remember President Reagan using the term statism to describe the foes of conserving the American founding. It seems to me it was a carefully chosen term because it transcended the contemporary definitions of right versus left.
If a political party or movement proposed government control over our lives, they were statists, they were the opposition. What Reagan would not recognize is the Mitch McConnell led Republican Senate who, exercised scores of retreating maneuvers that allowed our Republic to become more statist.
And, President Reagan would recognize the MAGA movement as an effective counter to statism.
Our Founding Father's greatest concern for our newly minted Constitutional Republic was an all-powerful centralized government.
The Articles of Confederation, our original government model, was too focused on states rights and independence. For example, the states (countries really) printed their own currency. They were striking their own foreign trade deals.
It became obvious to the Founder's that we needed one currency for trade, we needed to band together to negotiate foreign trade deal and use the leverage of all of the states instead of one on one. And, being a young nation, foreign nations were licking their chops and thinking of taking us over, so we needed a national defense force.
Having said all that, the basis of our nation was limited government at the federal level. Any power not specifically outlined in the US Constitution is reserved for THE STATES or WE THE PEOPLE.
So yes, Reagan hat it right. Statists were the antithesis of our Founder's ideals.
Reagan once said the worst 11 words any American could ever hear were,
A lot of older Republicans have a lot of cognitive dissidence when it comes to statism. Blowing up our national debt for defense spending is ok, but giving lunch to poor kids is bad? A lot of it is just very bad optics and not good policy.
I agree and I’m an older Republican. Over the years Republican politicians have been masters of bad optics.
One question I have on defense spending is how much would a strong national defense really cost if it is only used to defend our nation? What is expensive is the Uniparty’s expansive definition of “national security” and “national interest.”
From what I've seen, "national security" and "national interest" are magic words, to be uttered when the Deep State thinks it's not getting Congress to give them enough of our money.
It's "our allies" driving up the defense budget. We could absolutely defend our borders with a tiny fraction of the spending we do now. Unfortunately we also have to pay for the entire world.
remember President Reagan using the term statism to describe the foes of conserving the American founding. It seems to me it was a carefully chosen term because it transcended the contemporary definitions of right versus left.
If a political party or movement proposed government control over our lives, they were statists, they were the opposition. What Reagan would not recognize is the Mitch McConnell led Republican Senate who, exercised scores of retreating maneuvers that allowed our Republic to become more statist.
And, President Reagan would recognize the MAGA movement as an effective counter to statism.
Our Founding Father's greatest concern for our newly minted Constitutional Republic was an all-powerful centralized government.
The Articles of Confederation, our original government model, was too focused on states rights and independence. For example, the states (countries really) printed their own currency. They were striking their own foreign trade deals.
It became obvious to the Founder's that we needed one currency for trade, we needed to band together to negotiate foreign trade deal and use the leverage of all of the states instead of one on one. And, being a young nation, foreign nations were licking their chops and thinking of taking us over, so we needed a national defense force.
Having said all that, the basis of our nation was limited government at the federal level. Any power not specifically outlined in the US Constitution is reserved for THE STATES or WE THE PEOPLE.
So yes, Reagan hat it right. Statists were the antithesis of our Founder's ideals.
Reagan once said the worst 11 words any American could ever hear were,
A lot of older Republicans have a lot of cognitive dissidence when it comes to statism. Blowing up our national debt for defense spending is ok, but giving lunch to poor kids is bad? A lot of it is just very bad optics and not good policy.
I agree and I’m an older Republican. Over the years Republican politicians have been masters of bad optics.
One question I have on defense spending is how much would a strong national defense really cost if it is only used to defend our nation? What is expensive is the Uniparty’s expansive definition of “national security” and “national interest.”
From what I've seen, "national security" and "national interest" are magic words, to be uttered when the Deep State thinks it's not getting Congress to give them enough of our money.
It's "our allies" driving up the defense budget. We could absolutely defend our borders with a tiny fraction of the spending we do now. Unfortunately we also have to pay for the entire world.