Reagan abandoning the search for alternative fuels also is a major factor in increasing global warming that America is only now waking up to address, despite repeated warmings over several years from a few politicians and concerned scientists.
Reagan, in his anti-communism zeal, armed and trained the fanatics who took over Afghanistan who then sheltered bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network that attacked the United States and murdered Americans in many parts of the world. Reagan sent arms and toxic chemicals to Iraq, then remained silent when Hussein used them to murder thousands of his own people.
Reagan subverted the United States Constitution several ways during his Iran-contra scandal. Article IV, Section 3, says Congress decides by law how to dispose of US property. Reagan's regime stole weaponry worth hundreds of million of dollars to sell to the rogue nation of Iran. That's subversion No. 1. The Constitution says government money can be spent only under authority of law and any spending must be published in a journal and made public. Reagan spent the money without authority of law (subversion No. 2) by sending it to Nicaragua in an attempt to return that nation to the rule of henchmen from the Somoza dictatorship that ruled for years by imprisonment, torture and murder. Subversion No. 3 was not publishing the transactions. Subversion No. 4 was keeping that transfer of money secret.
Reagan then made speeches from his office denying that the Iran-contra episode ever happened. He did this while under a constitutional oath to "... faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, and will to ... preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." This lying under constitutional oath makes President Bill Clinton's denying a sexual relationship with a competent adult ~ under a lower-court oath ~ pale in comparison because the Constitution is the "supreme Law of the Land"; a deposition under a minor court's authority is much lower in stature.
Reagan created anti-America "citizens militia" with his version on "homeland security," a neighborhood watch initiative. The hatred those "militia" held for America's constitutional principles ~ possibly formed by listening to Reagan spew disdain for the US government he headed ~ emboldened registered Republican Timothy McVeigh to bomb the federal building in Oklahoma City killing 168 Americans in a fit over the death of religious fanatics in Waco, Texas, who ambushed and killed four US agents because they couldn't understand basic biblical principles.
Crime exploded under Reagan, most noticeably in his administration. There were 123 federal officials indicted on criminal charges the year before Reagan took office. Thereafter, a steady fivefold increase of indictments occurred, ending with 629 in 1988. In the same time period, indictments of local politicians increased from 247 to 276 and state officials indicted fell from 72 to 66. This wave of administration crime occurred after the "law-and-order" Reagan fired thousands of "hardworking American" air-traffic controllers for striking illegally. Inmates in the nation's prisons tripled during the Reagan years.
Reagan misused the military in Lebanon and Grenada by employing them there for combat without congressional approval nor any treaty obligations.
Reagan wasted billions of dollars on his Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), a folly reputable scientists say will never work but did enrich his friends in firms doing defense contracting.
Reagan ignored the AIDs epidemic that cost thousands of Americans their lives when research into diseases of the immune system could lead to remedies for many divergent illnesses.
Reagan's paranoia about "pornography" gave rise to a situation in which parents are afraid to photograph a nude infant on a bearskin rug.
Reagan opened the government door to the religious right, with Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition leading the way in determining much public policy, except in those areas in which corporations called the shots.
Reagan's contribution to the so-called "war on drugs" was his "zero tolerance" policy of confiscating property without any form of conviction or even an indictment. That led many innocent people to lose homes, vehicles, boats because of the actions of others and which hadn't benefited the person whose property was taken and who knew nothing of drug activity.
Reagan named Antonin Scalia to the US Supreme Court where he has screamed loud and often against the fundamental freedoms the United States Constitution promises to protect. Scalia may be the most-anticonstitutional judge of all time, with his crowning achievement being leader of the cabal that appointed the intellectually impaired George W. Bush to the presidency
The age of Reagan evidently was a contributing factor to his dismal record, for he was exhibiting signs throughout his administration of being mentally damaged by the alzheimer's disease that eventually took his life.
It must be remembered that Reagan kicked off his quest for the presidency in Philadelphia, Miss., infamous as the site of the murder of three civil-rights ativists in the 1960s, thereby delivering a backhanded blow to the constitutional rights of equality the civil-rights struggle was all about. While president, he visited the graveyard of Nazi soldiers in Germany, citing their sacrifices in World War II.
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