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Reagan's Legacy - Good, Bad, or Ugly

Reagan's legacy is that the federal bureaucracy grew a little more slowly for 8 years.
 
UNLoVedRebel said:
I've got a case of cognitive dissonance. Maybe you can help me out here. Was Ronald Reagan a good president? Depends on your socio-economic status (SES) and political ideology, I guess.

:Dancing_cool: He was an extremely skilled speaker and diplomat. He helped bring a peaceful end to a conflict that threatened civilization. He brought unemployment down significantly and helped spawn a decade of growth and excess. He negotiated with militants and did not give them the silent treatment.

:Dancing_growl: His "laissez faire" business policies helped to shape the current financial crisis. His attitudes on social problems, like workers' rights, consumers' rights, the AIDS epidemic, were deplorable. Because he was such a persuasive speaker, he paved the way for other conservatives to use political rhetoric and not address real world problems. Although he was not a religious man, he made frequent references to god as a political tool and that led to the entanglement of church and state that we see today in U.S. politics. He helped make America a backwards country by Western standards. He was an ideologue, not a pragmatist.
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And don't forget the air traffic controller thing that gave us years of problems at airports.:jaw-dropp:jaw-dropp:jaw-dropp:mad:
 
Whiplash said:
As a conservative, I love that this still bothers you guys so much. I can't help it. I know it's wrong to feel that way. I don't know why I love it. But I just can't help it. It's just so ridiculous and hysterical.
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Indeed.

Ohmer said:
Color me unimpressed. It seems conservatives are only concerned with dept when a Democrat is in charge.
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"Reagan proved deficits don't matter."

-President Cheney
 
corplinx said:
I think you missed the point. I was debunking the myth of "Reagan the great de-regulator".
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I think he was a mediocre de-regulator. We only had the Saving and Loan scandal under his watch. Small by today's standard.
 
oldhat said:
Remember when he was joking around about starting nuclear war with the Soviets on TV? Boy, that was hilarious.
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Your memory's clearly shot. Reagan made that joke during a sound check for his weekly radio address on NPR. It was not part of the broadcast, it was what Reagan said instead of "Testing, one two. Testing."
 
NWO Sentryman said:
The Soviet Union had not fallen Apart under carter, contrary to the revisionists. If anything, it had a very effective military, and was only made obsolite by the reagan build up. Going Nuclear was a serious option for NATO if the Warsaw Pact traversed the Fulda Gap.

Carter was running apologia for the Soviet Union and was appeasing them right up to the invasion of afghanistan. Carter also forced the recession costing him the election. Carter was a dove and being a dove lost him the election.

Had he won that second term, America would have been a third world country due to carter advocating Russian Roulette with chernobyl happening in somewhere like Nebraska or in the Worst case scenario, New York.

Iran Contra was giving weapons to enemies of the ayatollah, with the funds being given to the contras to resist the illlegitimate sandinistas (Coup etc.). The Contras did scummy things, but killing nuns is not the most evil thing one can do, nor does it make him responsible for every single death in Nicaragua.
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Having been in Nicaragua during Somoza's bloody reign, I can say with first hand knowledge, your comments here are as ignorant as most Americans who were fooled by Reagan's freedom fighter propaganda.
 
Brainster said:
Your memory's clearly shot. Reagan made that joke during a sound check for his weekly radio address on NPR. It was not part of the broadcast, it was what Reagan said instead of "Testing, one two. Testing."
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You're right, but not as shot as Bonzo's.

What could possibly have gone wrong with a harmless joke to a collection of reporters about starting nuclear war with the USSR?

 
NWO Sentryman said:
...
As well as that, [Carter] funded Pol Pot.....
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You are aware, I assume, that Reagan not only funded the Khmer Rouge, he changed the operation from one of humanitarian assistance to one of military promotion?
In November 1980, the just elected Reagan administration and the Khmer Rouge made direct contact when Dr. Ray Cline, a former deputy director of the CIA, secretly visited a Khmer Rouge operational headquarters inside Cambodia. Cline was then a foreign policy adviser on President-elect Reagan's transitional team. Within a year, according to Washington sources, 50 CIA agents were running Washington's Cambodia operation from Thailand. The dividing line between the international relief operation and the US war became more and more confused. For example, a Defense Intelligence Agency colonel was appointed "security liaison officer" between the United Nations Border Relief Operation (UNBRO) and the Displaced Persons Protection Unit (DPPU). In Washington, sources revealed him as a link between the US government and the Khmer Rouge.
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Congress under Carter had been promoting food assistance for Cambodia which, while had a very bad outcome, was still not as bad a Reagan's involvement.
In 1980, under US pressure, the World Food Program handed over food worth $12 million to the Thai army to pass on to the Khmer Rouge. According to former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke "20,000 to 40 000 Pol Pot guerrillas benefited." This aid helped restore the Khmer Rouge to a fighting force, based in Thailand, from which it de stabilized Cambodia for more than a decade.
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There's little to excuse our involvement in all of SE Asia during the Vietnam war era. But claiming Carter supported Pol Pot in a thread where you extol the virtues of Reagan is absurd.
 
skeptigirl said:
Having been in Nicaragua during Somoza's bloody reign, I can say with first hand knowledge, your comments here are as ignorant as most Americans who were fooled by Reagan's freedom fighter propaganda.
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The Mitrokhin Archive clearly proves the Sandinistas were linked to the Soviet Union.

The Sandinistas persecuted the Miskito, with one of the leaders describing it as a "ethnocide and genocide". russell means also supported the Contras. The Sandinistas were also behaving like the Bosnian Serbs and Croats.

The Somozas were scumbags i agree, but the Sandinistas were Stalinists.

The Sandinistas were like the Bolsheviks in Russia - They overthrew an unpopular regime to begin a dictatorship. Reagan and the Contras feared another Red Terror like that of China or Russia. The Cotnras were like the Whites in Russia - they were scumbags, but their enemy was worse.

Reagan lvied through the Cuban Missile Crisis, and he did not want another round of nuclear russian roulette.

Carter Got Zbiginew to aid the Khmer Rouge. And Reagan's aid was AFTER the Khmer Rouge were gone.

And Thirdworldtraveler is one of the Death to America websites with no editors. Heck the woo level is so high on that i need a new woo-o-meter. As well as that, you have Stalinists and Milosevic apologists abound.
 
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NWO Sentryman said:
The Mitrokhin Archive clearly proves the Sandinistas were linked to the Soviet Union.

The Sandinistas persecuted the Miskito, with one of the leaders describing it as a "ethnocide and genocide". russell means also supported the Contras. The Sandinistas were also behaving like the Bosnian Serbs and Croats.

The Somozas were scumbags i agree, but the Sandinistas were Stalinists.

The Sandinistas were like the Bolsheviks in Russia - They overthrew an unpopular regime to begin a dictatorship. Reagan and the Contras feared another Red Terror like that of China or Russia. The Cotnras were like the Whites in Russia - they were scumbags, but their enemy was worse.
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One thing I find has been a useful rule of thumb in weighing the merits of relative arguments is valuing the thoughts of someone who actually lived through the events under discussion over someone who hasn't.

As such, I'm taking this post with a grain of salt.
 
Praktik said:
One thing I find has been a useful rule of thumb in weighing the merits of relative arguments is valuing the thoughts of someone who actually lived through the events under discussion over someone who hasn't.

As such, I'm taking this post with a grain of salt.
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She said she as around during Somoza's regime. She was (presumably) not around during the civil war, so we should take what she says with a grain of salt.
 
skeptigirl said:
your comments here are as ignorant as most Americans who were fooled by Reagan's freedom fighter propaganda.
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It's actually quite amazing the depth to which freedom fighter fetishization pervaded the right wing movement under Reagan during those years.

While the Contras were portrayed as nobly fighting the Enemy, the likes of Norquist were also heavily promoting UNITA.

I was quite taken aback at the lengths taken to promote these individuals in pamphlets, newsletters and speaking tours.
 
Praktik said:
It's actually quite amazing the depth to which freedom fighter fetishization pervaded the right wing movement under Reagan during those years.

While the Contras were portrayed as nobly fighting the Enemy, the likes of Norquist were also heavily promoting UNITA.

I was quite taken aback at the lengths taken to promote these individuals in pamphlets, newsletters and speaking tours.
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Well, Reagan made a lot of bad decisions about his allies, but he felt that the US needed to regain its morale after Carter's appeasement of the Soviet Union.
 
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