New at Reason

May 9, 2007

Daniel McCarthy reviews a new biography examining the real political ideology of Ronald Reagan.

Comments

|5.9.07 @ 12:56PM|#

"The author traces Reagan's concern over nuclear weapons back as far as his days with the Screen Actors Guild, and he notes the effect the 1983 television movie The Day After had on him."

Hmmm . . . I don't think that's what liberals mean when they complain about Reagan getting ideas from movies.

|5.9.07 @ 1:06PM|#

"...thought that in leaving the Communist Party he was joining the losing side of history. Reagan's neoconservative advisers in the 1980s had similar feelings, insisting right up until the Berlin Wall came down that America was losing the Cold War."

Determinism just seemed to rub him the wrong way--it rubs me the wrong way too.

In my youth, I might have called myself a "Reaganite". ...eventually I realized that most of the things I liked about Reagan were libertarian. He may not have been a Real Libertarian, but he sure showed me the way.

He may have been the closest thing we'll ever see to a libertarian President--if you think of yourself as a Big Tent Libertarian...

|5.9.07 @ 1:34PM|#

I think what Reagan said was sometimes libertarian, but what he did was nothing of the sort.

Ashish George|5.9.07 @ 1:45PM|#

Good call, Les. And McCarthy, whom I generally like, is oddly uncritical at points.

"Yet Reagan did bring about a revolution in the nation's attitude toward wealth. His 'spiritualization of capitalism,' Diggins writes, 'has had an enduring effect on America's political culture, having lasted longer than Roosevelt's New Deal, Kennedy's New Frontier, or Johnson's Great Society. Reagan allowed Americans to indulge the acquisitive instinct fully, to pursue avarice without angst.'"

Really? So why is that the country has been trending left on economics?

http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=312

It looks like the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society is at least as palpable as Reagan's.

And why is there no mention of Reagan's fondness for the war on drugs? Why does Reagan's aid to the Contra thugs in Nicaragua only garner a passing reference?

|5.9.07 @ 1:46PM|#

Lest anyone forget what a sniveling douche Morrissey is.

|5.9.07 @ 1:50PM|#

Great article Dan, as usual.

|5.9.07 @ 2:24PM|#

"I think what Reagan said was sometimes libertarian, but what he did was nothing of the sort."

If ERTA and TRA aren't libertarian, then what is?

If ending federal price controls on oil isn't libertarian, then what is?

|5.9.07 @ 2:42PM|#

Ken, you're right. I think I wrote my sentence too hastily. I should have said, "...but what he often did was nothing of the sort."

But to be honest, I would have preferred for him to have been a human rights libertarian than an economic libertarian. If he hadn't supported ERTA and TRA ended federal price controls on oil, but he had controlled spending on defense and the war on drugs, and especially if he had refused to support the terrorists in Nicaragua, I'd have a much higher opinion of him.

To me, once you've given support and training to terrorists, it kind of nullifies any good things you might have done.

|5.9.07 @ 3:00PM|#

You know it's funny--to me, the libertarian drug policy dream is "Just say no." ...anyway, I tend to associate the drug war escalation with Bush Sr., whose policies provoked my initial registration as a libertarian.

...and I appreciate that there are many for whom the rights side of the equation was more important. Perhaps the Bush Administration's recent attacks on our rights have made the Reagan Whitehouse's abuses seem like nothing in comparison, but, honestly, I don't remember the Reagan Administration going after our rights.

...I suppose he did crack the whip on pornography--amid the adoption of the VCR.

I fault the Reagan Administration for its mistakes in foreign policy--Central America in particular. However, forget comparisons to the Bush Administration's recent blunders--it's hard to ignore the Reagan Administration's success in the Cold War.

I've never met a flavor of determinism that I liked--things didn't have to end the way they did.

Ashish George|5.9.07 @ 3:42PM|#

Quite right, Ken. Things didn't have to turn out the way they did. But the relevant question is whether or not the way the United States sought an end to the Cold War was as libertarian(ish) as it should have or, even under the constraints of practical politics, could have been. Was such outrageous military spending really necessary? (Keep in mind, once the military gets a taste of exorbitant spending, it wants more and more in its belly--the beast is never satisfied.)

"After Democrats and Republicans in Congress passed sanctions against the apartheid government of South Africa, Reagan vetoed the measure. His Administration cuddled up with the fascistic and anti-Semitic junta of Argentina and backed militaries in El Salvador and Guatemala that massacred civilians. It moved to normalize relations with Augusto Pinochet, the tyrant of Chile. Reagan sent George Bush the First to the Philippines, where the Vice President toasted dictator Ferdinand Marcos for fostering "democracy." Pursuing a quasi-secret war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, the Reagan Administration violated international law and circumvented Congress to support contra rebels engaged in human rights abuses and, according to the CIA's own Inspector General, worked with suspected drug traffickers. Reagan covertly sent arms to the mullahs of Iran and courted Saddam Hussein, even after his use of chemical weapons. He appointed officials who claimed nuclear war was winnable, thus raising the chances that miscalculations by the Soviet Union or the United States would plunge the world into chaos."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040628/editors

Also...

"As a result of these flawed drug policies initiated by then President Reagan, (and continued by Bush I, Clinton and Bush II) the number of those imprisoned in America has quadrupled to over 2 million. These are legacies that groups like Families Against Mandatory Minimums are still fighting today. Even George Shultz, Ronald Reagan's former secretary of state, acknowledged in 2001 that the War on Drugs is a flop."

http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/18990/

|5.9.07 @ 6:28PM|#

I abhor antisemitism and fascists. ...and like I said, I'm a critic of Reagan's actions in Central America.

But I look at the people we cuddled up with in Afghanistan, for example, and even with 20/20 hindsight, am I supposed to pretend that what we did in Afghanistan didn't have anything to do with the Soviet Union disintegrating the way it did?

If playing up to vicious dictators was to our advantage, no, that doesn't mean the people we played up to weren't vicious dictators. ...and today, the enemies of our enemies may very well be vicious dictators, but that doesn't mean their support can't possibly be to our advantage.

Remember Jean Kirkpatrick?

We can only dream--perhaps twenty years from now the vicious dictatorships of the Muslim world will be in the same place, relative to the War on Terror, where Chile and Argentina, relative to the Cold War, are today.

Ashish George|5.9.07 @ 7:01PM|#

"I abhor antisemitism and fascists"

What a profile in courage! Now what's your opinion on puppies and ice cream?

Way to not answer the question in my last post, Ken.

"But the relevant question is whether or not the way the United States sought an end to the Cold War was as libertarian(ish) as it should have or, even under the constraints of practical politics, could have been."

So again, I'll ask you: Did we HAVE TO break all those eggs to make this lovely freedom omelette? Bonus points if you can answer without invoking a neocon fairy godmother like Jean Kirkpatrick (or Jeanne Kirkpatrick even).

|5.9.07 @ 7:36PM|#

Sorry, I guess I just don't see the point in speculating about whether the people of the past needed to do what they did considering what we know now.

Overspending isn't necessary by definition.

What's this line supposed to lead to?

|5.9.07 @ 9:05PM|#

Sorry, I guess I just don't see the point in speculating about whether the people of the past needed to do what they did considering what we know now.

I don't know. I think it's pretty easy to suggest that we didn't need to assist governments that tortured and murdered dissidents, no matter how long ago it happened. Likewise, I think it's easy to say that it was wrong to support terrorism no matter the cause.

|5.10.07 @ 12:45AM|#

"I don't know. I think it's pretty easy to suggest that we didn't need to assist governments that tortured and murdered dissidents, no matter how long ago it happened. Likewise, I think it's easy to say that it was wrong to support terrorism no matter the cause."

Would we have won World War II in the way we did sans the fire bombing of Tokyo?

Would Pinochet have respected or even held the No/Si plebiscite minus Chile's relationship with the United States?

If free and fair elections were held in Saudi Arabia, what would the disposition of that government be towards the United States?

What would happen if we held elections in Iraq and they voted in a bunch of Islamist fundamenta... I guess we know the answer to that question.

I don't think there's a libertarian answer to those speculative questions.

And I don't think supporting an ally against a common threat is the same as supporting terrorism or torture. ...but I do understand why the innocent victims of a dictator's brutality might not appreciate the nuance. It would be great if our enemies limited themselves to countries run by righteous, legitimately elected, freedom loving, human rights respecting governments--but they don't.

|5.10.07 @ 2:50AM|#

Would we have won World War II in the way we did sans the fire bombing of Tokyo?

Maybe not in the way we did, but there's no reason to believe we wouldn't have won.

Would Pinochet have respected or even held the No/Si plebiscite minus Chile's relationship with the United States?

If free and fair elections were held in Saudi Arabia, what would the disposition of that government be towards the United States?

I don't think there's a libertarian answer to those speculative questions.

While I think those are good questions, I also think that libertarian thinking can begin to address them. I think it's libertarian to believe that it's wrong to help to overthrow the democratically elected governments of other countries. I think it's libertarian to believe that our government shouldn't do business with totalitarian regimes like Saudi Arabia.

And I don't think supporting an ally against a common threat is the same as supporting terrorism or torture...

I completely agree with you. What I think happened, though, is our hatred of communism became so hot that it actually led us to think that it was okay to, say, give Indonesia's Suharto government arms and training while it was murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians. Instead of telling Samoza or the Shah that we'd support their struggles against communism only if they had free and fair elections and stopped killing and torturing dissidents, we supported them while they killed and tortured dissidents. Instead of acknowledging and respecting that 90% of Nicaraguans voted for seven parties in free and fair elections in 1984 and chose the Sandinistas, we armed and trained terrorists who burned villages and raped and tortured their way across the country. And after congress realized that was not so nice of us, people like Ollie North thought it was a "neat idea" to sell weapons to terrorists in Iran and use the money to buy weapons for the terrorists in Nicaragua.

I really do think it was some kind of ironic Cold War madness that made us so desperate to not just outlive the Soviets, but to destroy them, that we became partners with people no less evil than the Soviets.

|5.12.07 @ 2:15PM|#

Wouldn't it fun to read a review of a biography where the reviewer did not say at unnecessary length that the author is right when I agree with him and misses the point entirely when I don't? Has anyone ever seen such a review?

|5.12.07 @ 4:09PM|#

I always found it ironic that all the no-nukes kukes ranted and raved when Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative.

We have nukes because other people have nukes. If we could reduce the threat of ICBMs, we could reduce our own reliance on them.

At the same time that was happening, precision-guided weapons development was finally reaching maturity -- something that Reagan knew -- further reducing our need for ICBMs, IF we could reduce the effectiveness of THEIR ICBMs.

Or, to use economics, by reducing the market, one is able to reduce production. As production is reduced, alternatives cut the market even more, thus production follows . . .

Of course, this made too much sense for the media to get it. They call it "Star Wars," while going to bed smugly knowing that their friends in Moscow would NEVER launch without telling them first.

As far as the fall of the Bear, simply put, it was an issue of timing. The New Bastards threw out the Old Bastards, but before they were able to grab the reins of government, the "horses" bolted and eventually the little red wagon turned upside down.

What Reagan did was keep us strong while we waited for the chance, and gave the people living under the Soviets room to make their own move. Thus, the only surviving examples of Soviet-style communism are in Latin America and the Congressional Red Army.

|5.13.07 @ 7:09AM|#

Sounds to me like a truly one sided attempt to revise the Reagan legacy. So much is left out that the the man of the books sounds nothing like the president himself, who for example got so extreme following WWII that he was fired from his job as spokesman for GE. Where is Reagan the extremist, the close ally of Richard Nixon, Joe McCarthy, and others of their ilk? Reagan used the same tactics as President and he had nothing to do with the collapse of communism in the SU, which arose from a generational shift internal to the SU and their ill-advised adventure in Afghanistan.

|5.14.07 @ 1:44AM|#

This is the man who invigorated the War on Drugs (or did he start it? Or was that Nixon?). The man who appointed 'conservative' judges to the SC. Men who have eviscerated the Bill of Rights. The man who saw to it that out Social Security number (which was supposed to be only between employer and employee) started appearing (and being demanded) on everything. Remember when you could open a bank account without "Positive ID"? The Police/Surveillance State made big strides under Reagan, only to be exceeded by W (of course Reagan didn't have 9/11 to work with). St. Reagan? Hardly.

|5.14.07 @ 10:34AM|#

When the terrorists bombed that marines barracks in Lebanon, the hawks screamed for blood. Ronald Reagan saw the possibility of being drawn into a morass and just withdrew to the consternation of many. This bloodthirsty monomaniac we have in the White House should have consulted that part of history.