[BigV]

Adak, you're like the Conservative Tasmanian Devil! I can't keep up with you, I don't know how you manage to bat back all the challenges to your positions. I have one clue, you are just posting about your feelings and your memories (old and fresh, nothing wrong with that) but it's not a fair analysis of larger groups or systemic traits. You point out that glatt has a selective memory, but of course we all do. That's why citations help clarify what's been selected and what's been discounted. You speak in broad terms, but use very limited specific examples like definitions of big ideas. Now, this is a complaint about your style, not about your positions. I think you unfairly, improperly characterize a few things like "true conservatives", poor people, Islam, American government and civics for example when you talk in stereotypes and buzzwords and cliches.

It's like listening to one of those blind men describe the elephant. Yes, the trunk is like a snake, yes, the tail is like a rope, etc etc. But an elephant isn't like a snake or a rope. You fixate on a narrow example then characterize a whole swath of people based on that stereotype. It is poor critical thinking. Even you yourself retreat from many of these examples, ("I didn't say 90% was an average number", "the EPA telling me what plywood I can buy", etc.) but unchallenged, they stand as if they are Truth. Honestly, nothing of substance is purely one thing only. If it can fit on a bumper sticker, it's probably not so or not important.

I say YOU, because you're writing here, but I see this kind of communication, this kind of thinking all over the place and I find it objectionable. Depending on the motivation I sense from the speaker, that objection ranges from bemusement to frustration to anger toward those who I feel are deliberately and knowingly deceptive. I don't think you are in that category, but the bloviators from Fox News land are a lot of the time.

Like xoB, I value truth highly. To be able to discern truth, I need facts and information, and enough of them to be able to compare them. In my experience, it's rarely the case that one example defines a whole group. I need more facts to find out the truth (like I did in the diy thread about my range installation). Your input is one of many, but it doesn't seem very high quality since little of what you've presented is objectively verifiable.

So. Just a little at a time from me then. Tell me, what makes Reagan a "TRUE conservative"? I don't think you can judge "from his actions" as you correctly advise that all his actions could be described that way.