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Robb
SFN Regular
USA
1223 Posts |
 Posted - 06/10/2004 : 04:57:39 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Tim
Most of all, let's not forget about 242 dead marines in Beirut. Did Ronnie Raygun ever bring the attackers to justice? Did Mr. Reagan set a good example for terrorists by puuling US forces out of Lebanon?
Isn't this what President Bush is doing? and getting blasted by the left in this country for fighting terrorism? Maybe he listened to the left and decided to do nothing.
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2004 : 05:09:06 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Robb
Isn't this what President Bush is doing? and getting blasted by the left in this country for fighting terrorism? Maybe he listened to the left and decided to do nothing.
Bush is "getting blasted" not because he's "fighting terrorism" but because he's doing such a fucking bad job at it. The examples are myriad, but this isn't the thread to discuss them. |
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Renae
SFN Regular
543 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2004 : 17:22:25 [Permalink]
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I swear you conservatives must drink from the same water supply. Is there a dissenter among you? Please?
I was a teenager in the Decade of Greed and I remember feeling little patriotism or inspiration and little more than contempt for Reagan. It's normal to speak kindly of the dead, but this media love-in for Reagan has become absurd.
JFK was a different kind of Democrat in a different time. But he gave us NASA and the Peace Corps, C88. Those are two powerful and enduring symbols of American strength and humanitarianism. He also established the National Arts Foundation and the President's Council of Physical Fitness, among other programs.
It took LBJ to ram through many of Kennedy's ideas and programs (ie Medicare, civil rights legislation, the National Endowment for the Arts.) Kennedy only had 3 years, after all.
JFK inspired Americans the way people THINK Reagan did. Reagan was about greed; JFK was about service.
JFK and RFK mean to me what Reagan must mean to the Republicans. This baffles me to such an extent that I need to go think about it for a loooong time.  
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2004 : 19:01:20 [Permalink]
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quote:
Soviets were involved with in Afghanistan. That war cost them billions of dollars and thousands of lives and in the opinion of many I remember reading at the time did more to bring down the Soviet Union than any Reagan policy.
The USSR had 100,000 dead soldiers in Afganistan, and nobody knows how many other casualties with disfiguring injuries. No doubt the number would be difficult to comprehend.
Back to Reagan.
Reagan is going to accomplish his greatest contribution to humanity through his death. His wife is, now, intimately familiar with the horror that is Alzheimer's disease. She is already speaking out and calling for the removal of the federal ban on $$ for research. She is a powerfull voice at the moment and the president will be feeling the political fallout if he doesn't respond. It sickens me to think how much control the fundies have over this president. Stem cell research may not turn out to be the holy-grail that some think it is... but there is little doubt that we will learn many things that will improve the human condition through exploration of this field. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2004 : 20:09:54 [Permalink]
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Robb wrote:quote:
Reagan cannot be credited at all for the fall of Soviet communism, but he is accountable for the bad things that happend in this country during his time in office. I bet the same people who think this, think Bush is responsible for the treatment of the Iraq prisoners. Are presidents responsible for everything that happens or not?
You appear to be suggesting that Soviet communists were under the control of, and therefore a responsibility of, the Commander in Chief of the United States of America Armed Services. In other words: no, Reagan wasn't the primary cause of the fall of communism in Russia, and yes, Bush is ultimately responsible for the treatment of his prisoners (the buck stops there). In still other words, the situations aren't comparable, so attempts to point out partisanship or hypocrisy will fail. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Tim
SFN Regular
USA
775 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2004 : 02:35:54 [Permalink]
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quote:
Robb posted:Are presidents responsible for everything that happens or not?
No, presidents are not directly responsible for all events that take place during their administrations. However, the president is the cheif executive, and as such is ultimately responsible what happens under their jurisdiction. As Harry Truman so intrepidly stated, "The buck stops here."
This is also something Reagan knew. He did accept responsibility for the actions of his administration. I only wish the Bush, Too administration would be honorable enough to do the same.
Reagan wasn't the best president we've had, but he certainly wasn't the worse--Far from it.
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"We got an issue in America. Too many good docs are gettin' out of business. Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their -- their love with women all across this country." Dubya in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, 9/6/2004
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byhisgrace88
Formerly "creation88"
USA
166 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2004 : 01:00:07 [Permalink]
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"JFK inspired Americans the way people THINK Reagan did. Reagan was about greed"
I find it EXTREMLY comical how everyone tries to deny his popularity. No matter what his approval ratings said, he still won in two landslides.
Approval ratings are based on whats going on right at that minute. If they ask everyone at the most controversial time they could find; many people who would still vote for him, would say that they did not approve of what he's doing at that minute.
And stop acting as if everything there saying is fake, and that its "respect for the dead". There's a reason this is a bigger deal then when Nixon or LBJ died. It's because PEOPLE LIKED THEM BETTER!
If you would stop making assumptions about what we think, and actually ask us, then you would find out that I have thought these things well before his death. MANY MANY MANY people had a great respect for the man. You don't have to respect him. Theres no reason not to, but it's your right as an American. But stop telling us that we did'nt respect him, because we did. So if you could stop telling us what we think, I'd apprieciate it. |
Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desire, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.-- C.S. Lewis |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2004 : 02:50:57 [Permalink]
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That RR was popular there can be no doubt. Hell, even I liked him on a personal level. But popularity garentees nothing. I am not making a comparison here, but Hitler was wildly popular in Nazi Germany.
But until our current sociopath sleezed his way into office, I'd thought Reagan was neck and neck with Nixon (whom I thourghly despised on a personal level) for the worst president in modern times. I go by what the man does or does not do, not whether he'd make a cool grandfather.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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| Edited by - filthy on 06/15/2004 03:13:33 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2004 : 03:12:22 [Permalink]
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Just stumbled across this:
quote:
ASHINGTON, June 14 - As Republicans try to cloak President Bush in the mantle of Ronald Reagan, their biggest obstacle may be Mr. Reagan's own family.
Even before Mr. Reagan died, Nancy Reagan and her daughter, Patti Davis, made their opposition to Mr. Bush's policy on stem-cell research well known. But on Friday, at the culmination of an emotional week of mourning for the former president, his son Ron Reagan delivered a eulogy that castigated politicians who use religion "to gain political advantage," a comment that was being interpreted in Washington as a not-so-subtle slap at Mr. Bush.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/15/politics/15memo.html
I wasn't sure where to put it, here or in the stem cells thread. It seeemed to fit better here.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2004 : 06:37:18 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by creation88
I find it EXTREMLY comical how everyone tries to deny his popularity. No matter what his approval ratings said, he still won in two
landslides.
No doubt the second election was a crushing victory. In the first, Carter was at the huge disatvantage of having the whole hostage thing in Iran going on. I wonder if there's been anything written on how to reconcile Reagan's average overall popularity with his huge election victories.
quote:
Approval ratings are based on whats going on right at that minute. If they ask everyone at the most controversial time they could find; many people who would still vote for him, would say that they did not approve of what he's doing at that minute.
Actually, I'd argue just the opposite! An election is held once every four years. With our amazing tendancy for limited (and selective) memories, and with our utterly vapid political discourse, it's not hard to imagine people voting for who they like at the moment based on what's going on at the moment. (Imagine Clinton going against George H W Bush during the height of the Gulf War, and not during the start of an economic recession!)
quote:
And stop acting as if everything there saying is fake, and that its "respect for the dead". There's a reason this is a bigger deal then when Nixon or LBJ died. It's because PEOPLE LIKED THEM BETTER!
Right. And surely the obvious concerted effort on the part of right-wing pundits (e.g. Rush, Hannity, the people at Fox News, etc.) to glorify Reagan at every turn played no part in the positive perception of Reagan in the years following his administration. And besides: it would be hard to have quite the same masturbatory love-in with, say, Nixon, as he kind of resigned from office because if illeagal activities and cover-ups.
quote:
. . . But stop telling us that we did'nt respect him, because we did. So if you could stop telling us what we think, I'd apprieciate it.
Just for the record, you're using the first person plural, which implies that you actually had significant and valid positive thoughts about Reagan while he was in office. The reality, as you've admitted above, however, was that you were only a few months removed from your mother's uterus when Reagan left the White House. So no, all your respect has come from stuff you've read or heard after the fact. And since you haven't mentioned (as I and others have noted) how you address some of the major problems from Reagan's two terms-- Iran-Contra, the tax cut disasters, the cuts to education, the willful ignorance of the AIDS epidemic, etc.-- my guess is that everything you've seen or heard has been from sources which have overt pro-Reagan slants. And not looking at the opposition's side of an issue is a poor way to make choices. |
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