History's not "beginning" to judge Reagan as anything other than the old fool...
If Reagan was such an old fool, why was he able to foresee the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union when noone else could?
Quote:
"What I am describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term - the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people" - President Reagan?s Westminster Address, June 3, 1982
Reagan made that claim three years before Gorbachev came to power.
If Reagan was such an old fool, why was he able to foresee the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union when noone else could?
Reagan made that claim three years before Gorbachev came to power.
Quote:
"What I am describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term - the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people" - President Reagan?s Westminster Address, June 3, 1982
That's rather general. Ooh, I'm going to make one of my own...
"What I am describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term - the march of freedom and democracy which will leave the two party system on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people."
That's rather general. Ooh, I'm going to make one of my own...
<snip>
YAY! I'VE MADE HISTORY!
The difference is Reagan was proven right. Moreover, when he spoke those words the Soviet Union was simply an accepted fact by everyone else. It doesn't matter how general his statement was, it went against what EVERYONE else believed to be true. Turned out he was right and everyone else was wrong.
The difference is Reagan was proven right. Moreover, when he spoke those words the Soviet Union was simply an accepted fact by everyone else. It doesn't matter how general his statement was, it went against what EVERYONE else believed to be true. Turned out he was right and everyone else was wrong.
Any thinking person paying attention to what was happening in the soviet union at the time could see it was a sinking ship.
If he was paying attention it doesn't mean he had anything to do with it.
I'm sure he planned to take credit for it however.
If Reagan was such an old fool, why was he able to foresee the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union when noone else could?
Oh look. JF Kennedy's responsible for the fall of Communism, too. He predicted it WAY before Ronald Reagan did.
Quote:
There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin.
Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us. I want to say, on behalf of my countrymen, who live many miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, who are far distant from you, that they take the greatest pride that they have been able to share with you, even from a distance, the story of the last 18 years. I know of no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force, and the hope and the determination of the city of West Berlin. While the wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system, for all the world to see, we take no satisfaction in it, for it is, as your Mayor has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together.
[snip]
Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. When all are free, then we can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe. When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades.
The difference is Reagan was proven right. Moreover, when he spoke those words the Soviet Union was simply an accepted fact by everyone else. It doesn't matter how general his statement was, it went against what EVERYONE else believed to be true. Turned out he was right and everyone else was wrong.
And how many other statements did he make that turned out false? That's like saying Nostradamus was so damn good because one of every nine hundred quatrains turned out semi-correct.
And, I see from Jimmy Carter's collected speeches, he was responsible for the end of Communism some five or six times in the 1970s!!!!!!!
AND TRICKY DICKY "RICHARD" NIXON WAS RESPONSIBLE BEFORE THAT!
First of all, I never said Reagan words were responsible for the fall of communism. Of course you know that but it's more fun to put words in the other person's mouth, right? Reagan's rhetoric certainly had a powerful effect but it didn't cause the collapse of the Soviet Union. Secondly, you want to show me where and when Carter and Nixon predicted the fall of the Soviet Union? Nixon's foreign policy was all about rapprochement with the Soviets (and later, the Chinese) rather than superpower rivalry. Carter's was even less about competition with the Soviets. His focus was on human rights. His most memorable line was about how we were free of "the inordinate fear of communism".
You also mentioned Kennedy. So? There's no question JFK was a cold warrior but he wasn't speaking to the same world as was Reagan. Reagan spoke after Vietnam and at a time when the Soviet Union was pretty much at it's zenith. It was a lot easier to believe in the US's final victory when JFK spoke those words than when Reagan did.
A lot of people are dumping on Harding...he didn't have the fortitude to stand up to the corruption below him. He wasn't tough enough to be president, but he wasn't a terrible person.
Harding was unequivocally NOT directly involved with Teapot Dome. With rampant gambling and taking a mistress, yes.
In the case of Iran-Contra: Reagan's cabinet was 100% without question involved, we can infer with about 99% certainty that George Bush the Elder was involved. Reagan's "I don't recall" quote seems like a cop-out to some, but to me it seems like a chilling reminder that Reagan wasn't really driving the car for most of his presidency.
Top 3 presidents (in my book):
1.FD Roosevelt: created the American war machine in WW2. Rebuilt society after the Depression.
2. Woodrow Wilson: anti-trust legislation, getting America involved in WWI at the right time, helping rebuild Europe
3. Teddy Roosevelt: trust-buster, determined leader, helping Latin America become recognized on the world stage(although not without his flaws).
Worst 3:
1. George W. Bush: representing corruption and the wealthy while hurting employment and education opportunities for normal Americans.
2. Andrew Johnson: stonewalled efforts by his own party to reconstruct the South.
3. Ulysses S. Grant: What did he do? Played cards and smoked cigars. A good general but a poor president.
1.FD Roosevelt: created the American war machine in WW2. Rebuilt society after the Depression.
2. Woodrow Wilson: anti-trust legislation, getting America involved in WWI at the right time, helping rebuild Europe...
Wilson was a racist and he pretty much failed to get America involved in post-WWI Europe.
Quote:
Worst 3:
1. George W. Bush: representing corruption and the wealthy while hurting employment and education opportunities for normal Americans.
2. Andrew Johnson: stonewalled efforts by his own party to reconstruct the South.
Johnson was a Democrat.
Quote:
3. Ulysses S. Grant: What did he do? Played cards and smoked cigars. A good general but a poor president.
Grant's administration wasn't any more corrupt than successive ones. But because it was more corrupt than his predecessor's admins it was seen to be terribly scandal-ridden. Even so, his admin was scandalous, not because of Grant who had put his personal wealth in a blind trust, but because the explosive growth of the federal government brought about by the Civil war had created more opportunities for corruption.
In this light, some of Grant's policies look surprisingly good. He secured passage of the 15th Amendment , which prohibited Southern states from barring blacks from voting based solely on race, and then he enforced it. According to Princeton historian James McPherson, the presidential election of 1872 was the South's fairest election until 1968. Grant used federal troops to crack down on the incipient Ku Klux Klan. He even has decent multi-culti credentials on the Indian question, where he pushed for a policy of assimilation in the face of popular support for wars of extermination. (Grant doesn't bat 1.000 on these issues, though: As a general, he issued an order barring "Jews as a class" from his military department, because he believed they were involved in cotton smuggling with the Confederacy.)
SDW, it's their system that failed. They weren't beaten back or anything like that. Their collapse was internal. The Soviets were deverting money from other places ( hence the long lines just to get a loaf of bread ) for more years than you've been alive. Finally their economic structure failed. Reagan didn't really have anything to do with it anymore than any other american president.
I agree with most of that, actually. But Reagan helped to accelerate it and he also foresaw it. He had the guts to say it openly. No one else did at the time.
I disagree with the last point. He was the catalyst. When Reagan came to speak at the Berlin wall, hundreds of people gathered on the East German side to listen. Now, tell me his rhetoric wasn't meaningful.
History's not "beginning" to judge Reagan as anything other than the old fool who dyed his hair, cracked jokes about nuclear holocaust on national TV and happened to be around when the people of the Soviet Union took power back to themselves, I'd say.
That's hilarious. Really. Look at public opinion of Reagan. Look at historical accounts. Look at surveys on greatest Presidents. Your statment is just flat-wrong.
jimmac:
Quote:
Any thinking person paying attention to what was happening in the soviet union at the time could see it was a sinking ship.
If he was paying attention it doesn't mean he had anything to do with it.
I'm sure he planned to take credit for it however.
But liberals DIDN'T see it!!! That's the whole point. The Left thought Reagan was crazy. They called him a war monger. They said that the Soviets were going to have to be accepted, as was their ever expanding influence. If anyone could have seen it, why didn't Reagan's opponents?
I'll tell you why: Because they were weak pacifists who were as wrong then as they are today. In other words, they were liberals.
That's hilarious. Really. Look at public opinion of Reagan. Look at historical accounts. Look at surveys on greatest Presidents. Your statment is just flat-wrong.
jimmac:
But liberals DIDN'T see it!!! That's the whole point. The Left thought Reagan was crazy. They called him a war monger. They said that the Soviets were going to have to be accepted, as was their ever expanding influence. If anyone could have seen it, why didn't Reagan's opponents?
I'll tell you why: Because they were weak pacifists who were as wrong then as they are today. In other words, they were liberals.
Nothing you've said supports the idea that Reagan ended the cold war.
Couple of statements I'd like to make. Reagan was an extremely effective president, maybe even a great, not because of his policies. No his policies are going to be debatable for centuries. He was a great president because he instilled pride into a vast number of Americans, working class, military, families, business men, doctors, lawyers, etc... He did come from a position of strength. Somehow he capturedthe majority of the working class voters, when the unions behind these working class factory voters has been historically Democratic. "And I'm proud to be an American" - Lee Greenwood. Another thing is that Reagan as an American president will always be an American icon for the pride he gave us, the humour of the type of character he was, and the debates his policies will spark for decades. You still see references to the Reagan archetype in popular culture, and do believe that Reagan has reached that sort of cultural significance as to labeled an archetype.
My second point, just because a system in inherently flawed doesn't mean it will implode. No, I governmental system falls apart because it is not adaptable. As to wheather Reagan had anything to do with facilitating an enviroment that the USSR could not adapt to, a big question. The argument is open either way. The US is an inherently flawed system, yet still thrives, why because our system with its flaws is adaptable. I hope I have concensus.
PS Clinton fired more missles in his first year as president than the Reagan and Bush Sr administrations did in the total of 12 years.
Just sharing an interesting factoid that I think sheds light on the Clinton admin. Everyone says the Bush admins and the Reagan admin were warmongers, but the Clinton admin did a fair bit of warmongering also. Hell I do believe it was a Dem, one that is revered, that got us into one of the biggest military fiascos in US history, Vietnam. And who pulled us out finally, one of the most untrustworthy characters to grace the oval office. Each admin has it's dirty laundry. We were just distracted from Clinton's activities due to "Slick Willy's inability to keep his willy out from the intern", big deal on that btw, sure it made the pres look like a fop, but lets get back to the real story, Clinton was not a good president, he was a clown with a assload of luck, the Dems need get back to the days when they had leaders that inspired, that make Americans proud to be Americans
Comments
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
History's not "beginning" to judge Reagan as anything other than the old fool...
If Reagan was such an old fool, why was he able to foresee the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union when noone else could?
"What I am describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term - the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people" - President Reagan?s Westminster Address, June 3, 1982
Reagan made that claim three years before Gorbachev came to power.
Originally posted by zaphod_beeblebrox
If Reagan was such an old fool, why was he able to foresee the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union when noone else could?
Reagan made that claim three years before Gorbachev came to power.
"What I am describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term - the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people" - President Reagan?s Westminster Address, June 3, 1982
That's rather general. Ooh, I'm going to make one of my own...
"What I am describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term - the march of freedom and democracy which will leave the two party system on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people."
YAY! I'VE MADE HISTORY!
Originally posted by BR
That's rather general. Ooh, I'm going to make one of my own...
<snip>
YAY! I'VE MADE HISTORY!
The difference is Reagan was proven right. Moreover, when he spoke those words the Soviet Union was simply an accepted fact by everyone else. It doesn't matter how general his statement was, it went against what EVERYONE else believed to be true. Turned out he was right and everyone else was wrong.
Originally posted by zaphod_beeblebrox
The difference is Reagan was proven right. Moreover, when he spoke those words the Soviet Union was simply an accepted fact by everyone else. It doesn't matter how general his statement was, it went against what EVERYONE else believed to be true. Turned out he was right and everyone else was wrong.
Any thinking person paying attention to what was happening in the soviet union at the time could see it was a sinking ship.
If he was paying attention it doesn't mean he had anything to do with it.
I'm sure he planned to take credit for it however.
Originally posted by zaphod_beeblebrox
If Reagan was such an old fool, why was he able to foresee the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union when noone else could?
Oh look. JF Kennedy's responsible for the fall of Communism, too. He predicted it WAY before Ronald Reagan did.
There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin.
Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us. I want to say, on behalf of my countrymen, who live many miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, who are far distant from you, that they take the greatest pride that they have been able to share with you, even from a distance, the story of the last 18 years. I know of no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force, and the hope and the determination of the city of West Berlin. While the wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system, for all the world to see, we take no satisfaction in it, for it is, as your Mayor has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together.
[snip]
Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. When all are free, then we can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe. When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades.
And, I see from Jimmy Carter's collected speeches, he was responsible for the end of Communism some five or six times in the 1970s!!!!!!!
AND TRICKY DICKY "RICHARD" NIXON WAS RESPONSIBLE BEFORE THAT!
OMFG! Nostradamus is probably responsible too!
And it's probably in the Bible Code!
Originally posted by zaphod_beeblebrox
The difference is Reagan was proven right. Moreover, when he spoke those words the Soviet Union was simply an accepted fact by everyone else. It doesn't matter how general his statement was, it went against what EVERYONE else believed to be true. Turned out he was right and everyone else was wrong.
And how many other statements did he make that turned out false? That's like saying Nostradamus was so damn good because one of every nine hundred quatrains turned out semi-correct.
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
Interestingly, Margaret Thatcher was responsible for the end of the Soviet Union by predicting it in 1979, FOUR YEARS BEFORE ROLAND McREAGAN!
And, I see from Jimmy Carter's collected speeches, he was responsible for the end of Communism some five or six times in the 1970s!!!!!!!
AND TRICKY DICKY "RICHARD" NIXON WAS RESPONSIBLE BEFORE THAT!
OMFG! Nostradamus is probably responsible too!
And it's probably in the Bible Code!
I nearly fell off my chair man. I love you. I want your babies...to eat
love
you
too
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
And, I see from Jimmy Carter's collected speeches, he was responsible for the end of Communism some five or six times in the 1970s!!!!!!!
AND TRICKY DICKY "RICHARD" NIXON WAS RESPONSIBLE BEFORE THAT!
First of all, I never said Reagan words were responsible for the fall of communism. Of course you know that but it's more fun to put words in the other person's mouth, right? Reagan's rhetoric certainly had a powerful effect but it didn't cause the collapse of the Soviet Union. Secondly, you want to show me where and when Carter and Nixon predicted the fall of the Soviet Union? Nixon's foreign policy was all about rapprochement with the Soviets (and later, the Chinese) rather than superpower rivalry. Carter's was even less about competition with the Soviets. His focus was on human rights. His most memorable line was about how we were free of "the inordinate fear of communism".
You also mentioned Kennedy. So? There's no question JFK was a cold warrior but he wasn't speaking to the same world as was Reagan. Reagan spoke after Vietnam and at a time when the Soviet Union was pretty much at it's zenith. It was a lot easier to believe in the US's final victory when JFK spoke those words than when Reagan did.
Harding was unequivocally NOT directly involved with Teapot Dome. With rampant gambling and taking a mistress, yes.
In the case of Iran-Contra: Reagan's cabinet was 100% without question involved, we can infer with about 99% certainty that George Bush the Elder was involved. Reagan's "I don't recall" quote seems like a cop-out to some, but to me it seems like a chilling reminder that Reagan wasn't really driving the car for most of his presidency.
Top 3 presidents (in my book):
1.FD Roosevelt: created the American war machine in WW2. Rebuilt society after the Depression.
2. Woodrow Wilson: anti-trust legislation, getting America involved in WWI at the right time, helping rebuild Europe
3. Teddy Roosevelt: trust-buster, determined leader, helping Latin America become recognized on the world stage(although not without his flaws).
Worst 3:
1. George W. Bush: representing corruption and the wealthy while hurting employment and education opportunities for normal Americans.
2. Andrew Johnson: stonewalled efforts by his own party to reconstruct the South.
3. Ulysses S. Grant: What did he do? Played cards and smoked cigars. A good general but a poor president.
Originally posted by Gizzmonic
Top 3 presidents (in my book):
1.FD Roosevelt: created the American war machine in WW2. Rebuilt society after the Depression.
2. Woodrow Wilson: anti-trust legislation, getting America involved in WWI at the right time, helping rebuild Europe...
Wilson was a racist and he pretty much failed to get America involved in post-WWI Europe.
Worst 3:
1. George W. Bush: representing corruption and the wealthy while hurting employment and education opportunities for normal Americans.
2. Andrew Johnson: stonewalled efforts by his own party to reconstruct the South.
Johnson was a Democrat.
3. Ulysses S. Grant: What did he do? Played cards and smoked cigars. A good general but a poor president.
Grant's administration wasn't any more corrupt than successive ones. But because it was more corrupt than his predecessor's admins it was seen to be terribly scandal-ridden. Even so, his admin was scandalous, not because of Grant who had put his personal wealth in a blind trust, but because the explosive growth of the federal government brought about by the Civil war had created more opportunities for corruption.
Moreover the policies of Grant's presidency were rather good:
In this light, some of Grant's policies look surprisingly good. He secured passage of the 15th Amendment , which prohibited Southern states from barring blacks from voting based solely on race, and then he enforced it. According to Princeton historian James McPherson, the presidential election of 1872 was the South's fairest election until 1968. Grant used federal troops to crack down on the incipient Ku Klux Klan. He even has decent multi-culti credentials on the Indian question, where he pushed for a policy of assimilation in the face of popular support for wars of extermination. (Grant doesn't bat 1.000 on these issues, though: As a general, he issued an order barring "Jews as a class" from his military department, because he believed they were involved in cotton smuggling with the Confederacy.)
Originally posted by jimmac
That's right!
SDW, it's their system that failed. They weren't beaten back or anything like that. Their collapse was internal. The Soviets were deverting money from other places ( hence the long lines just to get a loaf of bread ) for more years than you've been alive. Finally their economic structure failed. Reagan didn't really have anything to do with it anymore than any other american president.
I agree with most of that, actually. But Reagan helped to accelerate it and he also foresaw it. He had the guts to say it openly. No one else did at the time.
I disagree with the last point. He was the catalyst. When Reagan came to speak at the Berlin wall, hundreds of people gathered on the East German side to listen. Now, tell me his rhetoric wasn't meaningful.
History's not "beginning" to judge Reagan as anything other than the old fool who dyed his hair, cracked jokes about nuclear holocaust on national TV and happened to be around when the people of the Soviet Union took power back to themselves, I'd say.
That's hilarious. Really. Look at public opinion of Reagan. Look at historical accounts. Look at surveys on greatest Presidents. Your statment is just flat-wrong.
jimmac:
Any thinking person paying attention to what was happening in the soviet union at the time could see it was a sinking ship.
If he was paying attention it doesn't mean he had anything to do with it.
I'm sure he planned to take credit for it however.
But liberals DIDN'T see it!!! That's the whole point. The Left thought Reagan was crazy. They called him a war monger. They said that the Soviets were going to have to be accepted, as was their ever expanding influence. If anyone could have seen it, why didn't Reagan's opponents?
I'll tell you why: Because they were weak pacifists who were as wrong then as they are today. In other words, they were liberals.
Originally posted by SDW2001
Hassan:
That's hilarious. Really. Look at public opinion of Reagan. Look at historical accounts. Look at surveys on greatest Presidents. Your statment is just flat-wrong.
jimmac:
But liberals DIDN'T see it!!! That's the whole point. The Left thought Reagan was crazy. They called him a war monger. They said that the Soviets were going to have to be accepted, as was their ever expanding influence. If anyone could have seen it, why didn't Reagan's opponents?
I'll tell you why: Because they were weak pacifists who were as wrong then as they are today. In other words, they were liberals.
Nothing you've said supports the idea that Reagan ended the cold war.
Geez!
My second point, just because a system in inherently flawed doesn't mean it will implode. No, I governmental system falls apart because it is not adaptable. As to wheather Reagan had anything to do with facilitating an enviroment that the USSR could not adapt to, a big question. The argument is open either way. The US is an inherently flawed system, yet still thrives, why because our system with its flaws is adaptable. I hope I have concensus.
PS Clinton fired more missles in his first year as president than the Reagan and Bush Sr administrations did in the total of 12 years.
Originally posted by LiquidR
PS Clinton fired more missles in his first year as president than the Reagan and Bush Sr administrations did in the total of 12 years.
Does that really mean anything? No.