Happy Birthday!
 

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The Man. The Legend. He's 91 years old today. Happy birthday, Dutch. *wipes a tear* Wish you could be here to celebrate it with us.

severely conflicted
 

I went with just another politician but that doesn't really descibe where I'm at with RWR. I was draft age when Reagan was in and I felt at the time that he was quite insane. His rhetoric about economic freedom and whatever credit he gets for knocking the pins out from under the Soviet State are great positives. America regained her confidence in the private sector, a positive. Unfortunately, his military expansion, which gets credit for taking down the Russians, also laid the ground work for absurd levels of spending, debt (I know, I know Congress...) and military adventurism by his succesors. So now we have an enormous warfare/welfare state with great expansions in military spending to come and it follows that we get a Republican successor who buys into ferally (oops typo but its so appropriate I'll leave it) controlled education and apparently believes that government spending on stimulus packages is better than letting the citizens choose their priorities. In short, we now have two big government parties instead of one.

I'm suprised that this thread has been so inactive. Dutch inspired such passion in the day, maybe folks want to be respectful of him in his present circumstance.

What can you say? It's a mixed bag for me too. A strong leader who led in some good directions and some bad ones.

I like that Ron Jr. I wish he would get more work. How two tough-as-nails parents could produce a sensitive male is remarkable. Makes you think maybe Ronnie really had a soft side where he really believed everything he said.

I think you're probably right, Griff. Most people tend to shy away from kicking a man when he's down.

I think it's a shame that Reagan never had a chance to enjoy the role of "Elder Statesman". Our political folklore would have been richer for it!

It would have been interesting, seeing Ron lean on these guys. :)
He really believed in America, I think we'll all miss that.