Ronald wilson reagan

Discussion in 'Politics' started by jmpet, Apr 29, 2010.

  1. jmpet Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,891
    RONALD WILSON REAGAN

    I was a big fan of Carter and his gay, eco-friendly policies but along came Ronald Reagan. To quote "Back To The Future": "No wonder Reagan will be President- in a world full of [media], he is a natural choice."

    Reagan's biggest accomplishment was starting a cold arms race- as my old boss used to say "let's see who runs out of money first". Reagan brought us to the very edge of nuclear annihilation knowing neither side would push the button... he knew that in the process he would bankrupt Russia and win by default- and he won; we won.

    Reagan overlooked a lot of important things in the process- A LOT. Reagan set us back a lot by ending the Cold War. The wind turbines that have suddenly become fashionable were at the ready 30 years ago, so were solar panels. But we ignored them because we all felt the Cold War was coming to a head.

    Reagan had the might to keep OPEC in line, which he did rather well. "Speak softly and carry a big stick" T.R. used to say and Reagan did- he had no problem talking the tough talk- imagine the balls it took to say "Mr. Gorbachev- tear down these walls!"

    History has a mostly positive look at Reagan's legacy. And although I don't want to see Reagan's face on any currency (for the next 100 years at least), he was the right man for the right job at the right time: he got the job done.

    I would like to know how you folks feel about Reagan. Past the pomp and circumstance and past the political divide- what you feel about his tenure as our Commander In Chief.
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Black Jack Gen. "Black Jack" Pershing Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    232
    There's a reason that there's an Aircraft Carrier named after him, and why Jimmy Carter only has a Submarine.

    While I could go over a bunch of anecdotal evidence like ending the Iranian hostage crisis just by getting elected, or how he won by a landslide, or how the aforementioned arms race broke the back of the Soviet's Economy effectively bringing the Cold War to an end... or how he brought down the Berlin Wall... or how he confronted the Air Traffic Controller Strike by basically saying, "Get back to work or you'll find yourselves replaced" and when they ignored him, they GOT fired as promised... but that would be silly. (Although admittedly, I can be a rather silly person

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    )

    There were a few black marks on his presidency sure, but nobody's perfect. Even George Washington had to use the Federal Army to procure taxes from Whiskey Distillers... he did what he had to do in order to uphold the law and the constitution.

    *EDIT*
    One thing I am curious about though is; Why do you think ending the Cold War was a set back? Reagan was a big believer in the private sector, for the government to take the initiative in terms of getting the ball rolling on Wind Turbines and Solar Energy would undermine energy companies and thus be bad for the economy, and also be contradictory to his philosophy and the reason why he was elected. Furthermore, if this technology was ready to be implemented 30 years ago, then why haven't any of the other subsequent Presidents taken the initiative?

    *EDIT #2*
    Another thing I'd like to add as well, is that Reagan was a great speaker. He was known as "the great communicator" and that title was well deserved. He just had this ability to touch base with the American public like nobody else ever had. When he sat down at that desk and addressed the American Public in their living rooms through the television, it felt like he was talking directly TO you, not at you. It wasn't just charisma that made it that way, it wasn't the same way that Hitler, or countless other leaders would simply have their audiences in a sort of trance... it was much more personal than that, and he spoke with reason and understanding rather than rant. His words were eloquent and deliberate.
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2010
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. dixonmassey Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,151
    "Greed is good" was in the 1980th air. People needed to feel good about their greed and selfishness after Carter years' calls for self-restraint and long term thinking. Besides, Ronnie looked presidential on TV.

    I would say BULL shit. You can't be serious, cold war arm race was as old as cold war itself. Ronnie came up with a star wars program and boosted military spending. But guess what USSR was spending on the edge of possible long before Ronnie. 1970th and 1980th (up to 1988) in Soviet people' memories stand out as years of relative PROSPERITY and calm. If Ronnie run up American debt it doesn't mean at all that Soviet followed the suit. What for? To be able to wipe out USA & its allies 700 times instead of 350? Quite the opposite is true. During 1980th Soviet redirected HUGE convertible currency funds (obtained by selling oil, lumber etc.) to purchase consumer goods Soviet citizenry was starving for. Don't forget about Chornobyl and Afghan war. Soviet had much more urgent things to do than to play Ronnie' arm race game.

    But I would give you, Ronnie (and his predecessor) did a lot to destroy USSR by .... infecting it with American consumerist culture. Soviet people got taste of western consumer goods, they wanted stuff Soviet economy was not designed to produce in the desired quantities, naturally Soviet citizenry (not without "help" of the Western "PshycOP" officers) suddenly felt deprived and angry at the Mother Russia unable to produce bubble gum, action movies and jeans. They hated pretty much everything about their country circa 1990. Naturally, again not without Western help, the thought was embedded into mass mind - free market would give goodies to the best (and punishing leeches with joblessness) will bestow the bounty on everybody who's working hard, public - bad, private - good, inequality - good, relative equality - bad, etc. It was unstoppable snowball ever since Gorby announced "glasnost'" and "perestroika" in 1985. Inept if not treacherous Gorby & Co was simply not up to task. At least he's made good $ on Pizza Hut commercials.

    Bull SHIT. If there was war hysteria in Reagan' USA (it doesn't take much to whip American citizenry into jingoistic frenzy), there was not ANYTHING resembling that in USSR. Soviet Propaganda was scaled back almost to zero by 1988. At the end of Gorby' Rule, Soviet Citizenry (and "elite") imagined USA as a kingdom of Goodness and Light. Pushing a button to destroy the kingdom of Light, are you crazy? You won debt only. I want to remind you that collapse of USSR was too abrupt and unexpected to scare West, Bush I and European leaders were touring soon to be dead country to call leaders of the Soviet national republics to preserve USSR as a "reformed" federation.

    I doubt Reagan did lot's of looking, but he shall burn in Hell for the American involvement in Central America and Persian Gulf. Bloody SOB has hundreds of thousands of lives on his hands. US military expenditures had only a temporary dip after collapse of USSR, cold war is not over until all debts are paid. What exactly you won in cold war?

    Sure, it's hard to resist turbines manufactured by Chinese semi-slave labor and bankrolled by US government. Really hard, the question remain - are wind turbines energy generators or energy "accumulators" slowly releasing fossil energy spent to manufacture, transport & install them.

    Are you really this naive, or you are acting? Yup, Gorby wet his pants after seeing Reagan's tough talk.

    Yup, needless military build up, spiraling debt, CA death squads, gassed Iranians, green light to de-industrialize, cracking down on unions and working men in general, mushrooming prisons, debilitating lowest denominator

    Yup, tour rust belt when you have a chance. When you'll be force to accept $8/hr no benefits temp job, give one more thanks. Well done, Ronnie. Greed is good indeed, at least for some. Who cares about all those dead foreigners.

    People taking office of Presidency too serious amuse me. American Presidents are no longer even semi-independent entities they used to be. They are brought from obscurity into the office to do the job they've been selected (not by you

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    ) to do, the job which would benefit extremely narrow circle of folks and I doubt you are invited to a party.
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. dixonmassey Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,151
    It takes just little bit of research to find out that absolute majority of Soviet weapon systems was designed in 1970th or earlier. Most of the Soviet surface ships and submarines were built well before Ronnie came to power. Same with the ballistic missiles. T-72, BTR - 80, MIG - 29, Su-25, SS-9 not speaking of AK-74. Ronnie has nothing to do with those.
     
  8. Black Jack Gen. "Black Jack" Pershing Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    232
    I'm not sure if I like this reason more, or mine...

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!




    In all fairness here, he only really cracked down on a government union (the air traffic controllers) really harshly, and that was because it was a law that they're not allowed to strike.

    It's also fair to note that in some cases, while Unions are a good thing, they can, in certain circumstances, be detrimental to the worker, and the company should they get their way too often and wrangle in more than what would be considered fair wages/benefits for the employees that are a part of them. For example with GM, their factory line workers at one point were making over 70k a year while Toyota and Honda guys working here in the United States were making a modest 40k... AND they had better benefits and pensions. Not to suggest that was the ONLY reason GM nearly died out, but it certainly didn't help at all. It's also not to suggest that all companies should pay their workers the same amount of money, but for a job that's in many ways similar, the difference in pay is mind boggling. The funny part too is that a Toyota or Honda worker statistically has far better job security with their company BECAUSE they aren't paid as much.


    ... What does that have to do with Ronald Reagan? His Presidency ended long before this economic downturn started. In fact, what does the Rust Belt and it's harsh job market have to do with dead foreigners?


    Yes, it's all a conspiracy. Would you like your tinfoil hat with the commemorative "The Truth is Out There" Pin now, or at the door?
     
  9. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,671
    >I would like to know how you folks feel about Reagan.

    He was the biggest idiot as a President since the WW2 until W came around... At least he kind of knew it and that's why he let other people do the job, they called it delegation.
    Try to read interviews with him when he had no premade answers...
     
  10. WillNever Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,595
    The OP is a serious load of nonsense. He seems to believe that Reagan was responsible for the dissolution of the USSR, when it was precipitated predominantly by internal conditions. The height of the Cold War was the 60's, not the 80's. Reagan did not "start the arms race." So he didn't bankrupt the USSR. The USSR was having to buy grain from the USA since way back during Khrushchev's years.

    OP is woefully ignorant. Reagan happened to be president when the cold war ended. He had no significant hand in ending it.
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2010
  11. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,910
    Agreed, Reagan had really nothing to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union...even though lots of conservatives do like to credit Reagan with many things including the fall of the Soviet Union.

    Reagan was a good communicator, and this ability did allow him to make the nation feel good about itself after suffering a series of set backs under the Carter administration (e.g. Iranian Hostage Crisis, runaway inflation, etc).

    As for being a true "conservative", that was not Reagan. Reagan was a good old fashioned big spender and enlarger of government. He added 2.1 trillion dollars to the national debt...taking the national debt from 900 billion to 3 trillion dollars. He took the nation from being a net creditor nation to a net debtor nation.

    Reagan was also responsible for a major shift in the tax burden from the rich to middle income Americans...signficantly increasing Social Security and Medicare taxes on the middle class and reducing income tax rates for the rich from 70 percent to 28 percent.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics

    Federal spending became such a critical issue after Reagan left office, it became necessary for Reagan's successor to raise income taxes in an attempt to control the budget deficits created under Reagan. Reagan more than trippled the national debt.

    As for alternative energy technology, the price of oil declined dramaticly under the Reagan administration...making alternative energies more expensive in comparison. That is one of the reasons why alternative energy options were stopped dead in the Reagan administration.
     
  12. sandy Banned Banned

    Messages:
    7,926
    Reagan was the second-best POTUS ever. W was the first.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  13. dixonmassey Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,151
    Not so. Reagan Administration refused to enforce large chunk of labor laws effectively giving green light to employer to crack down on unions and especially union organizers. Employers got the message illegally firing workers who sought to unionize, replacing permanent employees who could collect benefits with temps who could not, shipping factories and jobs abroad. Reagan installed outspoken union foes in charge of the federal agencies that were designed originally to protect the rights and interests of workers and their unions. "Trickle-down" tax cuts coupled with increased military spending were designed to bankrupt the government, thus justifying cuts in social programs. Remember ketchup as a vegetable?

    Who does consideration of what is a fair wage? Of course if a sweat shop is allowed next door it affects arithmetic quite a bit. If a Global sweat shop is set up - there is nowhere to run but down.

    Why assembly line workers cannot have 70k for monotonous, hard & unhealthy labor. Show me a sacred scroll saying that 70k is too much. One of these days they will bring Chinese car plants and suddenly Toyota' 40k workers would appear as overpaid. Deregulation, tax cuts, unbounded free trade made entire occupations "overpaid" overnight.


    So? Race to the bottom is good, right?

    No. Google Rust belt. It's a symbol of American de-industrialization. It started rusting before Reagan but Reagan's policies of trickle down, deregulation, and free (for investor class) trade buried (economically) entire regions that built USA.



    Yup, it is

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    In March 1987 a memo was written by Jim Cannon to Howard Baker, Reagan's new Chief of Staff. His first recommendation: "Consider the possibility that section four of the 25th amendment might be applied." The amendment allows for the removal of the president when "the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office." Mayer and McManus reported that staffers told Cannon in confidence that Reagan had become "inattentive and inept ... He was lazy; he wasn't interested in the job ... he wouldn't read the papers they gave him - even short position papers and documents ... he wouldn't come over to work - all he wanted to do was watch movies and television at the residence." Scholarly works have been written on Reagan's confusion of facts with Hollywood images.
     
  14. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,671
    Actually, no and no. She only said she loves them, that is NOT an opinion, that is an act of feeling. An opinion would be if she could explain why she loves them. And since one can love blindly (and true love IS blind) she might doesn't even have an opinion, just a pure puppy love, but again, that is NOT an opinion.

    And no, stupid people are not entitled to have an opinion.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    Edit: After rereading her post, she didn't actually say in this thread that she loved him, but she stated that in other threads.
    Now if she actually could back up her admiration for those 2 with FACTS, I would even give her respect. But seriously, not even the biggest Republicans thing W was the best Pres....
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2010
  15. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,671
    But let's get back to Ronnie:

    "Essentially, Reagan switched the federal government from what he critically called, a “tax and spend” policy, to a “borrow and spend” policy, where the government continued its heavy spending, but used borrowed money instead of tax revenue to pay the bills. The results were catastrophic. Although it had taken the United States more than 200 years to accumulate the first $1 trillion of national debt, it took only five years under Reagan to add the second one trillion dollars to the debt. By the end of the 12 years of the Reagan-Bush administrations, the national debt had quadrupled to $4 trillion!

    Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan pulled off one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated against the American people in the history of this great nation, and the underlying scam is still alive and well, more than a quarter century later. It represents the very foundation upon which the economic malpractice that led the nation to the great economic collapse of 2008 was built. Ronald Reagan was a cunning politician, but he didn’t know much about economics. Alan Greenspan was an economist, who had no reluctance to work with a politician on a plan that would further the cause of the right-wing goals that both he and President Reagan shared.

    Both Reagan and Greenspan saw big government as an evil, and they saw big business as a virtue. They both had despised the progressive policies of Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson, and they wanted to turn back the pages of time. They came up with the perfect strategy for the redistribution of income and wealth from the working class to the rich. Since we don’t know the nature of the private conversations that took place between Reagan and Greenspan, as well as between their aides, we cannot be sure whether the events that would follow over the next three decades were specifically planned by Reagan and Greenspan, or whether they were just the natural result of the actions the two men played such a big role in. Either way, both Reagan and Greenspan are revered by most conservatives and hated by most liberals."

    http://bearmarketnews.wordpress.com...ever-perpetrated-against-the-american-people/

    Basicly the article refers to the raiding of the Social Security surplus that started under Reagen but continues until this day...

    "4) As soon as the first surpluses began to role in, in 1985, the money was put into the general revenue fund and spent on other government programs. None of the surplus was saved or invested in anything. The surplus Social Security revenue, that was paid by working Americans, was used to replace the lost revenue from Reagan’s big income tax cuts that went primarily to the rich."
     
  16. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,479
    and lets not forget that Reagan was responsible for one one of the largest if not the largest sequence of tax increases the country has ever saw.
     
  17. PieAreSquared Woo is resistant to reason Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,144
    not to mention setting fusion energy research back so many years
     
  18. Black Jack Gen. "Black Jack" Pershing Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    232
    That's what unions are for, remember, I said they were a good thing. In fact, that's right in the quote that you made this response to.

    You seem to have missed the point of what I was saying completely; the point was that the Unions were harmful to their constituents by sacrificing job security and longevity of the company they worked for because they simply got too greedy. Yes, imagine that, the CEO isn't the only one who can be guilty of greed... although in the case of GM the CEO was also guilty of it. Also, you may be surprised to know that assembly line work isn't nearly as hard and unhealthy as you may believe, at least not now-a-days.

    Only in a soap box derby. It's important for employees and employers to understand that they need each other in order for a company to succeed. If the employer gets too greedy then the work force suffers and the quality and reputation of the product suffers, good workers are hard to keep. If the employees get too greedy then they increase the overhead of the product they're manufacturing, inflating the price of it to where the quality no longer matches the cost to manufacture.

    Assuming that the quality of the product matches the level of pay, and the cost of the product matches the target market then there isn't a problem. The problem comes when your product is no longer competitive because the cost to manufacture outweighs the quality of the product, and the target market can no longer afford to buy it. Toyota and Honda were both slowly eating away at GM because they produced a product that was very similar to theirs in quality, and in many cases competitive in price or cheaper. Also keep in mind here that Toyota and Honda workers in the States have their own unions that negotiate their wages very much like the ones at GM.

    It's also fair to note that while cost was a factor caused by both CEO and Unions, GM didn't do anything to help itself by not properly addressing the fuel economy of their vehicles for as long as they did. Not only that, but they lost touch and made some of the most ridiculous vehicles... Pontiac Aztek... Blech!

    (Mind you now, I'm a GM guy. I own 3 cars, all three are GM. But fair is fair!)

    If it started happening before Reagan, then how come the blame comes to rest on his shoulders? And that still doesn't explain what the rust-belt has to do with dead foreigners...
     
  19. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,391
    If any president can be said to have won the Cold War, it would be Nixon when he went to China. You peel China away from the USSR, and suddenly the threat of a monolithic Communist movement dominating the Eurasian landmass disappears.
     
  20. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,910
    I have to agree with you Quad, a very astute observation. But all presidents who preceeded Reagan had a roll in brining down the Soviet Union. And ultimately, the Soviet Union itself had the greatest hand in bringing about its own collapse.
     
  21. dixonmassey Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,151
    That astute observation is 100% off mark, since China peeled off itself from USSR shortly after Stalin's death in 1953. And it was not a small "disagreement". It was a major "divorce" with abrupt cessation/freezing of industrial/military/science etc. projects & trade. China and USSR fought a small border war circa 1967, with hundreds of KIA on both sides. It's a big question who gave away more weapons & supplies to Afghan rebels in 1980s - USA or China. Nixon had nothing to do with that.

    Ironically, Nixon administration selling 32 millions tonnes of grains to USSR in 1972 boosted food prices in the USA beyond reach of many. Nixon eager to win reelection employed agro "economists" to tackle the issue using all the power of economic science. USA dismantled New Deal price controls and embraced direct food commodity subsidies instead. The rest is history - plummeting commodity prices, bankrupt small/medium farmers, large agrobiz as the only survivor, feed lots, rubber like food substances, desolate rural landscapes dominated by corn and soybeans, corn syrup and obesity. In other words, Nixon indeed fought USSR hard

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    So next time you'll behold grocery McBonanza of corn&soy byproducts - remember about USSR

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    I doubt that without US military, USSR would have conquered the World and established 10000 years dominance. It's highly, highly, unlikely, arm race pressures were of the tertiary importance. Fresh memories of WWII + being surrounded by less than friendly nations "encouraged" Soviet leadership ( up to Perestroika and Gorby) to maintain huge military and military production with or without USA and Reagan. USSR never managed (or even tried) to build full fledged ocean going navy without which world dominance is impossible. All that evil Soviets thought was to establish buffer zones in the case of Blitzkrieg II. It's highly unusual path to world dominance.

    As for
    that's highly questionable. First, without American President (Wilson) there would not have been USSR (or Hitler for that matter). Second, starved by Great Depression American Corporations have built entire Soviet industries (including military) during Stalin' industrialization of 1930th. There is not doubt that without American expertise and direct involvement Soviet industrialization (and military build up) would be much more difficult and slow. For example, 1930ish Soviet Army would be almost truckless and tankless if not for Ford.

    Even after the first and second waves of industrialization were over, USSR kept on buying wholesale American technologies it had no resources to create on its own. American corporations were designing entire plants for USSR. When buying was not an option, Soviets reverse engineered even when they had "homegrown" ideas. Unfortunately (for Soviets) they decided to reverse engineer two crucial for the second half of 20th century technologies - semiconductor electronic components and computers instead of developing "aboriginal" (quite good for its time) ideas. That was a big mistake. Reagan's arm race is nothing compared to that mistake.

    To a big surprise of Western elites themselves, Soviet citizenry, like North American Indians 400 years before, had no immune resistance to the Western technologies of mass manipulation and control whatsoever. Today, many remember Gorby years as something shameful, as some kind of mass psychosis which turned them into zombies. In two words, drunken Soviet Indians trashed their country above and beyond Western expectations. Again, nobody in the West expected or wanted for USSR to dissolve. Eastern Europe pull out - Yes, Baltic Republic independence - Yes, complete dissolution of USSR - NO. Cold War is called a War, but it was not quite a war in the full sense of the word.
     
  22. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    18,523
    6 letters in all 3 parts of his name, you know what that spells...
     
  23. soullust Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,380
    Thats what our media, and politicians want us to think.

    They have toys That we don't know about.

    as for mr Regan, i see him as a good leader, how he would do today under todays situation, No clue, And don't care because it will never happen.
     

Share This Page