigning base motives to the hated Reagan.>> Actually, I don't think he ever had a motive, or for that matter a thought. Reagan was never anything but a figurehead, reciting lines that others wrote for him, and was most undeserving of hate. The base motives belonged to the ones who wrote the script. Actually, I agree with a lot of their domestic policies, but they bungled foreign policy in a big way. Ideology - from either direction - should never be allowed to cloud perception of the obvious. I remember Jeanne well, as do most Americans who reside in less developed countries. She had a reputation for intellectualism that quite confounded me; I read her book, and some of her writings in Foreign Affairs, but there seemed nothing there to justify it. She of course did not invent the notion that the best possible government for a developing country is a corrupt and pliable right-wing dictatorship. That idea had been around for years. But she encouraged it long after its disutility was obvious, and had her name assigned to it as the "Kirkpatrick Doctrine". A national embarrasment, regardless of party. You want to lead the free world, you can't go around subsidizing dictators. <<the leftist practice of apologizing for, or being absolutely silent about, gross human rights violations committed by left-wing regimes, while at the same time condemning similar practices in rightist dictatorships.>> Is this really any different from the rightist practice of apologizing for and actively encouraging human rights violations in rightist regimes while harping on those of the left? I think you miss the point. Subsidizing brutal right-wing dictators was not only a mistake because it was morally wrong. It was a huge pragmatic error. Those dictatorships proved (as anyone with a brain could have predicted) appallingly vulnerable to communist insurrection, and by supporting them we actually promoted communism very effectively, aside from earning lasting hatred in many countries where we badly need friends. The best ally a communist insurgent could ever have is a repressive dictator, and the support that American rightists provided for obviously untenable regimes did more to develop communism in Latin America than the limited help the Russians and Cubans were able to provide. Using a Somoza as a weapon against Communism was like fighting a fire by spraying gasoline on it. Dumb. Good Nicaraguan history lesson, courtesy of US Library of Congress, at lcweb2.loc.gov Have a good look at the track record of the Somoza dynasty. If you lived under that government, wouldn't you join anyone willing to fight it? As for the "liberal" attitude toward drugs, well there's drugs and there's drugs. A hash-pipe passed around a rock concert never hurt anyone. Hallucinogens are no big threat; most people don't even like them. Industrial-sized shipments of smack and coke are another thing altogether. Not even going into the hypocrisy shown by a conservative government protecting dealers to achieve an end of very questionable utility. The way the term "freedom fighter" gets tossed around always amuses me. Remember the Afghan Taleban? When they fought against Russians, they were fighting for freedom. But freedom to do what? To shelter Islamic terrorists, among other lovely things. On a lighter note, I assume you've seen that wonderful Salt Lake City gerbil story that's been all over the net. Just goes to show that Perversia has no geographic boundaries... Steve