Did you realize all this personal intrusion began with Reagan?

[napi21]

It sounded like a "no big deal thing"...You for the first time had to prove you were innocent by peeing in a bottle and everyone thought it was no big deal because if you weren't smokin' you had no worries. Now it's evolved to enhanced body searches at the airport. I really wonder when enough Will be enough for the American people?

I'm lucky. I'm 67 so I won't live to see another Nazi or Mussolini regime. I really fel bad for you younger people though. I'd help you if I could but short of voting I don't know what else I can do.

No link. I just was listening to a rerun of the Stephanie Miller show and a caller pointed this out

[liberal N proud]

1. Most of what is broken today can be tied back to the Reagan years

[napi21]

4. Boy is that the truth! H lso was the one who started the BS

of trickle down economics. What crap THAT has been! The pubbies are still pushing that junk.

[liberal N proud]

6. Health care cost started skyrocketing during Reagan's admin

I remember when the company plan changed coverage.

Our first daughter cost us $2 at the hospital, with the same insurance 6 years later, our second daughter was $3200, and I would hate to think what it would cost today.

Unions were busted. And much more.

[Bobbieo]

2. Think the 'Wikileaks' may change a few things.

[FrancisTreptoe]

3. I think so too.

With the free flow of information, i think things will become more transparent at the very least.

[TheKentuckian]

5. Started well before that but as always if it is crappy St Ray Gun ramped it up

[Hello_Kitty]

7. The so-called War On Drugs was the canary in the coal mine.

But it didn't affect too many nice affluent white people so who cared?

[Mojorabbit]

9. There was a big stink about it

when it started ramping up but it soon faded and then became accepted. I am afraid this newest TSA outrage will also just end up being accepted and the slide will continue.

[struggle4progress]

8. I grew up amongst rightwing sourtherners. I met plenty of anti-privacy authoritarians

in power long before the Reagan era

[jeff47]

10. How quickly we forget

Perhaps we should remember things like "Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Communist party?"

Heck, the first organized intrusion was in 1798 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts).

Not calling Reagan a saint, but we do not live in unique political times. We've been here before, we'll be here again.

[melm00se]

17. shhhhh

never get in the way of an anti-Reagan rant with something like facts.

[BolivarianHero]

11. Reagan said that the essence of conservatism is libertarianism...

He then proceeded to escalate the War on Drugs and unprecedentedly feed the military industrial complex.

[pnorman]

14. Ca you source that Reagan quote on Conservatism and Libertarianism?

So far, Google yields nothing.

[BolivarianHero]

18. Sure

REAGAN: If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.

Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are travelling the same path.

http://reason.com/archives/1975/07/01/inside-ronald-reagan

How this philosophy is compatible with Reagan's real actions on civil liberties is beyond me. He may have just been playing to the crowd. Reason's pretty hardcore.

[pnorman]

21. "REAGAN: If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. "

Thanks! That's what I was trying to Google for, but couldn't find.

But bear in mind that there's also a "Left-Libertarianism", and Noam Chomsky & Howard Zinn among others are prime examples.

[BolivarianHero]

22. I know...

But such ideologies are irrelevant to the analysis of Ronald Reagan's "ideas" and convictions.

[mikamandi]

12. Right and Left on Same Page? Hmmm.

Historically, it has always been, and continues to be, the liberals who championed civil liberties and individual rights, while conservatives have always dragged their feet.
It is always elements of the latter group who incessantly demonize the ALCU, gays, immigrants, etc. And, anyone who ever feared Nazi-style domestic tyranny, have always feared it would come from the right. So isn't it amusing that the thrust of the current outcry about TSA techniques is coming from the right, fanned initially by the likes of FOX and Limbaugh? Where was their outrage when the Patriot Act was enacted? Is this current right wing TSA outrage genuine and sincere? I suspect not. If your only goal in life is to seek out ways - even make up erroneous facts - to discredit the current administration, it appears you can momentarily adopt the ideology of your adversaries, if doing so might contribute to the accomplishment of your ultimate goal. Left wing outrage is genuine and sincere; it is perfectly consistent with their ideology and history.

One thing is for sure: Those on the right who are the most vocally critical of these TSA techniques will be the first and most vocal in screaming how this administration has been lazy, weak, and ineffective on national security should, heaven forbid, Al-Qaeda be successful in carrying out another act of terrorism on our soil - something it is working very hard - more than ever - to accomplish.

[pnorman]

16. Much of the confusion as well as unnecesary dissensin, is caused by

thinking and classifying on the basis of a single dimension --- eg: "left to Right" or "Libertarian" to "Authoritarian".

Instead, think of it in TWO dimensions like this:


Here's from that website:
There's abundant evidence for the need of it. The old one-dimensional categories of 'right' and 'left', established for the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789, are overly simplistic for today's complex political landscape. For example, who are the 'conservatives' in today's Russia? Are they the unreconstructed Stalinists, or the reformers who have adopted the right-wing views of conservatives like Margaret Thatcher ?
On the standard left-right scale, how do you distinguish leftists like Stalin and Gandhi? It's not sufficient to say that Stalin was simply more left than Gandhi. There are fundamental political differences between them that the old categories on their own can't explain. Similarly, we generally describe social reactionaries as 'right-wingers', yet that leaves left-wing reactionaries like Robert Mugabe and Pol Pot off the hook.
http://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2

Take the test yourself, and consider posting your score on this thread. It's also recommended that you do NOT read too much of the material there, until AFTER taking the test.

[mikamandi]

19. Interesting chart, but . . .

Thanks for the interesting chart, but the thrust of my comment
wasn't related to confusion about the political classification
continuum, but rather was the pointing out the
disingenuousness of the right wing outrage about the TSA body
screenings and searches.

[pnorman]

20. "disingenuousness of the right...."

That's the entire point of that two dimensional analysis. When we say "right" (or "left") without regard to the other dimension, we may lose a very important aspect of the topic. And without that, we may fail to understand why some "rightists" also oppose that TSA pornoscope/grope. Do you remember former Congressman Bob Barr (of Monicagate fame)? He's now an adviser to the ACLU! Bet you'd have NEVER figured that out by conventional "Left vs Right" analysis!

Here's another interesting chart

[1776Forever]

13. Check this article out from 2009 about the Reagan years:

It isn't just the personal intrusions that started in the Reagan years, he did a lot more as those who lived through it know:

June 9, 2009
The Reassessment of Reagan

http://ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/the-reassessment-of-reagan/#comment-21915

[reggie the dog]

15. no drug testing in france

invasion of privacy, plus being a drug user or addict is not a reason to fire someone from their job.