Quote: Wonder Boy said: Ronald Reagan made many similar comments (as Dave Barry) about federal government.
Ronald Reagan called the government "an enemy"? That doesn't seem like something a President, ex-President, or aspiring President would do.
I must ask: what and when were some of these comments?
Quote: I'd hardly call Reagan a liberal.
Nor would I, and I didn't claim that it was a purely liberal attitude. My view is simply that in "today's USA"(meaning a post-9/11 USA, not a 20 years ago while Reagan was still in office USA), there tend to be more conservatives telling the public to trust the government than liberals.
Quote: The point is that the PC thought police have struck again, and told a college professor what he can and cannot put on the door of his own office.
Well...sure, I guess. I agree it's stupid censorship and I agree the rising prevalence of this kind of censorship is a little disturbing. I just think G-Man is completely off-base in asserting, from the basic facts presented, that it is an example of liberals silencing a "conservative view".
Quote: Pariah said: He didn't say anything of the sort. He said that the nature of big and complicated government is what's "untrustworthy."
No, I don't think so. If he had, he probably would have said something remotely close to that, instead of saying what he actually said, which wasn't remotely close to that.
His joke was that the government was an enemy. How is that a conservative perspective being expressed?
Quote: Your assumption that he's talking about government more literally (i.e. specifically talking about Bush), is totally opposite of Dave's comment.
I have no idea if he was talking specifically about this Bush, and I didn't make that claim, or imply it was so. For all I know, he wrote the comment 10 years ago(he wrote most of his books before 2000, so it's fairly likely he did).
Regardless, these days, it doesn't appear to be a widespread belief amongst conservatives. Really, Barry's intent means less than the intepretation of the statement and the context in which it's placed.
Anyway, the comment itself way too unspecific to ascribe a political agenda. That's my point. You, and G-Man, are making this out to be something it isn't, both on the part of Barry, and of the professor who interpreted the quote.
Quote: His satirical claim is stated in too broad a fashion for your argument to be true.
Yet not too broad for you to attribute a "conservative lean" to it?
