Pitting all you Reagan bashers

The BBQ Pit
1

You guys really piss me off. I guess most of you just don’t remember what it was like back in the seventies and 1980. EVERYTHING WAS TURNING TO SHIT!! It was like Nero fiddling while Rome was slowly burning. America and the free world was in malaise.

Then along comes this guy to remind America what it was capable of. A fresh voice from the distant past that lifted the spirits of Americans and the world .

Yes, his programs were derided by many. He was criticised for calling the Soviet Union an evil empire and pushing for SDI at the peak of Soviet interventionism throughout the world yet near the end of his term in office his call for the tearing down of the Berlin wall seemed almost anti-climactic. That was the war Reagan presided over and the rammifications for mankind were enormous. Couple that with the demise of double digit inflation,double digit umemployment, and double digit interest rates which most of you can’t seem to remember and you have the legacy of a great presidency.

Listen to his political opponents today. They were there in the eighties. You’ll hear a LOT of respect. More than what LBJ or Nixon got when they died. More than what you"ll hear when Carter and Ford and Bush I (who are all due to go soon) will get when they die, I’m sure.
I’ll bet this man’s love for his country and his devotion to his fellow man exceeds anything that anyone of us can muster. He DESERVES your respect.

2

Reagan sucked.

3

Devotion to his rich friends. Love of his country? Is that why he was a part of a plot that violated American law?

You don’t get respect because you deserve it. You get respect because you earn it.

4

Jesus Christ, man. The 70’s weren’t that bad, and the 80’s weren’t that great. Why, in the 1970’s it was still perfectly normal for a single income to support a family of four in something like a reasonable fashion. The single of income of someone with a regular job, no less. And he or she was the last of an era where workers could expect to keep their job with a big company as long as they kept doing their job. The 1980’s, and Reagan in specific, oversaw a spectacular change in the security of working class. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Reagan shifted the tax burden to the middle class while their jobs disappeared. He grew government to an unprecedented level, and ran up debts to trillions of dollars.

Stop with the lies. I was there.

5

I was not a Reagan supporter, though in retrospect I was hardly old enough to understand the issues of the time. Many of his policies were flawed and short sighted, others were brave and visionary. Pretty much the same could be said for every president of the twentieth century.

I honor him for what he was, he was a decent man who tried to do the best for his country. I too am appalled at some of the sentiments expressed in the Reagan threads. To hope he had died earlier is an extremist viewpoint, and is frankly disturbing. This comes from someone who understands the venom towards Pat Robertson, and to a somewhat lesser degree Strom Thurmond.

Reagan was not an extremist and his views are those of about half of our country. Is there anyone who wishes death to all Republicans just because they disagree with you? There comes a time for most people when you realize that decent people can hold beliefs, honestly come by, that differ from yours. Reagan deserves some respect from all corners of the political spectrum. That is why the classier elements of both parties are showing it to him.

6

Yes, there does come a time for most people to move beyond the emotional maturity level of a 12 year old. Unfortunately, for many people, emotional maturity never develops at the time intellectual ability does.

To scare even myself and borrow from the wonderful world of Dungeons and Dragons, there’s a whole lot of 15 intelligence, 6 wisdom people wandering around these parts.

7

Reagan deserves respect?

Oh no. Not mine. He pissed away any shreds of respect I had for him when he and his cronies pulled their Iran/Contra stunt.

8

One more time…lest anyone forget…

The October Surprise

9

By the way, I am in no way gratified by his death, or the manner of it.

I would have been satisfied if he and his cronies had been impeached, tried, and convicted for the Iran/Contra fiasco.

10

Let me put this a different way to Reeder, Dio, and others who are glad to see Reagan go. I would love to hear which Republicans could die without your celebration. Names would be nice.

11

“Despite the disagreements, he lived by that noble ideal that at 5pm we weren’t Democrats or Republicans, we were Americans and friends. The differences were real, but because of the way President Reagan led, he taught us that there is a big difference between strong beliefs and bitter partisanship. Now, his own journey has ended - a long and storied trip that spanned most of the American century - and shaped one of the greatest victories of freedom.” — John Kerry

12

Please point out to me where I have celebrated Reagans, or as we used to call him. Rayguns, death.

13

You are correct** Reeder**, my apologies for including you.

14

Since people seem to keep bringing this up again and again, exactly how is it that Reagan is personally responsible for ending the Cold War? For some reason I can’t seem to remember.

15

Frutbat, you can take me off that list too since I never said any such thing.

Lib, if you read Kerry’s statement carefully you’ll see that he avoided endorsing any of his policies and just offered some bland praise of Reagan’s public persona. Not that I would care anyway what John Kerry says about Reagan.

16

Mmmm, tough one. Let’s see…Mengele, Lecter, Cthulu…

17

Reacting to the media spin glorifying the Reagan years is not the same as celebrating his death. Anyway, I think there’s nothing wrong with celebrating when someone dies. If a person has had a long and full life, I see no reason to be saddened by it. Other cultures do it. You celebrate the life, not mourn the death. Reagan was very old and in poor health, and has passed on in the Great Inevitable.

18

I sort of wondered that myself, so I did a Google search. There are quite many historians, statesmen, and poltical leaders, including democrats, who are crediting him with providing the leadership, vision, and hard work that ended the Cold War. The only really “anti” cite that I found came across to me as some sort of a crackpot. Also, practically all the talking heads on CNN have been saying it since yesterday. I haven’t heard anyone seriously deny it. Do you have any credible sources that it is a bloated claim?

19

Republicans whose deaths I wouldn’t celebrate include John McCain and George W Bush for as long as he’s in office (because then Dick Cheney would be President). I’m sure there are others but my brain is too busy trying to process the notion that anyone still believes Reagan wasn’t an extremist to come up with additional names.

20

Well, you can start with National Security Directive 75, which changed U.S. policy towards the Soviet Union from one of ‘Detente’ and ‘Coexistance’ to an active attempt to bring the regime down through political, social, and economic pressure.

I know the ‘conventional wisdom’ among many on this board is that the cold war just happened to end on Reagan’s watch, and he was just lucky to preside over an inevitable collapse, but the facts don’t bear that out. I remember 1979 well. The seeming rise of the Soviet Union and the concurrent problems with the U.S. economy had people thinking the Soviets were winning. They had huge natural resource advantages. John Kenneth Galbraith, that favorite of the left everyone, claimed, “the Russian system succeeds because, in contrast to the Western industrial economies, it makes full use of its manpower.”

The strategy of the cold war up until Reagan was one of containment and deterrence. Everyone thought the Russians would be around forever, so it was all about co-existence. Reagan changed all that. He called the Soviets an evil empire. He rebuilt the U.S. military. He threatened them with SDI. He attacked the Soviets on the periphery of their empire, greatly increasing CIA support of the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan, and funding rebels in Cambodia, Nicaragua, and elsewhere. He put pressure on client states by giving strong speeches on their lack of freedom and demanding that the Soviet Union release them. He gave his famous Berlin wall speech.

He also put pressure on them economically. There was a proposed oil pipeline to Europe from the Soviet Union, which would have given the Soviets billions in oil revenues. Reagan pressured Europe into cancelling the plans.

Again, this was all quite new. For people to claim now that the cold war was just proceeding as usual and suddenly the Soviets collapsed is a re-invention of history. Reagan changed the entire direction of the cold war, and he did it to howls of protests from his opponents, who were all about ‘understanding’ the Soviets and ‘learning to live with our differences’. On the left, hatred of Reagan was every bit as virulent as the hatred of GW Bush today. He was a goddamned crazy cowboy who was going to start World War III. His determination to put cruise missiles in Europe launched protests around the world. When he called the Soviet Union an ‘Evil Empire’, the left went bananas. When he announced SDI, it was immediately dubbed ‘Star Wars’ and it was considered to be Reagan’s folly. Except by the Soviets. Reagan used the threat of a non-existent missile defense to extract huge concessions from the Soviets. They were terrified by it.

This is not to say that Reagan was solely responsible. Pope John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher, Lech Walesa, and many, many other leaders were putting pressure on the Soviets as well. But it was Reagan who led the charge, and provide the guns and butter, and changed the direction of the cold war. He deserves huge amount of credit.

Reagan was right, his opponents were wrong, and the world is much better off that he didn’t knuckle under to their demands.