Originally Posted by NW Ponderer
Friend, your posts sometimes remind me of ricocheting bullets - they travel off on wild tangents and I have trouble following the trajectory.
Originally Posted by Senator Hatrack
Originally Posted by NW Ponderer
I'm afraid that kinda missed my point, actually. Goldwater and the others weren't "cured" - they were carriers. The infection did spread, and, like herpes, erupts occasionally, as it did with Reagan. Reagan was a vector, spreading the infection with false nostrums about "welfare queens" and "lifting boats", while pursuing really inhumane policies. We now know he shared the same racist beliefs Nixon did.
If you mean racism you are wrong! If you are talking about a “criminal mindset” that too is wrong. Yes, Nixon was a crook but his "criminal mindset" did not spread into the Republican Party any more than it did into entire American population. To think that “welfare queens” is racist is not true. The percentage of welfare recipients is 39.8% white and 38.8% blacks. That means the “welfare queens” are white women. The saying “A rising tide lifts all boats.” was first said by Pres. Kennedy. Was JFK a racist?
I'm not sure exactly how we got here, or what path we traveled to get here. I acknowledge that I did mention Reagan's racism - which was always apparent to me. He was a consummate huckster, too. But that was far from the point I was aiming at. Let me adjust the sights.

Yes, Nixon was a crook, but the point was that his behavior was symptomatic. Nor was it corrected by the actions of the other "carriers". The point of the "criminal mindset" is not, specifically criminality, but the attitude it represents: not caring about consequences.


More later. Got work to do.
If Reagan was a racist it was only because he grew up in a time when the entire country was. But to call anyone who grew up before the 1960's civil rights movement a racist is to judge them by today's standards not the standards of their time. If you grew up before then, like Reagan, you NW are a racist. But then I am too. (I wonder long it will take for this to be taken out of context.)

The criminal mindset of which you speak is something every politician has regardless of which party they are a member of. They are because the only consequence they care about is not getting reelected. They just might "shining examples" of the ends, reelection, justifying the means, criminal behavior.

The state can never straighten the crooked timber of humanity.
I'm a conservative because I question authority.
Conservative Revolutionary