[annatar1914]

It is about time somebody spoke the truth about Reagan. I feel like had Jimmy Carter won in 1980 conservatism would have been better off today. I am tired of hearing conservatives act like you cannot criticize Ronald Reagan. Calvin Coolidge and Dwight Eisenhower were much more conservative than he was because they believed in balanced budgets.

Furthermore he escalated the War on Drugs. Although I am not for wholesale legalization, much of the way it has been waged is unconstitutional. The problem is he adopted the utopian view that a drug free society is possible, it isn't. The role of government is to police it enough to keep it to a minimum. Decriminalize small amounts of cannabis, put hard drug users in mandatory rehab, keep prosecuting dealers but obey the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. It seems we're finally waking up to this insanity.

As for ending the Cold War I don't get conservatives who argue this. Isn't the point of conservatism to believe communism doesn't work? They constantly repeat that "Obamacare is socialism (it isn't) and socialism has always failed." The Soviet Union would have fallen apart due to the unworkable nature of communism had we simply done nothing.

He also legalized abortion in California (and then claimed he was sorry once he left a relatively liberal state for national office, just like Romney) and supported gun control throughout his career (he banned open carry in California and supported the Brady Bill later on). Also the amnesty. If anything this encouraged illegal immigration because if they grant a mass amnesty once what is to make people think they won't do it again?

Although I strongly disagree with Murray Rothbard on many things, his writings on how Reagan was not really a free market guy in any way were spot on. Still even a lot of so-called "libertarian Republicans" think Reagan was great or that the Democratic Congress was to blame. Still, Reagan had the veto pen and a Republican Senate for six of his eight years and Democrats never once had a two thirds supermajority.

I'm glad too somebody conservative truly has the guts to call people out on Reagan-what a disaster for America and real Conservatism.

Yes, privately I am a 'reactionary' Orthodox Christian and even Fascistic, privately. But I too know that Nationalism has to come from an organic and spiritual hierarchical and blood-and-soil foundation; and America is too young for these things to be very strong just yet. So as a Conservative-which is about the politics of the possible and a responsible adult pragmatism, i'd say very much that i'm in the Washington-Hamilton-Carey-Clay-Lincoln-Eisenhower-Goldwater tradition of Fiscal Conservatism, programs to stimulate business and have a safety net for the disadvantaged, a robust military to project power in the world, and social libertarianism.

There are many things I despise concerning the moral and spiritual fabric of the modern world, but i've come to return to the realization that people are best managed within a dialectic that promotes their overall freedom while embeding them within the restraints of duty and authority, and nowhere else is this best accomplished than with the unique political tools we have right here in the United States of America.

[Donna]

The United States federal government is the lion's head of international masonic power. As a Christian your political views should be shaped by a completely localized mission, whether in your community or one that you wish to assist. Your desire to locate a 'world ideology' in mainstream American conservatism is misguided. You will not find the confessional faith of our Lord in Washington, but should you pursue this path, you will discover the ancient secrets of fallen angels and stolen fire. You will slowly, but surely, recognize that America was created in a rebellion against God.

May Christ guide your reasoning, brother.

[annatar1914]

The United States federal government is the lion's head of international masonic power. As a Christian your political views should be shaped by a completely localized mission, whether in your community or one that you wish to assist. Your desire to locate a 'world ideology' in mainstream American conservatism is misguided. You will not find the confessional faith of our Lord in Washington, but should you pursue this path, you will discover the ancient secrets of fallen angels and stolen fire. You will slowly, but surely, recognize that America was created in a rebellion against God.

May Christ guide your reasoning, brother.

As i've said before; "Man proposes but God disposes". God uses human Free Will and by some mysterious Alchemy of His Own, transforms It into His own Predestinate Will. The Masons may have begun the work, but they cannot finish it nor imagine that it would turn out the way it has. Recall that Moses and the Israelites received all the treasures of the Egyptians the day they left their bondage? And so it is always thus.

I do not follow the 'Founding Fathers'.

[Donna]

That's every bit as heretical as the Calvinist creed. It's a bit ironic that you have the audacity to accuse Roman Catholicism of seeking worldly power while you seek the same for yourself in the intrigues of a political establishment shaped by Freemasons, tax-collectors and money-changers.

You are a heretic and a hypocrite.

[blackjack21]

That is, once the virus, the cancer, of liberalism and leftism is contained.

How do you do that though? Your model came to fruition essentially under white male Anglo-Saxon leadership. It has steadily declined as the political paradigm has shifted. The Westward expansion required a Civil War to kill off slavery, lest we have an economically divided system. The Industrial Revolution saw massive European immigration, suffrage for women, followed by an embrace of welfare. The 1965 immigration reforms basically rejected the European-ness of America, and we have been heading downhill ever since. What makes you think that we can really save America?

However, I have one major problem with American conservatism if we start from the basic philisophical position behind the idea. The problem is that Thomas Jefferson himself believed that we should rewrite all laws and the Constitution itself every 19 years, because acting under the laws of the previous generations would be effective slavery to them. Thomas Jefferson knew that the ideas of his peers and himself would become outdated and should not be imposed on future generations if they would never have agreed to live under them.

I don't agree with a lot of Jeffersonian precepts, but I do think all laws should have a sunset clause that requires their re-enactment.

The ideas of past generations are not relevant to the ideas, needs, & wants of current Americans.

A lot of them are very relevant. The problem with not re-enacting laws is that the reasons for their existence are not remembered. Decriminalizing sodomy for example may have made gay males feel a lot more liberated, but 10s of millions of them worldwide have died from AIDS. Also, education is not the answer for a lot of people, since many people don't avail themselves of information, weigh the pros and cons and then make a decision. They follow cultural norms, which are often set and enforced by law.

I`m not suggesting that we disregard the Constitution. It was the document that our country is based off of, and it has a lot of cultural & political significance. I respect that. However, we shouldn't carry it around as if it is unmatched in its wisdom. It is not perfect.

It's actually a very well written document, and perhaps the very reason that it survives. However, it has not protected against the conspiracies of unionised government employees conspiring through unions to subvert the intent of the constitution; it has not protected against indirections like the progressive income tax, which effectively renders minority economic rights meaningless, etc. It was however, a very well written and elegant document.

Very well. You must also then agree with the system of corporate governance put in place after the American Revolution:

"Corporate charters (licenses to exist) were granted for a limited time and could be revoked promptly for violating laws.
Corporations could engage only in activities necessary to fulfill their chartered purpose.
Corporations could not own stock in other corporations nor own any property that was not essential to fulfilling their chartered purpose.
Corporations were often terminated if they exceeded their authority or caused public harm.
Owners and managers were responsible for criminal acts committed on the job.
Corporations could not make any political or charitable contributions nor spend money to influence law-making.

One doesn't have to agree with it, since these are merely laws that can change with time. However, your last point is interesting, because the 14th Amendment introduced the notion of a corporate person into the constitution itself--one that wasn't necessarily the same as "the People" in order to grant citizenship to freed slaves. Consequently, corporate person-ship enjoys the same privileges and immunities of a natural person. The Supreme Court has upheld it too. That's the interesting thing about Obama is that he doesn't quite seem to get that the 14th Amendment doesn't quite equalize everything the way that many people think.

It began to combine a social agenda based on racial resentment and theocratic inklings with extreme economic libertarianism.

This is mostly a fraud perpetrated by proponents of a welfare state to keep blacks voting for the Democratic party. Blacks voted overwhelmingly for the Republican party, because the Democratic party would not allow them to register as Democrats. That began to change with Roosevelt. Social security was a huge economic benefit for blacks in the South, and they began trending to the Democratic party even though the Southern Democrats resisted the Republican Party's efforts at a federally enforceable civil rights act.

It appears now that so is the Religious Right, unfortunately this doesn't "fix" what's wrong with Republicans as it seems to me they are being replaced by more dogmatic libertarians.

Well that's a separate question. Quetzlcoatl suggests that if you agree with the founders, you must also agree with limiting corporate charters. By extension, you must also agree with slavery and no suffrage for women. Much of what the Religious Right opposes is the wholesale destruction of the family unit, which started with female suffrage and accelerated dramatically with liberal divorce laws, birth control, abortion and aid to single mothers with dependent children (no man in the house rule).

All the Republican presidents from Lincoln to Ford were more or less part of this tradition but Reagan shifted the direction of the GOP yet even he today would be run out of the party (assuming he was a modern figure with more or less the same views instead of a quasi-mythological figure) for not being ideologically doctrinaire enough.

Reagan was politically very adroit. He'd win today, because he was a nationalist. There are no major "pro-American" politicians in the country today.

Reagan was not a conservative.

Reagan was a social conservative and a nationalist.

His notion of trickle-down economics would have been appalling to the founders.

Uh... they held slaves--i.e., they whipped people into physical submission and compelled people to labor on a race basis for their own profit. I doubt they'd be appalled by "trickle down" economics, except for perhaps considering it way too liberal.

He spent like a drunken sailor. Did not even try to balance the budget. His deficit numbers make President Obama look very conservative indeed.

Reagan's deficit at its worst was 5.7% of GDP during the recession of 1983--induced by Paul Volcker to kill the post-Vietnam War inflation. One could argue that Reagan "inherited" this situation as Obama does constantly, but on Reagan's watch, the deficit as a percentage of GDP at its worst was 5.7% of GDP. Bush had a pretty decent economic record until Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats took over the house. Then, Bush and Pelosi pushed a $500B stimulus package and TARP, which means Bush left office with a debt level that looked like Reagan's at its worst. When Obama came into office, he passed the largest spending program in American history sending the deficit to GDP ratio to 9.8%--the largest it had been since WWII. So as a point of fact, Drlee is wrong.

As for debt-to-gdp, Reagan inherited a level of debt that was similar to Johnson's when Johnson assumed the presidency. As a percentage of GDP, it dropped under Johnson as welfare spending and Vietnam War spending surged. The spending situation had to come to an end, and ultimately did as the Vietnam War came to an end. The remaining social spending led to the stagflation of the 1970s. Reagan slashed taxes and tax rates to stimulate aggregate demand and used the deficit to soak up cheap money--thereby balooning debt-to-gdp to about 65%--about where it was through the Eisenhower years. Debt-to-gdp shrank during the Gingrich-Clinton years, with debt-to-gdp falling to about 55%. George W. Bush increased that back to a Reagan level of about 65%. When Obama assumed office, he increased spending so much that debt-to-gdp ballooned to over 100% of GDP. The highest it has ever been was 120% of GDP during WWII. Note that we aren't fighting a world war. So the worst economic record in terms of debt-to-gdp deficit-to-gdp outside of a world war context belongs to Barack Obama. Again, Drlee is completely wrong (obviously your PhD isn't in economics).

Reagan raised taxes in 7 of his 8 years in office.

Reagan's cut of the top rate and simplification of brackets led to increased tax revenue in 7 of his 8 years in office. He also cut tax breaks for interest on consumer debt and increased the FICA social security tax--saving social security.

He was the king of income inequality and had unemployment rates nearing 11%.

Reagan took labor participation from a low of 63.5% of the labor force to nearly 67%. When he took office, unemployment was 6% and rising. It peaked as Drlee suggested at 11% and then fell to 5% when he left office.
Labor force participation maintained late-Reagan year levels, peaking at the end of Clinton's term, and held steady throughout the Bush years--even through the financial crisis. Labor force participation collapsed under Obama--falling all the way back to 62% as it was under Jimmy Carter. Obama has kept the unemployment numbers artificially low by not including people who don't continually look for work. In actual fact, the unemployment rate under Obama when adjusted for the labor participation rate is substantially worse than it was under Reagan.

Reagan claimed to be for small government but government grew a whole lot on his watch.

Government spending as a percentage of GDP was about 21% when Reagan took office and ballooned to 24% as tax rates plummeted and spending increased. When Reagan left office, it was about where it was when he took office. It began a precipitous drop when Gingrich assumed the Speakership in the House, and declined to 19% of GDP when Gingrich stepped down. Under Bush, it increased to 21% and held steady. Then, when Obama assumed the office, it shot up to 24%. So if you love Obama, you'd love Reagan even more.

He created a new government agency with 300,000 employees.

The post office? He just turned it from a government department into an agency.

Reagan gave amnesty to three million illegal aliens.

A huge mistake, I'm sure you would agree?

He gave weapons to Iran.

Keeping the Iran-Iraq war going, driving down oil prices, and using the proceeds to fund the anti-communist Contras in Nicaragua.

Reagan was a mess of a president though quite the effective actor.

Apparently, Drlee really enjoyed "Bedtime for Bonzo."



You wee kiddies out there: I'm not saying these things to get you to agree with me. That's not really all that important. What is important is that you learn to disagree with liberals for its own sake. What you will learn is that they lie, obscure, distort and mislead with such alacrity that they are generally not to be trusted.

It is about time somebody spoke the truth about Reagan. I feel like had Jimmy Carter won in 1980 conservatism would have been better off today. I am tired of hearing conservatives act like you cannot criticize Ronald Reagan. Calvin Coolidge and Dwight Eisenhower were much more conservative than he was because they believed in balanced budgets.

Reagan pretty much saved the country from going off a cliff, like it's about to do right now. You can criticize Reagan all you like, but there are very few things that Drlee said that ring true. If you didn't like government spending peaking at 24% of GDP under Reagan, why would you like it under Obama where it has been much more persistent? People like Drlee just try to muddy the waters.
Coolidge was a great president from a conservative standpoint (except for supporting women's suffrage), but you'll notice how he's basically omitted from school books for kids? Roosevelt gets all the cover.
Eisenhower was too. Eisenhower deployed nuclear-tipped Nike missiles for air defense. He was friggin bad ass. When Reagan deployed Pershing missiles to the UK, the left went bat shit crazy. That's why a lot of conservatives like Reagan. He was ready to open a can of nuclear whoopass too. With the Islamists going bonkers, nuclear war may be in our future and we need a leader that's ready and willing to use nuclear weapons if it comes to that.

Furthermore he escalated the War on Drugs. Although I am not for wholesale legalization, much of the way it has been waged is unconstitutional. The problem is he adopted the utopian view that a drug free society is possible, it isn't. The role of government is to police it enough to keep it to a minimum. Decriminalize small amounts of cannabis, put hard drug users in mandatory rehab, keep prosecuting dealers but obey the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. It seems we're finally waking up to this insanity.

Look: I'm okay with that analysis if you are willing to admit that it was Tom Foley that was pushing for the tougher drug laws. I believe a loved one of his died from it. Lots of liberals died from it. Robert F. Kennedy's kid, for example. Patrick Kennedy has had lots of problems--cocaine, alcohol, Ambien, etc.

As for ending the Cold War I don't get conservatives who argue this. Isn't the point of conservatism to believe communism doesn't work? They constantly repeat that "Obamacare is socialism (it isn't) and socialism has always failed." The Soviet Union would have fallen apart due to the unworkable nature of communism had we simply done nothing.

It wasn't just an economic competition. It was a military competition too. Control of territory plays a big role.

He also legalized abortion in California (and then claimed he was sorry once he left a relatively liberal state for national office, just like Romney) and supported gun control throughout his career (he banned open carry in California and supported the Brady Bill later on).

Right. Now California is Northern Mexico, de facto anyway, and Republicans cannot win here. He supported gun control to thwart the Black Panthers, who had every right to be pissed off and to carry guns.

Also the amnesty. If anything this encouraged illegal immigration because if they grant a mass amnesty once what is to make people think they won't do it again?

Exactly. Ronald Reagan was a great president, but this was one of the worst things he did while in office. I oppose illegal immigration and amnesty, and I am no longer a Republican for that very reason. You cite Eisenhower as a great conservative. Have you read about Operation Wetback? Eisenhower was badass.

Although I strongly disagree with Murray Rothbard on many things, his writings on how Reagan was not really a free market guy in any way were spot on.

Reagan proposed NAFTA. It was negotiated under Bush I, and passed under Clinton. Clinton was certainly very much a libertarian on trade. He passed MFN status for China, which has put significant downward pressure on wages. Clinton was also responsible for the GATT round leading to the WTO. Obama, by contrast, scuttled free trade plans with Central and South America.

[spodi]

Alright I'm gonna go hypothetical. We know millennials could care less about old rich white man conservative because their naive liberals who expect life served to them on a platter, right? Now in 2016 could you see a Republican swaying the youth vote in their favor. A less extreme version of the goobacks episode of south park. Tapping into jobless youth's fears of the future. If so who would it be?

[annatar1914]

That's every bit as heretical as the Calvinist creed.

Christianity isn't a monarchy, nor is it a democracy, but a republic, 'governed' by the Scriptures and Holy Tradition and the canons and decrees of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. Likewise, it can therefore exist within and thus inform a republic built by men, no matter the opinions of the faulty and sinful men who start the republic in the beginning. What they intend doesn't matter, if it opposes the Will of God.

It's a bit ironic that you have the audacity to accuse Roman Catholicism of seeking worldly power

I accuse nobody of anything, history shows an honest mankind the truth of the matter one way or another. Bishops are not earthly princes, not if they intend to remain Spiritual Shepherds.

while you seek the same for yourself in the intrigues of a political establishment

If society becomes informed by the spiritual graces that flow from an encounter of individuals with a Merciful God, drawing them into the Love of the Holy Trinity, then there is less intrigue and more brotherhood.

shaped by Freemasons, tax-collectors and money-changers.

And does it not happen sometimes that Our Lord becomes welcome into the homes of repentant sinners, even 'tax collectors and money-changers' like St. Matthew and Zaccheaus? Condemn perhaps the beginnings of things, but maybe not so much their final end.

You are a heretic and a hypocrite.

Am I? I'm certainly a sinner. But I do recall even when I was a Roman Catholic, that Steiner's Anthroposophy was not exactly doctrine at that point, although Karol Wojtyla certainly was influenced by It.

It is justice due me for you to name my heresy and why it is heretical in a material or formal sense and also whether I intend to be objectively heretical after an ecclesiastical reminder. As it is, I only follow in the footsteps of true Orthodox Catholicism, what was taught by the Fathers, and do not follow any ideas of 'innovation' or the so-called 'development of doctrine'.

You want to know true 'Gnosis'? Read St. Clement of Alexandria perhaps, instead of Rudolf Steiner, that Blavatsky in sheep's clothing....

[Drlee]

I'm not going to debate with blackjack. As usual he simply refuses to answer points, throws up a smoke screen and then resorts to insults.

Read this:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2014/02/06/3258121/reasons-tea-party-hated-ronald-reagan/

[Donna]

Christianity isn't a monarchy, nor is it a democracy, but a republic, 'governed' by the Scriptures and Holy Tradition and the canons and decrees of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. Likewise, it can therefore exist within and thus inform a republic built by men, no matter the opinions of the faulty and sinful men who start the republic in the beginning. What they intend doesn't matter, if it opposes the Will of God.

The Christian Church is a theocratic hierarchy and Jesus Christ is our Head of State.

On the other hand, the U.S. government represents only the interests of international finance and masonic power.

I accuse nobody of anything, history shows an honest mankind the truth of the matter one way or another. Bishops are not earthly princes, not if they intend to remain Spiritual Shepherds.

Good Christian are loyal to the Church first and their country second. The Scriptures and Tradition trump corporate American politics.

If society becomes informed by the spiritual graces that flow from an encounter of individuals with a Merciful God, drawing them into the Love of the Holy Trinity, then there is less intrigue and more brotherhood.

How are the feds going to do that?

You seem to be oblivious to the fact that most Americans are heretic protestants and their religious fundamentalism (i.e., what conservative politicians get elected on) is modernist.

And does it not happen sometimes that Our Lord becomes welcome into the homes of repentant sinners, even 'tax collectors and money-changers' like St. Matthew and Zaccheaus? Condemn perhaps the beginnings of things, but maybe not so much their final end.

Matthew became an evangelist.

Am I? I'm certainly a sinner. But I do recall even when I was a Roman Catholic, that Steiner's Anthroposophy was not exactly doctrine at that point, although Karol Wojtyla certainly was influenced by It.

Anthroposophy could never possibly be Church doctrine since it is a metaphysical study of human beings. It's a form Aristotelianism. It is more like a theoretical science than a religious doctrine.

It is justice due me for you to name my heresy and why it is heretical in a material or formal sense and also whether I intend to be objectively heretical after an ecclesiastical reminder. As it is, I only follow in the footsteps of true Orthodox Catholicism, what was taught by the Fathers, and do not follow any ideas of 'innovation' or the so-called 'development of doctrine'.

The United States, as the crowning achievement of Lucifer, is the House of the Antichrist.

You want to know true 'Gnosis'? Read St. Clement of Alexandria perhaps, instead of Rudolf Steiner, that Blavatsky in sheep's clothing....

Blavatsky was Satan's syncretist whereas Rudolf Steiner was Christ's. His intuitive grace was so unusual that it is possible that Heaven sent us Rudolf Steiner in order to oppose Blavatsky in the way that he did. Materialists who are already familiar with the holy scriptures should challenge themselves to Rudolf Steiner's German Idealism.

Blavatsky was a prophet of fallen angels and she stole the ancient secrets, while Steiner reconstituted them in the miracle of Christ's birth, death, and resurrection. Others, like the Russian Tomberg and his Platonic Jungianism, reconstituted these insights with Scripture and Tradition (and leading the way for a brilliant renewal of Catholic traditionalism).

[blackjack21]

Alright I'm gonna go hypothetical. We know millennials could care less about old rich white man conservative because their naive liberals who expect life served to them on a platter, right? Now in 2016 could you see a Republican swaying the youth vote in their favor. A less extreme version of the goobacks episode of south park. Tapping into jobless youth's fears of the future. If so who would it be?

I'm not sure that candidate exists. The interesting thing in the Republican party these days is that you have a lot of upstarts who are not part of the mainstream who have traction. For example, Rand Paul is someone I'd never have thought would gain widespread appeal. I'm not sure he'd win, but he's certainly different from the strangely orange John Boehner. In 2012, I thought Texas Governor Rick Perry was interesting, but his on TV brain fart killed his candidacy. He has a good track record, but the media hates him. His age is a problem, because he's not adroit enough to bypass the mainstream media and use decentralized social media. That's why people like Rand Paul have appeal. Senator Cruz also has appeal. He's a lot closer to Wall Street than people think, and scares the bejeezus out of liberals. Scott Walker is interesting, but he needs to break out of the Wisconsin media vacuum and get more national traction. That's the problem for the Republican party.

Mitt Romney sealed his own fate by passing RomneyCare. A lot of middle-of-the-road milquetoast Republicans are either closet Democrats or they listen to the advice of Democrats as to what they need to do to win a national election. It'd be a lot like FDR asking Hitler how to defeat him.

What's interesting in this election is between ISIS running around cutting people's heads off and Ebola, women are afraid. So they are trending Republican. Democrats are panicking, not because they are going to lose this election. They know it already. It's that all the ground work they've laid for Hillary is getting pulled out from under them.

I'm not going to debate with blackjack. As usual he simply refuses to answer points, throws up a smoke screen and then resorts to insults.

I'm calling you on it. You are chickenshit. You are afraid to debate me, because when it comes to economics I will absolutely school you. I answered every relevant point you made, but the one that needed a particularly harsh rebuttal was this one:

His deficit numbers make President Obama look very conservative indeed.

That is pure bullshit. I just schooled you on deficit-to-gdp and debt-to-gdp and you are simply not humble enough to admit it. Anyone with an undergraduate in economics could school your argument easily. Anyone who wants to follow up on my comments will find that I am right.

Ok kiddies. If I'm opposing Drlee, and arguing partisan on his level, I point you here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesglassm ... ruly-rank/

Why? Forbes is more conservative, an economic and business journal, and you will get relevant facts there. Steve Forbes is a Republican. How did I arrive at my points wee kiddies? I went to the Federal Reserve, where you get the full measure of statistics. As a professor, Drlee should at least have the deceny to point you to primary sources of information. ThinkProgress is not a primary source. The Federal Reserve is a primary source.

Here's where you get deficit-to-gdp kids: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/FYFSGDA188S
Here's where you get debt-to-gdp kids: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/GFDEGDQ188S
Here are some other sources of information: http://www.bea.gov/, http://www.bls.gov/
Moody's bought up one of my favorites: https://www.economy.com/dismal/

He was the king of income inequality and had unemployment rates nearing 11%.

Let's take the first part of his assertion. It's bullshit. Kids: the way you measure income inequality is with something called the GINI ratio. The most commonly used measure is for households, not individuals or families. Having said that, I want to use US Persons data for a moment. Drlee likes to extol Eisenhower in contrast to Ronald Reagan. The GINI data on individuals has bounced around from 0.50 to about 0.525 since 1960. So there isn't any meaningful trend for individuals from 1960 forward. However, there is a big trend starting in 1952 when Eisenhower took office, where it went from 0.46 to 0.52. On an individual basis, Eisenhower is the King of inequality.

The trend of increasing income inequality for households did not start under Ronald Reagan. It started in 1968 when Richard Nixon took office--the president whom Drlee calls the "last true conservative." It continued on through the Carter years; then, it accelerated mildly in the first few years of the Reagan administration, and then reverted to trend. I'm speculating here, but I think the small bump in the rate of change for household income inequality in the first few years of Reagan's presidency upset Drlee, because Walter Mondale could not use it against Reagan effectively in the 1984 election, as it wasn't increasing any faster at that point than under Carter or Nixon.

In my opinion, Drlee is a proponent of the welfare state and social liberalism who purports to be a conservative so as to steer people toward larger government spending and social liberalism--i.e., if you believe he is a "true conservative Republican," then maybe the Republicans (or former Republicans in my case) don't have it right. The reason you need to check up on people like this is that you find out that a lot of what they say isn't right at all.

Continuing on the with the widely used GINI ratio for households, the biggest bumps in income inequality on a rate-of-change basis were under Eisenhower and George H.W. Bush--the kinder, gentler fellow. Under Eisenhower, the household GINI ratio increased from 0.39 in 1956 to 0.42 in 1961, when Kennedy took office. When Reagan left office, it was also 0.42, and increased under George H.W. Bush to about 0.455. The Democrats were successful at bashing George H.W. Bush for that. Now, those little elbow shots against those presidents are on a rate-of-change basis. The highest ever GINI coefficient in the modern era occurs under--you guessed it--Barack Hussein Obama with a household GINI ratio of 0.48.

Drlee, from my perspective, I only took one swipe at you: that your PhD isn't in economics. Why? Unless you are selling books and you are a political media personality, PhDs usually operate in a college or university setting. If you had a PhD in economics, you wouldn't have uttered those lines unless you were someone like Paul Krugman, because you'd have a reputation to uphold. If you are easily schooled by undergrads, it undermines your authority and the reputation of the institution.

Bedtime for Bonzo was humor. If that hurts your feelings, too bad.

If telling the kids to disagree with everything you say and try to verify or discredit your claims bothers you, think back to your liberal--whoops I mean conservative--youth when you were taught to challenge authority. Your remarks on Reagan were deliberately misleading, and I've called you on it. Kilt or pants, take it like a man.

Study the statistics kids. When Reagan took office, poverty levels had already spiked. He brought them down, but not to as low as they were during the Nixon years. They trended up again when George "Read my lips: No new taxes" Bush took office. The biggest decline in poverty came with a combination of Bill Clinton in the White House and Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey running the house. Like Drlee, they had PhDs, but I'm sure Drlee will tell you just how stupid he thinks they were.

Once Clinton and Gingrich were gone from Washington, the "compassionate conservative" George W. Bush took office and poverty started to climb again. After he left office and Obama took over, poverty spiked again to the level it was when Reagan took office in 1980. Want to know where I got my info? It wasn't FoxNews, as people like Drlee will assert, but rather the United States Census Bureau.

http://www.census.gov/#

Now to Drlee's assertion of an 11% unemployment number, that is true. What's also true is that it was 5% when he left office. Furthermore, labor participation soared under Ronald Reagan, so to leave office with 5% unemployment and a soaring labor participation rate, the job growth and booming economy had to be tremendous. The Reagan years were great. There's a lot you can disagree about with Ronald Reagan, but the number one reason that people on the left dislike him is that he precipitated the collapse of the Soviet Union--and the liberals lie about that too. What the left hates about the Tea Party isn't some idea that we are racists. We hate socialism and communism. That's why they hate us. If you like socialism and communism, you won't like me. It's that simple. All the contortions and misdirections by Drlee and his ilk are meaningless. Just make sure you don't fall for it. Even if you decide to become a communist, just be honest about it.

Obama has an unemployment rate of 6% from a high of 12%. However, he has the lowest labor participation rate since the Jimmy Carter era, so he doesn't get the big bonus prize creating jobs and cutting poverty. The expenses Obama has run up to achieve those numbers include a debt level nearing WWII levels, even though we aren't fighting a world war. Unless you like the job market and tons of welfare as it has been over the last 6 years, you'd probably consider Barack Obama to be one of our worst presidents.