Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
It's not clear to me that we did anything that made much difference in the demise of the Soviet Union, but it is important (hi Iraq!) to pretend that we exercise more control over events in foreign countries than we really do. Arguably our military build-up was forcing them to try to keep up, but this seems like a half-assed way to claim victory, since those arms were sold to us at the time as the necessary response to a Soviet build-up. And if you believe everything Reagan said about the economy, ours would presumably have grown even faster had we cut taxes more instead of spending that money on the military, letting us pull away from the Soviets even sooner.
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Funny you should mention this. I was thinking over the weekend that it's not clear to me that Lincoln actually freed the slaves. Yes, I know he signed the emancipation proclamation, but he never actually went to each and every plantation to throw the shackles off each and every slave, so is it really fair to give him credit?
