Well, from that angle, the Reagan quote makes no sense. The hypothetical speaker might just as well be saying “I’m from your church and I’m here to help”, or “I’m your neighbor and I’m here to help”.
The position that Reagan was trying to pitch with that quip was the notion that it was specifically government that allegedly did such a terrible job of helping its citizens.
Quoting Thoreau, whose position (at least theoretically, although as other posters have pointed out, he didn’t really live up to it in practice) was that all forms of interpersonal help between individuals were suspect, doesn’t really provide any meaningful ideological support for Reagan’s particular brand of targeted anti-government schtick.
on John Wayne FTR: This is not really accurate. He was originally automatically deferred as he was 34 years old. Apparently Republic Studio was behind him staying not draft eligible. Wayne did apply to OSS (precursor to the CIA). The story gets a little fuzzy at that point.
So while he was no Jimmy Stewart, volunteering immediately and flying dangerous bomber missions, he wasn’t exactly a draft dodger either.
I don’t actually. Neither Wayne nor the commander of OSS William Donovan ever revealed the whole story. I got the impression Donovan probably recruited him. But I read about this quite a while ago. I can’t find much online about it. There seems like a lot of conflicting stories.
The only sure fact is he started as a 3a classification due to age. Reports he applied for such don’t actually make sense. He wouldn’t have had to. There is a letter on file by William Donovan thanking Wayne for his service and another accepting him to join the OSS.
The Reports about Republic Studio intervening to keep him 3a when eligibility expanded seem pretty consistent and make sense as they were protecting their most bankable asset.
My position is that I want to be left alone. Fortunately, I don’t need or want help from the government. If others do, that’s fine, but please don’t drag me into such a scheme.
But such a “position” is ultimately and fundamentally unrealistic for someone living in a society. It is also belied by the very fact of your presence on a discussion messageboard, voluntarily conversing with other posters instead of avoiding them the way someone who really wanted to be left alone would do.
You might respond that that’s not what you meant about being “left alone”, you just meant you wanted lower taxes or less zoning restrictions or something. If so, fine, but you have to specify what it is that you mean by being “left alone” if you want it to count as an actual “position” rather than as a free-floating whine.
Again, this is a meaningless rhetorical flourish unless you can explain what you mean by being “dragged into such a scheme”. Do you mean that you refuse to accept benefits like Social Security or Medicare, or for that matter police or firefighter services or mail delivery, because you consider them unacceptable “help from the government” which you refust to be “dragged into”?
Or do you just mean that you don’t think anybody else ought to get any more “help from the government” than you yourself currently get, or that if they do then the government should somehow exempt you from contributing tax revenue to pay for that?
I mean, any of those premises could potentially be worked up into some kind of coherent and self-consistent actual position on the role of government in society. But as your statement now stands, it’s just a grumble, not a position.
Basic services that make sense–National Defense, police/fire, mail, etc. are fine. Things like taxpayer funding of midnight basketball or studying the sex lives of hummingbirds, not so much.
So whatever makes sense to you is fine. No one else counts. Is that how it’s supposed to work? Will you consult with congress ahead of time or just wait and rely on your veto power to prevent anything that doesn’t makes sense?
And by the way, if D_Anconia’s disdainful remark about “studying the sex lives of hummingbirds” was a deliberate jab at the Dope’s late lamented Colibri aka George Angehr, world-renowned ornithologist and hummingbird specialist, and employee of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (a partly taxpayer-funded organization), then let’s just say that I am… not impressed.
I’d rather the government spend a thousand dollars preventing a crime than ten thousand dollars dealing with the aftermath of a crime. Putting aside the negative effects of the crime itself, that’s just good financial sense. If tax money spend on midnight basketball saves us from spending more tax money on police and prison than it was a good pragmatic decision to fund midnight basketball. (And I’ll point out I’m saying this even though some of that money being spent on prisons was going into my pocket.)
The problem is some people have limited intelligence. They can see the money being spent on midnight basketball. But they’re not smart enough to understand how this leads to less crime and less money being spent overall. And back around 1980, the Republicans found that they could build a political base around people with limited intelligence because they’re easy to manipulate.
That’s the Reagan legacy. Republican leaders telling lies to Republican voters.
Ignorant people aren’t necessarily bad people. But the populist right was able to reach them, and that reach continues for the authoritarian right. Did the left make an effort?
In The Ascent of Man, Dr. Bronowski stands in the little pond at Auschwitz where thousands of people’s ashes, including his family’s, had been flushed. He makes a great point about the dangers of crap science, but, significantly, his last words were “we need to reach people.”
