Time and time again man has failed to learn the lessons of history. Chief amongst these lessons is that you cannot discuss history while the events in question are still current events. As a brief example- How many trials of the century did the 1900's have? How many storms of the century? How many inventions of the century? The list goes on and on from Lindbergh to OJ to Clinton. Give it 50 years.

This lesson is particularly well adapted to politics. You have no idea of the ultimate ramifications or effectiveness of a President's policies while he is still in office.

It really amuses me greatly that conservatives have spent the last 20 years attempting to uplift Regan into the sainthood. The guy fucked a lot of shit up. Yeah, Carter wasnt great, yeah Clinton wasnt great, I get that. But neither did as much harm to this country as Regan did.

Let us start with the war on drugs. Just say no. Yeah, great. Regan pushed the war on drugs ahead full speed. Congress couldnt pass enough laws or long enough sentences for nonviolent drug related offences. The states were encouraged to follow his lead. I know that Regan didnt control the California legislature, but this statistic is illuminative towards what happened in many states and on the federal level under Regan. During the 1980's the California legislature passed over 1,000 drug laws. Drugs were illegal in 1980, yet they felt the need to average a new law every three days or so. The result is that the US incarcerates more people than any country on earth. We cannot financially afford this, yet we continue destroying neighborhoods and families and packing the jails.

There is a myth that Regan ended the Cold War. It never ended. Putin was recently quoted as saying he thought we were in a cold war. The Russians are in Iran, helping them build nuke plants. We are in Iraq. The Russians are in Georgia. We are in eastern europe. The cold war didnt end, it just slowed while russia had to reconstitute itself and streamline its ineffective bureacracy. Gee, wonder if that will sound familiar to us in the near future?

Star wars. extremely expensive, doesnt work.

The environment.

Regan stripped the tax incentives given to solar and wind power companies. At the time they were fledgling, and without the tax incentives, the companies had to go to countries like belguim. Now other countries are leading the world in this regard instead of us.

Regan capped the mpg limits from gradually increasing on vehicles, and stripped them altogether in many circumstances. Now we do not lead in this regard. Gee a fuel crisis these days and regan was against mpg standards and alternative energy. What foresight!

His secretary of the interior was the lawyer for a group of western landowners. In the west the government owns a lot of land, all under the department of the interior. The landowners were suing the department of interior because they wanted unrestricted use of the lands. So for the secretary of the department of the interior, he chose a lawyer who was against the department of the interior.

He did the same thing with the epa, only it was a coorporate lobbyist who had fought the epa, not a lawyer.

In summary, I cant see a damn thing Regan did. Trickle down is bullshit, and doesnt work. All of his claimed victories are only serving as long term liabilities to our country. Great president my ass.