Reagan

I'll do you one better. Some treat him like... Ron Paul!

Not even Kin Jong-Il was as beloved as Ron Paul

Look up his speeches yourself. He wasn't socialist, but he was very close. Always talking about wage slaves and the oppressed workers. He equated wage slavery with slavery, and in many speeches he compared the plight of the factory workers to the plight of Negroes in the south. Yes, he was borderline socialist. I guess perhaps I chose the wrong words. He held a lot of socialist views on workers, but I don't think he ever wanted to equalize all people in wealth and I'm certain he never talked about the government taking over businesses and whatnot. I'm also pretty sure he never followed Marxist views, but that's probably because they were so new in his time. Read the Timeline 191 series by Harry Turtledove. It chronicles an America after the south won the Civil War. In the book, Lincoln splits up the Republican party and creates a socialist party, which eventually comes to power. Obviously its alternate history, so its not 100% accurate (no shit) but its a pretty fair guess. Also, in the book "How Few Remain", Harry Turtledove takes some of Lincoln's speeches and twists them a bit to make a more radical Lincoln.

Stop right there and consider the time period for a second. What was he more likely to have been talking about: A nonexistent proletariat underclass, or mistreated European immigrants?

Think on this one real hard before you come back to me with a response.

Don't worry Mosh, this guy gets you.

Reagan only cared about 1 type of people, and shunned the rest.

Everything @General is right he though those who worked in tha factory should own them Noam Chomksy talks about it all the time. Lincoln also despised the "new spirit of the age which was to gain wealth forgetting all but self he though it an awful idea and it ruined the nations solidarity.

EDIT: I hate this tagging system

Mistreated immigrants and real slaves of course. But that doesn't mean he didn't still have many socialist ideals. Obviously he was no socialist, but he was on the border. He had socialist ideals, but I doubt he would have ever tried to destroy the class system. Today, I'd imagine he'd be a social liberal or democratic socialist, definitely not a real socialist.

He was talking about Lincoln...

You know Lincoln didnt mind keeping slavery as long as it preserved the union right?

What does that have to do with anything? He still despised it, and I guarantee he would have kept campaigning against it even if the Civil War never happened. Or rather, if it was avoided by a promise not to interfere with slavery. On a side note, do you think the civil war could have been avoided if there was an amendment or something like that that guaranteed the right to own slaves or something stupid of that sort? This is pretty ASB I know, but might it have?

The north would have never accepted the amendment.

I think the way Irish immigrants were treated during that time period was absolutely appalling. I would definitely describe the working conditions they were subjected to as damn near slavery.

Am I border line socialist?

The filthiest damn commie I've seen in a while.

I often forget that the newspapers of that era, in both Britain and America, depicted Irish people as subhuman apes. I remember seeing another cartoon where Britain is talking to America on how to handle the Irish. Really offensive.

EDIT: I found it, although I swear there was a caption

Unrelated to the Lincoln debate, I loved seeing on 60 Minutes the interview with Eric Cantor about Reagan, and the interviewer talked about how Reagan increased taxes, and someone outside from camera view just blurted out that the interviewer shouldn't lie. I laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

Every time I hear Reagan...