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From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Reagan evil?: re to jj
Message-ID: <1011@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 27-Feb-86 13:51:58 EST
Article-I.D.: whuxl.1011
Posted: Thu Feb 27 13:51:58 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 28-Feb-86 20:58:41 EST
References: <155@jc3b21.UUCP> <1405@mhuxt.UUCP> <560@whuts.UUCP>, <1410@mhuxt.UUCP> <5044@alice.uUCp>
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> from jj: 
> You know, Tim, over the years you've blamed Reagan for a lot
> of things. No, make that EVERYthing.
> It's very interesting how you are very careful to not acknowledge
> when Reagan does something you agree with, now isn't it, or is it perhaps
> that you don't notice, since you know beyond any shadow of a doubt that
> the man is evil beyond imagnination?  
 
   Reagan's character:
   What is one to make of Ronald Reagan's constant distortions
   and untruths?  For example:
   "Trees pollute"
   "There are more forests now than in Washington's day"
   "The US unilaterally disarmed during the 70's"
   "The SS troops at Bitburg were victims "
   "A Jewish girl just bat mitzvahed suggested I lay a
    wreath at Bitburg"
   "There is no segregation in South Africa"
   "Sending Margaret Heckler to Ireland is a promotion"
   "There was violence and fraud from both sides in the Phillipines"
       etc, etc, etc ad nauseum
 a)Reagan is simply stupid and uninformed
   the problem with this explanation is that when Reagan's
   lies, distortions or made-up stories have been pointed out
   to be false or totally unsubstantiated, he goes right ahead
   and uses the very same story again. Over and over and over.....
   Is he *so* stupid that he can't even remember being corrected?
   I doubt it.
 
 b)Reagan is the typical lying politician
   given that Reagan's distortions *always* favor his own
   political ideology this has some plausibility.  But then
   he *is* so sincere in saying it, he never expresses the
   guilt of the liar who knows he is lying.
 
 c)Reagan truly believes what he says
   this is probably true but then how does what he says
   so frequently conflict with the facts even when they are
   pointed out to him?
 
My explanation is a combination of all three causes.  Reagan is
very ill-informed on very many issues but not necessarily
stupid.  However he is also a pathological liar, i.e. somebody
who not only incessantly lies, but somebody who *believes* his
own lies and made-up stories.  The pathological liar can never
be uncovered on a lie detector test (or by the shifty eye test)
because he comes to believe his own lies.  Reagan used to simply
make-up play by play announcements on radio when the ticker-tape
broke.  He does the same with  making up stories about teenage
welfare mothers living high on the hog, or students on
student aid living in luxury, or the "communist dictatorship"
in Nicaragua.  He makes up convenient fictions which accord with
his narrowminded view of the world.  Does this mean he is "evil"?
Not necessarily.  Certainly his *intentions* are good given
his narrowminded view of the world - everything would be a
paradise if one could really perform such miracles as 
quadrupling the military budget, cutting taxes and still balance
the budget.  Or if one could have a magic technological wand
to make nuclear weapons obsolete.  But this is the type of
fantastic thinking that pathological liars and the deranged
engage in.  But should a nation be so deranged?
These types of fantasy may be comforting but they are *dangerous*.
While Reagan spins out such fantasies, both the US and the Soviet
Union are building 5 new nuclear weapons every *day*.  Reagan plans
on building 17,000 more nuclear weapons in the next decade.
(Scientific American, Nov. 1982, charts on projected weapons)
The MX missile, the Trident D-5 missile are *first-strike* capable
weapons which make the nuclear standoff even more precarious.
While the world spends $900 billion this year on weapons
people are starving, without shelter, and desperately poor 
throughout the world.
I think supporting such a policy is morally wrong, just as it
was wrong to support slavery and wrong to support segregation.
Most especially to support these policies by a web of lies
is particularly repugnant.  The lies should be exposed.
That is what my articles are intended to do.
           tim sevener   whuxn!orb