Maybe I should’ve called this thread Reagan is Satan
but then Our Satan would’ve been insulted…
Um, no. The USSR was undergoing problems before the arms race. Don’t start.
The people could revolt? Ha! That’s a good one! Considering the conditions they were living under.
No, I would say Perostroika and Glasnost had more to do with it. Communism is a flawed system to begin with, thus it was already falling apart.
Another thing-Reagan’s little arms race cost us a hefty chunk of change, leaving us with a huge cloud of debt hanging over us.
Using all knowledge at my disposal, and relying on judgement evolved through years of experience, I am transfering this thread to…flip…Heads!..The Great Debates.
God has Alzheimers? You know, that is a remarkably cogent explanation for the general state of the universe …
Who was it that had a growth removed from his nose at about the time Reagan had one removed from his colon. Bush? Donald Regan?
I recall being amused by that, even as a young’un.
Oddly, exactely what I thought. I was expecting a strange theological argument revolving around the forgettfulness of the supreme being.
(Otherwise, I guess this was a IMHO thread gone terribly wrong?)
Jesus fucking Christ. Aren’t there enough goddamned threads around here bashing conservatives without piling your scorn on a helpless old man? I have no problem with anyone who disagrees with the beliefs of Reagan, or wants to debate his accomplishments (or lack of) that’s of course, your right. But much of this is just hateful vitriol. You people like to call yourselves reasonable and intelligent, but this is pathetic and some of you should be ashamed.
My guess is none. To the best of my knowlegde, Reagan wasn’t actually in any of the so-called death squads.
Um, to my knowledge, Emperor Hirohito never personally decapitated any prisoners of war, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t responsible for it.
Oh please. Hirohito’s responsiblilty lies in the fact that he was in a line of direct command over those who performed the act. Reagan was most certainly not and cannot be held personally responsible. Your analogy fails.
i disagree, unclebeer. i think that matt_mck’s analogy is cogent as all get out. you saying that reagan cant be held personally responsible (and im not saying he is the only person, or politician, who can be) strengthens the theory that he already suffered from alzheimers when he wuz prez. see, when he said he couldnt recall, he meant it!
sotty, matt_mcl.
News Flash: EVERY President makes decisions that cause people to die. Or they fail to make decisions, and through their inaction cause people to die.
Carter caused far more deaths than Reagan did, by presenting a weak posture to the Soviets, thereby leading to the invasion of Afghanistan and the promotion of communist insurgency throughout the world. If Reagan had won election in 1976, Afghanistan would probably not have happened.
I just want to point out that there are legitimate, opposing viewpoints to most or all of the supposed ‘mistakes’ Reagan made.
You might claim that he caused chaos in the Airline industry by firing the controllers - others might claim that his early, hard stance against an illegal strike allowed the U.S. to avoid the chaos that out-of-control union power caused in Britain around the same time.
You might claim that the Soviets were about to collapse anyway, but others might point out that dictatorships have managed to hold onto power in the face of much worse economic hardship than the Soviets were enduring. Saddam has been in power for 10 years since the Gulf war. Stalin managed to hold power through a famine that killed 20 million people. It’s not at all clear that democracy was inevitable in the Soviet Union - had the west been more ‘accomodating’ like the left wanted, it might have allowed the Soviet Union to stay alive for another 50 years.
You might claim that Reagan created those huge deficits. Others might point out that huge deficits were the inevitable result the medicine applied by Paul Volcker under Carter. They might also point out that while military spending increased by about 100 billion dollars per year by the end of Reagan’s second term, domestic spending increased by over 400 billion dollars per year, with the full support of the Democratics, who actually wanted to increase it by much more.
You might argue that he was wrong for opposing a nuclear freeze. Others might point out that Reagan managed larger arms reductions than any other president before him, by relying on a position of strength. And I think history will prove out that nuclear disarmament was a VERY bad idea, and would have given the hard-line Soviets that much more leeway in hanging on to their tottering power structure.
Others might also point out that you are ignoring many facets of Reagan’s contributions to the U.S. Remember ‘malaise’? How about the ‘misery index’? That’s what Americans were thinking about at the end of Carter’s term. Carter is a great man, and the best ex-president the U.S. has had for a long time. But he was a disaster as a president. He was constantly making dire public speeches that left the country dispirited. Before him, presidents Republican and Democrat alike tried to fight inflation with statist policies like wage and price controls, leading to shortages and all kinds of other problems.
Reagan came along and pulled the country out of all that with the force of his charm and eternal sunniness. He was a great figurehead, and that’s an important part of being President. I give Carter full credit for accepting monetarism and appointing Paul Volcker as Chairman of the Fed, but I give Reagan even more credit for carrying conservative economics even farther and managing to cut marginal rates from the ridiculous 70+% level down to 28%, and starting the ball rolling on free trade and privatization.
Reagan’s biggest failure is that he actually didn’t manage to do what all his critics think he did - cut the size of government. Under Reagan, the government ballooned in size, and THAT is what led to all the deficits. It’s ironic that his opponents hate him because they think he was heartless and cruel, whereas the truth is that Reagan failed to really cut back the government because he was too nice. Whenever he was forced to face the real consequences of government cuts he would backtrack and change his mind, because he hated to see people hurt.
Um, Uncle Beer? The fact is, Congress voted to DENY further aid to the Contras. Reagan went behind their backs with the Iran Contra deal. He compared the Sondinstas to Lenin and Stalin, when in fact, the Somasistas were just as bad, if not worse.
HE was the president. Like it or not, he was responsible. He had his authority, and he used it to continue brutality.
I’m sorry, but this isn’t about conservative bashing. THIS is about Reagan’s policies.
And the idea that CARTER was more responsible? Huh uh…I don’t think so. Carter was the one who sent out sanctions against Augusto Pinochet, who Reagan tried to cozy up with.
I CAN and WILL find my sources. Try as I might, I cannot think of ONE SINGLE THING Reagan did right in his office.
And WHERE did I say anything nasty about his condition? I’m sick of people not reading what I said! Dammit, I said, I feel sorry that the man is suffering from Alzheimers. I do pity him. But I do not LIKE him!
I just don’t get it-how can Clinton be so evil for lying about a BLOW JOB, and Reagan is a hero for lying about selling arms to our enemies and funding death squads in central america-ILLEGALLY, I might add, behind Congress’s back, circumventing our Constitution, and everything this country stands for. The Sondinistas were VOTED IN! Many of the regimes Reagan over threw were voted in. CONGRESS voted against them. REAGAN directly went over their heads-thus, he is responsible in my eyes. He was, as they say, the commander in chief, was he not?
I could get some sights, including the manuals instructing the troops in Nicaragua how to manipulate the truth, to kill peasants and then say they were communist spies. Or I could talk about the School of the Americas-anyone want to defend THAT one?
Oh, and Uncle Beer? PLEASE pray tell me where my sources are wrong? (I’m not bashing or starting a Pit thing. I HONESTLY want some facts here, on how I’m wrong.)
Reagan may not have been totally responsible, but he was in charge, and he DID APPROVE OF THESE ACTIONS. THAT makes him at least partly responsible in my book.
Reagan may have brought short term prosperity to the country. But he did not do it long term. Give me Jimmy Carter anyday-I don’t care that he wasn’t a very good president-he was an honest man and an admireable one. That goes a long way. Reagan’s administration was one of the most corrupt we’ve had yet. (I can get sites for this as well!)
He did appoint Koop to be Surgeon General. Of course, I believe he (or at least many of his fellow conservatives) are on record as believing that to be one of his biggest mistakes.
Hmmm…well, you’ve got a point, there.
He managed to kick the living shit out of Grenada! That still ranks as one of the greatest military victories on our nation’s history, IMHO… <insert 100+ lines of sarcastic laughter here>
Anyway, he wasn’t good and he wasn’t evil, he just was (like the rest of us).
Oh god! For a second I thought you were serious about Grenada!
Sad thing is, there are people out there who would be!
You might think Grenada was a big joke, but you might want to tell that to the families of the 19 servicemen killed there, or the 120 who were wounded in action.
You might also ask the 1000 American medical students what they thought of it.
The fact is, Grenada was fairly heavily defended, in part by the Cuban ‘construction workers’ who just happened to be heavily armed.
Clearly, the result of the Grenada invasion was a foregone conclusion, since it is after all a small island nation. But if you think it was a big joke, I suggest that you volunteer the next time Uncle Sam needs someone to ride in a helicopter low and slow over a hillside covered with anti-aircraft guns.
There were plenty of harrowing battles on Grenada. The U.S. forces faced several thousand soldiers and trained guerillas, many dug into fortified positions. As I recall, it took something like a month to fully pacify the country.
The U.S. originally landed about 1,000 men on Grenada, but the resistance they faced was much greater than expected (in part because the Cuban ‘construction workers’ turned out to be soldiers). 7,000 more soldiers had to eventually land on the island before it could be pacified. This may not qualify it for the global conflict status it apparently needs to keep you from giggling, but I guarantee being there would have scared the crap out of you, and you might even have come home in a box.
Was Grenada necessary? Possibly not, but there were many good reasons for the invasion that intelligent people can disagree about. For one thing, the Cubans were building a 15,000 ft airstrip on the island (much, much larger than what was needed for the putative reason of improving tourist access - passenger planes that would fly to Grenada need about half of that length. But a fully-loaded Russian bomber would need all of it).
If the U.S. had allowed the Marxist revolutionary government to remain in power, it would have added yet another Soviet satellite just off the U.S. coast, and with a big runway large enough to stage bombers from. That would have been destabilizing as hell.
There was also the little issue of 1,000 American citizens that were in danger of being imprisoned or worse. That, and this was just another of Cuba’s increasingly agressive activities in the Carribbean, and the U.S. government decided it was time to draw a line in the sand.
Finally, it was apparent that the citizens were overjoyed that the U.S. took action. There was cheering in the streets when the Americans showed up.
I’ve said before that I believe Americans have a habit of picking the right president for their respective times. The beginning of Reagan’s presidency was characterized by double digit inflation, double digit interest rates, high unemployment, and the Dow Jones industrial average was less than 1000. The whole world was facing nuclear annihilation and America still hadn’t come to terms with the Vietnam experience and struggling with the Iran hostage crisis. I believe Americans were seriously contemplating a very grim future. Well in comes this physically fit, handsome old guy who by virtue of his age had a connection with a more glorious time in America’s past, saying lets step back a little,America, give your head a shake, we can do it, and lets call a spade a spade. He was not afraid to speak his mind. Yea, he was a bit of a cowboy wasn’t he? But look at the result. Inflation, interest rates and unemployment were arrested, reduced, and put under control. The Dow Jones Industrial Average more than doubled during his adminstration, and all four paramenters of the economy just mentioned continued to overall improve throughout the Bush and Clinton administration.You don’t hear anything about American hostages anywhere anymore, and nobody is worried that the two powers are going to blow each other up. Man, I love the guy, even though I’m not American, cause, not only was he a class act as a human being, he sure changed my life for the better.