From: mikeh@starnine.com (Mike Haas)
Subject: Re: PC, Redneck President, and other bad news. (was Re: Amiga 1200)
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 02:09:46 GMT
Organization: StarNine Technologies, Inc.

In article <1992Nov7.221949.6127@cs.mcgill.ca> jerry@cs.mcgill.ca (Gerald (Jerry) KUCH) writes:
>In article <1992Nov6.000536.22326@ra.msstate.edu> skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls) writes:
>>In article <36732@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes:
>>>In article <1992Nov4.202447.10362@ra.msstate.edu> skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls) writes:
>>>
>>Funny, I don't seem to recall saying anything about supporting Bush.  If I'm
>>anti-Clinton, does that make me automatically pro-Bush?  Hell, I'm pretty 
>>liberal for a white-boy from the South: I don't believe in deities, I support
>>a woman's right to have an abortion, I don't believe in censorship, and I'd
>>love to see a lot less government involvement in people's private lives.  But
>
>This was something that Reagan and Bush harped about extensively in the early
>1980s during a period when they set out to help "mom and pop businesses tied
>up in government red tape."  

Yeh, I thought that sounded like a good idea too!  I agree that it
didn't take Reagan long to start attacking the core of the economic woes
of business in this country... to much government.

>Of course it made the most sense to appoint to
>the head of the Task Force on Regulatory Relief a Texas oil tycoon and former
>head of the CIA... none other than George Bush. 

It was a great appointment.  Have your Vice-President personally
involved in the economic reforms process... Reagan was brilliant!

>Also during this period 
>corporations lobbied Congress to the extent of $1 billion dollars in order to
>sell deregulation to the public.

Good!  That means that the government and business were getting back 
true capitalism and working together doing it!  Sounds good so far.

>Then Reagan decided that the person most
>suited to heading OSHA (which presumably is interfering in private lives 
>too much already) a contractor who had received 48 safety violations form 
>OSHA in the past.  The EPA was taken over by a Colorado politican who had
>resisted toxics regulation, fought controls on strip-mining and obstructed
>various pieces of state hazardous waste regulation.

All because those organizations had blossomed under Carter to be
the biggest burdens on the back of American business since the
depression.  They drastically needed trimming down and brought
back to reality.

>When Reagan deregulated
>buses, trains and airlines, 3763 communities lost interstate bus service, 
>1200 towns lost rail service and 150 airlines went bankrupt.

Much of it duplicate service fighting, scratching, biting for the same
dollar.  Deregulation simply sped up the impending demise of
companies that were unnaturally structured from the false need of
government dictates.  The government can't dictate what it
was (at that time) dictating without something giving.

And the proof was seen.  Inflation dropped like a rock, unemployment
dropped, interest rates dropped... Reagans genius at work.

>
>All the while, as Reagan harped about regulation "holding back free
>enterprise," polls showed that only 5% of the public thought that workplace
>and consumer protection regulations were too strict.

Sorry.  I don't remember it that way.  I remember a public that
was QUITE fed up with Mr Carter and his anti-business practices.
The current sentiments in California are reminiscent...business
THIS time, however, has the option to move...which it is doing in droves.

Actually, business had the option to move back then, too.  And thanks to
Carter, many did.  Overseas.

>
>Although it may not have been your intention with your reference to "private
>lives," you've conjured up images of a lot of the rhetoric used to justify
>inanity like the above.

The restrictions that liberals want to put on American business is inane.
The belief that American business is evil and requires more and
more government to watch over it is absurd.  It's the ramblings of
liberals (who KNOW they aren't forthright about their agendas) who
distrust everyone because they themselves are not trustful.

And in case you haven't noticed... YOU'RE spewing forth enough
retoric for the both of us.

>
>>>Get a clue.  If you're comparing IQs, the Bush/Quayle administration set an 
>>>all time low (its only close competition was the Reagan/Bush administration).
>>>I'm proud to have helped to elect a President and Vice President with at least
>>>above average intelligence (you don't get to be a Rhodes Scholar by being a 
>>>"stupid hillbilly").  

Yup.   "I didn't inhale." EXTREMELY intelligent.

>>
>>Again, where have I said anything about supporting Bush or Quayle?  If IQ is
>>so important, why don't we have nuclear scientists and other smart folks in
>>office instead of a bunch of asshole lawyers?  And Dave, Ole Miss has never
>>had the reputation of being a great school except maybe at the state level,
>>but we've had a few Rhodes Scholars.   
>
>Jimmy Carter was a nuclear engineer.  And with respect to Ole Miss, wasn't
>Clinton at Georgetown when he received his Rhodes Scholarship?  Deserved
>or not, its reputation is hardly terrible.

Who cares?

>
>A technically literate and educated political elite is something that is
>growing more overdue.

No, plenty of that drivel in Berkeley.  A clone of Ronald Reagan
is long overdue.


>I once had an instructor who harped against technical
>specialization in education, claiming that industry was suffering and that
>glorious success stories like Chrysler were brought about by broad minded
>and generally educated individuals like Lee Iacocca.  The value and
>necessity of a well balanced and varied education aside, I'd hardly call
>a corrupt technocrat whose company was saved from the grave by federal
>loan guarantees and some interestingly loosened safety regulations that
>enabled new cost cutting measures that were previously illegal a glorious
>success story...   just a thought.

Is THAT what you call a thought?  Sounds like stamped-out rhetoric to me.

You see... you reject technical literacy and conventional political
wisdom when it confronts you.