Kasz216 said:
akuma587 said:
Oh yeah, LBJ totally botched it by getting involved in Vietnam. There were some merits to containment as a foreign policy, but on the whole it was pretty much a complete failure, especially containment through the use of military force.
I'm not trying saying that we would have been better off if we would have spent less money in Vietnam, I am trying to say that we would have been better off if we hadn't spent any money there in the first place. I feel the same way about Iraq.
You could argue that the Soviet Union would have collapsed under its own weight even if Reagan hadn't spent that extra money. They had systematic problems throughout their entire country even before we started having a pissing contest with them in the 80's. The vibrancy of our economy and the severe problems with their economy were just as much a factor or more in our "victory" over the Soviet Union.
In a lot of circumstances, economic warfare is more effective than actual warfare. Plus its typically cheaper and you don't get your hands dirty.
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Regardless... when in a war and your option is to spend a lot of money... or not too... to spend money is seen as better. There was no opting out of the Cold war.
You should of been there with me. I was one of the few people i could find who thought attacking Iraq was stupid in the first place. Everyone else was too caught up in the 9/11 love.
It probably would of collapsed without us spending that extra money. The question is... what would they have done before it collapsed? If they thought America was weak.
Also at the time it should be noted America was in a bit of economic trouble itself. Blamed at the time on Reagans deficit spending... and trying to control inflation.
Democrats pressured him to fight the recession by raising taxes and focus on fiscal responsibility. He didn't really... but he did pass a huge tax hike like the democrats wanted. Eventually the recession fixed itself.
Kinda funny considering.
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Reagan was right to cut taxes because 1) the country was facing staglation, and 2) the tax rates were pretty high. I am just upset that so many people now think that cutting taxes is the solution to every economic problem.
He was also smart for later passing that tax hike, as the economy had recovered and it would hurt revenue otherwise. I won't comment on any of the political decisionmaking that went into the decisions, but they were sound economic ones for that time.
But our economic situation wasn't quite so bad during Reagan's second term. I don't think Reagan's decision to spend money on the Cold War was a foolish one in the same way that Bush's decision to invade Iraq was, I just think it set a bad precedent of excessive military spending. Reagan's decision was at least a rational one. But I do question people's belief that the Soviet Union would not have collapsed without that spending.
In terms of modern day, I mean I didn't care as much about Afghanistan (although I certainly wasn't promoting us invading the country) as they were actively housing terrorists involved in 9/11. That was at least a rational decision in comparison. Lol, and I don't know if I would call it 9/11 love, more like 9/11 fear. People were acting so fucking crazy after 9/11 here in the Texas. They thought terrorists would attack our podunk ass 200,000 person town. Simply ridiculous.
And if we were concerned about rooting out terrorists in the Middle East who were tied to 9/11, we should have looked at Saudi Arabia too. But we had too many other kinds of political ties with them for that to be an option (at least in Bush's eyes).
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
