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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   11192 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026

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Which brings us back to this: My rules > your rules applied fairly > your rules applied unfairly.

I'm a reaganite libertarian, so this is incompetence in understanding there are more viewpoints than just hyper left and hyper right.

Ah yes, the famous fiscal conservative Ronald Reagan.

Reagan was consistently for shrinking government spending. Congress holds the power of the purse, not the presidency, so he was not empowered to do as he wished there but it's very obvious what his preference was. That's one of the biggest takeaways from the Grace Commission, like 80% of what they found required Congress (controlled by Democrats) to work with him. They did not, because the Dems are for big govt.

That is not the case now, we can not pretend the GOP is still a small government less spending advocate given both Trump's constant grandiose claims to increase spending, and the fact that there is actually a trifecta without any action to decrease the deficit. Reagan didn't have the power but he tried. Trump has the power and keeps pushing for more spending.

The debt and deficit exploded under Reagan. In the words of the immortal Dick Cheney: "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter".

His biggest legacy is a giant increase in military spending to force the Soviets to respond, thereby collapsing their empire. And good on him for it. No doubt he'd also be in favor of the current Iran conflict, which we are doing on a shoestring budget in comparison.

But of course it's very easy to be in favor of dead conservatives who you assign any beliefs you like to. No doubt there were "conservatives" in the 1980s who claimed to have voted for Eisenhower, but now encouraged people to vote for Mondale because Reagan was "too radical".

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