# Ronald Reagan's Birthday **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 6, 2010, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948 "2010-02-06T20:49:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/61 "2010-02-07T06:53:07Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Correction – I said it was ten years ago the wall fell. It was actually TWENTY. Jesus. Was it really that long ago? > > For once, you and I actually agree on something. > > As an asside, realizing **Curtis** wasn’t even alive when the Berlin wall fell makes me feel really, really old. ☹ [Jesus Jones, too:](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z6dxQVhE8o) > [@](#): > > Right here, right now, there is no other place I want to be > Right here, right now, watching the world wake up from history > > I saw the decade in, when it seemed > the world could change at the blink of an eye > And if anything > then there’s your sign of the times > > I was alive and I waited waited > I was alive and I waited for this > Right here, right now ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/62 "2010-02-07T07:04:06Z")
We’re gonna have a good time. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/63 "2010-02-07T10:14:53Z")
> [@Evil\_One](#): > > Reagan was an inspirational figure and a symbol of an America If there’s one thing about Reagan that Obama should emulate, it’s this. Obama has the ability to inspire. He should get out and do it. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/64 "2010-02-07T17:31:59Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Hopefully twenty or thirty years from now he will be viewed more objectivelhy after the rubbish of the radical leftists peddled by Zinn and Chomsky and et. al have been discredited. It HAS been twenty years since he left office. And there’s a large consensus that his economic policies did a lot more harm than good. > [@Guinastasia](#): > > As an asside, realizing **Curtis** wasn’t even alive when the Berlin wall fell makes me feel really, really old. ☹ Oh, and **Curtis** , please be assured I did not mean this as an insult, nor am I trying to be patronizing. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/65 "2010-02-07T17:50:11Z")
Reagan was not an inspirational figure. I was there. The meme that America was “inspired” by him is a bullshit, _post facto_ right wing myth. Reagan’s average approval rating in office was 52%, lower than Clinton (55%), lower than GHW Bush (61%), lower even than LBJ (55%). Clinton also left office with a higher approval rating than Reagan (68% to Reagan’s 63%), and while Reagan’s highest approval rating was 68%, Clinton’s floated up to 78% during the impeachment. Despite the retro-mythologizing of the Limbaughs of the world, Reagan’s average approval rating was slightly below average for the 20th century, and sometimes dipped quite low (after his first year in office, he was at 35% – much lower than Obama). Sorry to inject reality and facts into this, but Reagan’s popularity is a modern myth, not a historical reality. The reality is that he was largely perceived as a doddering, senile old man Presiding over a pro-rich, anti-working class, socially intolerant adminstration plagued by corruption and scandal. Not that he didn’t have his apologists, but they’re the same ones as they are now. He was not the universally beloved figure that conservative revisionists try to make him out to be. You know who really WAS popular and beloved and inspirational, and had the approval ratings (not to mention the re-elections) to back him up? FDR. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/66 "2010-02-08T05:22:52Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > We weren’t at war with the Soviet Unoion, and Osama and the Taliban were worse then them anyway. > > Reagan couldn’t have thought Iran was that much of a threat since he was good buddies with Khomeni and gave Iran lots of weapons. The Democrats in congress never thought that Iran was that much of a threat either, since they never declared war on Iran, ergo, Iran was never the enemy, and Reagan could never commit treason. hh ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/67 "2010-02-08T05:37:25Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > The Democrats in congress never thought that Iran was that much of a threat either, since they never declared war on Iran, ergo, Iran was never the enemy, and Reagan could never commit treason. Iran sponsored the bombings which killed over 240 US Servicemen. That made them an enemy. It was an attack on a military target. An act of war by definition. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/68 "2010-02-08T06:49:54Z")
Well, somebody definitely broke some kind of law, since Congress explicitly forbade further support for the Nicaraguan Contras. Period. Somebody with the power to make that sort of thing happen. The evidence pointed straight to the WH, but Ronnie swore he didn’t remember it like that, and everybody pretty much shrugged and said OK. He gave a sort of press conference, and pretty openly admitted it, as outlined above. He said that facts clearly pointed in that direction, but that’s not how he remembered it, honest. And he got away with it. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/69 "2010-02-08T06:53:01Z")
Everybody believed he could have forgotten it. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/70 "2010-02-08T07:09:33Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Everybody believed he could have forgotten it. Either way he was screwed. If he wasn’t involved and he didn’t know what was going on, how on earth could he be so out of touch with his own staff? Wasn’t it his responsibility? Or that he forgot? (Although that I can almost believe…he seemed to be showing some signs of senility early on. Whatever I think of Reagan, he didn’t deserve Alzheimers.) ---
**Author:** ![statsman1982](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@statsman1982](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/statsman1982)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/71 "2010-02-08T07:11:13Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Reagan was not an inspirational figure. I was there. The meme that America was “inspired” by him is a bullshit, _post facto_ right wing myth. > > Reagan’s average approval rating in office was 52%, lower than Clinton (55%), lower than GHW Bush (61%), lower even than LBJ (55%). Clinton also left office with a higher approval rating than Reagan (68% to Reagan’s 63%), and while Reagan’s highest approval rating was 68%, Clinton’s floated up to 78% during the impeachment. > Despite the retro-mythologizing of the Limbaughs of the world, Reagan’s average approval rating was slightly below average for the 20th century, and sometimes dipped quite low (after his first year in office, he was at 35% – much lower than Obama). Sorry to inject reality and facts into this, but Reagan’s popularity is a modern myth, not a historical reality. The reality is that he was largely perceived as a doddering, senile old man Presiding over a pro-rich, anti-working class, socially intolerant adminstration plagued by corruption and scandal. Not that he didn’t have his apologists, but they’re the same ones as they are now. He was not the universally beloved figure that conservative revisionists try to make him out to be. > You know who really WAS popular and beloved and inspirational, and had the approval ratings (not to mention the re-elections) to back him up? FDR. But did anyone ever match Reagan’s 49-state landslide election victory in 1984? I think that was probably the most significant event that conservatives have based their narrative on, second only to the fall of the Berlin Wall. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/72 "2010-02-08T07:19:48Z")
A SD column possibly of interest: [What U.S. presidents won in the biggest landslides?](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/123/what-u-s-presidents-won-in-the-biggest-landslides) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/73 "2010-02-08T07:21:39Z")
Reagan was a thoroughly disgusting human being. He played to the prejudices of his followers and made the country a worse place. But even I will acknowledge that he did it with a smile on his face and a sunny disposition. He announced his candidacy for President in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a place known only for the murder of civil rights workers and Reagan’s announcement, during which he praised “states rights”. He was a thorough racist in mind and deed, but not explicitly thought. [PolySigh: Reagan and Racism](http://polysigh.blogspot.com/2004/06/reagan-and-racism.html) “We start bombing in 5 minutes.” Had W not started the war in Iraq, he would have been a better President than Reagan. Reagan was the worst up until W. Damn near bankrupted this country, and his policies still might. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/74 "2010-02-08T07:23:48Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Reagan was a thoroughly disgusting human being. He played to the prejudices of his followers and made the country a worse place. But even I will acknowledge that he did it with a smile on his face and a sunny disposition. Personally, I always found the latter part just made him that much more repellent to me. ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/75 "2010-02-08T07:32:16Z")
The thing that irks me most about Reagan, which actually has nothing to do with him, is having to listen to morons repeat ad naseum that Reagan cut taxes and magically increased Federal revenue! I swear, that meme alone has made me give up on any sort of intellectual honesty from Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/76 "2010-02-08T07:50:57Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > The thing that irks me most about Reagan, which actually has nothing to do with him, is having to listen to morons repeat ad naseum that Reagan cut taxes and magically increased Federal revenue! I swear, that meme alone has made me give up on any sort of intellectual honesty from Republicans. The only support that they have for this is that it is a big lie that has been repeated over and over and over. Show them tables of revenue, spending, taxation and deficits and they will assert that you are lying. Reagan was a flim-flamming fascist fucker. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/77 "2010-02-08T07:53:03Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Personally, I always found the latter part just made him that much more repellent to me. Can’t you just once agree with me without making a sour face? No? That’s what I like about you!😃 ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/78 "2010-02-09T02:48:58Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > It HAS been twenty years since he left office. And there’s a large consensus that his economic policies did a lot more harm than good. One of the problems both Democrats and Republicans have is that because Keyenesian or Supply-Side economics has worked that’s the perfect economic system that should always be in place. In the Great Depression we needed some Keynesianism, in the '80s we needed some supply-side economics. You should note that the last twenty years have two great eras of prosperity (the '90s boom and the '00s boom). ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/79 "2010-02-09T02:51:15Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > By the way, how is that Grenada Memorial project coming along? About as well as the effort to get his mug added to Mt Rushmore. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/80 "2010-02-09T03:02:26Z")
> [@Evil\_One](#): > > He was a proponent of American exceptionalism at a time it was desperately needed after the disasterous Carter administration.. :dubious: There is **never** a time when American exceptionalism is needed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948.md?page=5)