From: john@anasazi.com (John R. Moore)
Subject: Re: Greatest President Since Teddy Roosevelt
Reply-To: john@anasazi.com
Organization: Anasazi Inc, Phoenix AZ USA
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 22:34:02 GMT

Keywords: 

In article <randall.711846814@seashore> randall@informix.com (Randall Rhea) writes:
]john@anasazi.com (John R. Moore) writes:
]
]
]>These officials were persecuted for a (misguided) attempt to do what
]>is best for the country. Contrast that to most scandals, where the culprits
]>are guilty of feathering their own nest.
]
]So what?  An illegal act is still illegal, no matter what the
]motivation.  This is the same "the ends justify the means"
]argument that we heard all through the whole Iran-Conta mess.
]Also, much of the corruption in the Reagan Administration
]DID involve people who personnally gained from it. (e.g.
]the HUD scandal)

As I said, CONTRAST that to most scandals. As far as the HUD scandal
goes.... that should hardly be an indictment of the whole Reagan
Administration. Every administration has some corruption, which is one
reason that conservatives believe that governmental power should be 
limitted. You are implying that the Reagan Administration can
be categorized as "corrupt", but have not provided any evidence of that.

]>I think it says that Reagan appointed moral people who did their best for
]>their country. I think it also says that if we don't end the special
]>prosecutor law, it will become impossible to get decent people to serve
]>in the executive branch. The criminalization of policy disputes is
]>IMHO the greatest threat to our form of government since the civil war!
]
]The deliberate circumvention of the Consitution and its system
]of checks and balances is a much bigger threat, and that is
]just what happened in Iran-Contra.  The executive branch,
]along with private citizens and certain people from the military,
]decided that they were going to conduct foreign policy on their
]own, Congress and the Constitution be damned, even if it meant handing 
]weapons over to terrorists.  Such were the acts of your "moral people."

Let's take a look at that, eh? The conduct of foreign policy is held
to be that of the executive, not the legislative branch. Their job
is to conduct foreign policy. What happened in IC was that some
people went beyond policy. What also happened was that Congress
sowed a political minefield that virtually guaranteed that
someone would do something illegal. I fault Reagan for not directly
challenging the Boland amendment on constitutional grounds. And yes,
I think these WERE acts of moral people.... can you give me a different
motivation other than that they were trying to do their best for
their country. They were misguided, not immoral.


]Recent revelations that Reagan knew what was going on shows that he 
]was personally corrupt, not just a innocent bystander.

First of all, there have been no such revelations. Second, what does
that have to do with corruption?


-- 
John Moore NJ7E, 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale, AZ 85253  (602-951-9326)
john@anasazi.com ncar!noao!asuvax!anasaz!john anasaz!john@asuvax.eas.asu.edu
 - - Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! - -
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Xref: sparky talk.politics.misc:34912 alt.politics.clinton:112