I liked both of those articles a lot. It intrigues me that people will go and eat fast food and then blame someone else for it.
It also intrigues me how, in this very small microcosm of my friends list, that opinions on Reagan vary so wildly. I know I hated Reagan when he was in power, but I was very leftwing and anti-American then, and I suspect my views would be quite different now. Two critcisms I've heard of the Reagan era were that the numbers of homeless rose terribly and that there were lots of economic reforms that made a lot of people suffer. It's interesting to me to hear that, since in New Zealand, at the same time, the same things were happening but under a radically reforming Labour (leftwing) government. The policy of de-institutionalisation -- chucking people out of the loony bins -- was very trendy worldwide -- supposed to be good for the people and was also cheap. There has been a little backtracking on that since. Also, like the US, our country was badly in debt in the '80s and the massive reforms of the public service, including a lot of privatisation, was justified by the government in trying to tackle that. Some of these experiments have proved dodgy. Others no-one wants to change because they worked very well. Hindsight is an interesting thing.
Would you consider yourself a Republican? Where do you fall on the political spectrum?
I consider myself a Republican. That doesn't mean I agree with all Republican policies or that I'm a huge Bush fan (actually, I voted McCain in the primaries).
Truthfully, I consider myself a moderate on most things, even a bit liberal socially. However, I also believe in smaller government, hence, my Republican stance.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2004-06-17 05:34 pm (UTC)It also intrigues me how, in this very small microcosm of my friends list, that opinions on Reagan vary so wildly. I know I hated Reagan when he was in power, but I was very leftwing and anti-American then, and I suspect my views would be quite different now. Two critcisms I've heard of the Reagan era were that the numbers of homeless rose terribly and that there were lots of economic reforms that made a lot of people suffer. It's interesting to me to hear that, since in New Zealand, at the same time, the same things were happening but under a radically reforming Labour (leftwing) government. The policy of de-institutionalisation -- chucking people out of the loony bins -- was very trendy worldwide -- supposed to be good for the people and was also cheap. There has been a little backtracking on that since. Also, like the US, our country was badly in debt in the '80s and the massive reforms of the public service, including a lot of privatisation, was justified by the government in trying to tackle that. Some of these experiments have proved dodgy. Others no-one wants to change because they worked very well. Hindsight is an interesting thing.
Would you consider yourself a Republican? Where do you fall on the political spectrum?
no subject
Date: 2004-06-17 05:54 pm (UTC)Truthfully, I consider myself a moderate on most things, even a bit liberal socially. However, I also believe in smaller government, hence, my Republican stance.