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The first bit of legislation Ronald Reagan passed when he became president banned marijuana protesters from rallying on government property. That is the essence of the grass roots Republican of the eighties: if you don't like them, shut them up. Not unlike George W. Bush's cabinet's role in outing CIA agent, Valerie Plame, because her husband had made unpopular suggestions about the administrations handling of the war on terror and military action in Iraq.

Toward the end of the Carter administration, Reagan is reported to have sent lobbyists with large contribution checks to keep the higher ranking politicians in a deadlock about dealing with the Iran Contra affair. As soon as Reagan stepped in, the senate came up with a solution. This is a process called showboating. Making it look like you're doing something you're not. Reagan's activities forced the Embassy prisoners to spend nearly half a year undergoing a soft but apparently brutal form of torture, so that he'd look better while campaigning.

Reagan spent a third of his daytime hours in office asleep. A change I have noticed is that now the Republican spends a third of his time in office drunk.

Reagan had his vice president, former head of the CIA, George Herbert Walker Bush, buy out the KGB so that by the time the president demanded: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," the Kremlin had no choice.

As near as I can tell, the only difference between the activities of the modern Republican, and the classic Republican, is that one was able to keep secrets.

In this modern world where we pretend that everything is worse than it was ten, or even fifty years ago, there has been little change to the Republican.

People talk about America today as though slavery never existed, as though we never had a great depression, as though we didn't make immense sacrifices and live in squalor through WWII. People act as though the Hippie and following Yippie movements never occurred. Like Vietnam was a playground and we are now living in the worst of times, at the end of times. People act as though Britain's Guy Fawkes wasn't a bombing terrorist without care for the people he may have killed. There's nothing new under the sun, they say.

I meet young people all the time, these days, who believe that Reagan was a saint. That he somehow did things without hurting anyone. As though he hadn't masterminded the attack on Noriega's Panama because Noriega refused to allow cocaine, on its way to becoming crack in America's ghettos, to pass through his country from Colombia.

What happened to the Reagan Republican? He woke up and started talking too much. "Facts are stupid things." said Ronald Reagan. "But let me tell you, this gender thing is history. You're looking at a guy who sat down with Margaret Thatcher across the table and talked about serious issues." Said George H.W. Bush. "And there is distrust in Washington. I am surprised, frankly, at the amount of distrust that exists in this town. And I'm sorry it's the case, and I'll work hard to try to elevate it." George W. Bush.

There is essentially no real change in motive, only manner. And that, as near as I can tell, is only in public.

Learn more about this author, Alvin Spines.
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