Ford, why do call Reagan a bad president?

[McCarrens]

Reagan was respected in the polls, ended the Cold War (and don't start off saying Eisenhower did) and is an American legend. Why do you hate him?

[FORD]

First of all, the Cold War ended itself. The Russians got bogged down in Afghanistan figting a CIA trained team of Muslim fanatics who would later become Al Qaeda.

Basically it comes down to the US having better credit than the Russians. By the time Poppy's term ended in 1992 this country was as deep in debt as the USSR was, but we managed to keep it going through the massive deficit that would only be topped by the mess Junior has made more recently. The billions of dollars wasted on "Star Wars" - which never worked - could have solved the famine in Ethiopia and given a great kickstart to medical research on AIDS, cancer, Alzheimers (there's irony for you) or any number of other things that would have benefitted the planet far more than a useless, non functioning space weapons system..

That's a good start. I'll go into more detail about the Reagan Record when I have more time.

[Rikk]

Originally posted by McCarrens
Reagan was respected in the polls, ended the Cold War (and don't start off saying Eisenhower did) and is an American legend. Why do you hate him?

This is where your media is painting a simple picture to make you over-sentimentalize something or someone.

Sorry, but any good economist (I grew up in an economist's house) will tell you that socialism is pretty much doomed in and of itself. Beyond that, the Soviets were on their last legs already when Reagan began his term. The only thing Reagan really did was speed up the process a tiny bit (with a giant amount of American tax dollars) by escalating the Arms Race. This actually hurt the American economy (long-term). In the end, Reagan can take no such credit. No President single-handedly brings down another superpower's economy. Russia were drowning, Reagan was around just before it happened. All of his anti-Russian rhetoric in the 80s made it sound as if he were single-handedly responsible. But the truth is, the world situation was changing and Communist economies couldn't keep up, they were falling apart on themselves, the Cold War definitely WASN'T HELPING, etc.

Revisionist-history will hopefully stay on CNN but out of our schoolbooks.

[Rikk]

Originally posted by FORD
The billions of dollars wasted on "Star Wars" - which never worked - could have solved the famine in Ethiopia and given a great kickstart to medical research on AIDS, cancer, Alzheimers (there's irony for you) or any number of other things that would have benefitted the planet far more than a useless, non functioning space weapons system..

Amazing how often a government isn't held accountable for its actions. Seriously...STAR WARS was the ultimate fuck-up. In the 80's and 90's, it seemed as if rock stars cared more about the famine in Ethiopia or the AIDS crisis. The current administration has taken an even greater step back from AIDS funding. But nobody thinks this is relevant because they will buy into the nuclear scare, the terrorist scare, etc.

[FORD]

Yep, and now Junior and Uncle Dick are trying to sell space weapons AGAIN.

As if a (non working) laser in space would have done us a goddamn bit of good on 9-11-01 when the weapons we DID have were rendered useless by the military being told (conveniently) that it was a FUCKING DRILL!

[McCarrens]

You two are just as worng as the history books, with all your talk that Reagan did nthing but speed up a almost-certain downfall in the Soviet economy. If it was going to fall, why didn't it fall under Carter? Oh, I know, it is because he didn't have the skill to make up a series of events -- like the Afgan war -- that would topple Russia.

And as far as Reagan and "Poppy" creating Al Queda, well maybe they did trainsome of the early leaders, but there was no way for them to know what thye would do with thta traiing later.

No one can see into the future.

And speaking of seeing the future, Ford, predicitng the future by saying what could have been done with the Star Wars money is just like me saying, "My life would have been better if, instead of attending undergraduate, I used that money to instead buy lottery tickets and win millions of dollars."

It is using irrational logic to hindsight second-guess something in favor of something that is not guaranteed to happen.
:eek:

[Steve Savicki]

Originally posted by FORD
The billions of dollars wasted on "Star Wars" - which never worked - could have solved the famine in Ethiopia and given a great kickstart to medical research on AIDS, cancer, Alzheimers (there's irony for you)
Reagen should've kept Star Wars a movie and followed through with the latter mentioned.

I remember Star Wars being introduced to us when I was in school, 1985... still prefered to associate the name with the movie.

[Snow Ho]

my dad has no love for reagan. he is a union pipefitter, and said reagan was anti-union. anyway, i was about 5 or so at the time and it was economically terrible times. i remember being terrified as a kid we were going to be homeless and on the streets. at five i really didn't care about cold wars or star wars. so there's where my prejudice comes from. i just remember the surviving day to day.

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by McCarrens
And as far as Reagan and "Poppy" creating Al Queda, well maybe they did trainsome of the early leaders, but there was no way for them to know what thye would do with thta traiing later.

No one can see into the future.

What the fuck do think is gonna happen when you give the same training to Islamic fundamentalist crazies that you give to your best spies?!?!?! :mad: We can hardly keep the wraps on the CIA ourselves, and they're supposed to be on our side!

[FORD]

Originally posted by McCarrens
You two are just as worng as the history books, with all your talk that Reagan did nthing but speed up a almost-certain downfall in the Soviet economy. If it was going to fall, why didn't it fall under Carter? Oh, I know, it is because he didn't have the skill to make up a series of events -- like the Afgan war -- that would topple Russia.

Well, actually he did exactly that. Remember that the Russians invaded Afghanistan in 1979. It was Jimmy Carter and his adviser Zbignew Bryzinski who began the resistance. It was Poppy Bush who put an old family friend (Osama) in charge of it.

And as far as Reagan and "Poppy" creating Al Queda, well maybe they did trainsome of the early leaders, but there was no way for them to know what thye would do with thta traiing later.

No one can see into the future.

If you're in the business of creating monsters, then you better know damn well how your own monsters operate. And when your monsters operate on the principle that "no way of life is acceptable except OUR interpretation of what the Quran teaches", then you had better realize up front that there aren't exceptions to that rule, as far as they are concerned, for the infidels giving them money and weapons.

You also assume that the BCE did not WANT such a future. But what if they did? What if they planned for their monster turning against us as a means to achieve their own goals?

And speaking of seeing the future, Ford, predicitng the future by saying what could have been done with the Star Wars money is just like me saying, "My life would have been better if, instead of attending undergraduate, I used that money to instead buy lottery tickets and win millions of dollars."

It is using irrational logic to hindsight second-guess something in favor of something that is not guaranteed to happen.
:eek:

Your example doesn't fit. It's a well known statistically proven fact that the odds of winning a Lotto jackpot in any participating state are overwhelmingly against you. I think it's one in 1.7 million here on average.

Technological research doesn't work that way. You experiment constantly, with every circuit, with every system, with every component, and if it doesn't work, it's back to the drawing board. You don't sell it as a completed product if you don't even know it works. Only Bill Gates & Paul Allen can get away with that, and they only did it once - licensing MS DOS to IBM when they didn't actually HAVE an MS-DOS yet.

Luckily for Microsoft, they knew someone who DID have a working DOS and they bought it from him for a ridiculously low price, and immediately started cranking it out as their own, and odds are you're reading this on a computer that benefitted from that swindle.

But no such deal was possible with Star Wars. When they realized it wasn't workable, they should have dropped it, but as our friends at Halliburton keep reminding us, defense contractors admit to being wrong about as much as the Chimp does.

[McCarrens]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
We can hardly keep the wraps on the CIA ourselves, and they're supposed to be on our side!

You've been watching too much X-Files.

[McCarrens]

Originally posted by Snow Ho
my dad has no love for reagan. he is a union pipefitter, and said reagan was anti-union. anyway, i was about 5 or so at the time and it was economically terrible times. i remember being terrified as a kid we were going to be homeless and on the streets. at five i really didn't care about cold wars or star wars. so there's where my prejudice comes from. i just remember the surviving day to day.

No offense to your Dad or your memories, but my father was in a union (unions are one of tenets of liberal throught I can almost accept. However, they were originally useful but now they are past their time) and the eighties were his most profitable decade (factoring in the change in dollar values for each of the years since 1983).

:D

[Snow Ho]

Originally posted by McCarrens
No offense to your Dad or your memories, but my father was in a union (unions are one of tenets of liberal throught I can almost accept. However, they were originally useful but now they are past their time) and the eighties were his most profitable decade (factoring in the change in dollar values for each of the years since 1983).

:D

none taken.

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by Snow Ho
my dad has no love for reagan. he is a union pipefitter, and said reagan was anti-union. anyway, i was about 5 or so at the time and it was economically terrible times. i remember being terrified as a kid we were going to be homeless and on the streets. at five i really didn't care about cold wars or star wars. so there's where my prejudice comes from. i just remember the surviving day to day.

Understandable, Snow Ho, understandable. My dad was on strike for 9 months (UAW) in 1980 and I don't know what we would've done if my mom wouldn't have been an RN. I vowed then I would NEVER be in a job that relied on a union. The union ended up settling for basically the same package it was presented with 9 months prior...after many families were ruined, both financially and otherwise. :(

[Lqskdiver]

Originally posted by FORD
First of all, the Cold War ended itself. The Russians got bogged down in Afghanistan figting a CIA trained team of Muslim fanatics who would later become Al Qaeda.

So then by YOUR logic, Bush was responsible for ending the Cold war.

;)

[HELLVIS]

Originally posted by FORD
The billions of dollars wasted on "Star Wars" - which never worked - could have solved the famine in Ethiopia and given a great kickstart to medical research on AIDS, cancer, Alzheimers (there's irony for you) or any number of other things that would have benefitted the planet far more

I really hate it when people equate aids with cancer. Please tell the class how many people die from aids. Now tell the other children how many people die from cancer. Right.......

Also,Billions wouldn't and won't put a dent in african famine. It's sad, but a dead comedian had a better handle on the issue than many college grads I know. It is said, " Give a man a fish and feed him today, but teach a man to fish and you feed him for life." Well, that logic was put to the test many times. Those people have been given farms and seed and irrigation many times, and as soon as the missionaries leave, the let it all go to hell, and fall right back in the shit. They are who they are...who they have been for thousands of years. Sam Kinison may have been joking about U-HAULS, but it's true that the only way to help them is to move them. BUT....they don't want to move! Deal with it.

[ELVIS]

Shut up FORD...:rolleyes:

The Russians thought Star Wars worked, that's all that matters, so in a sense, It worked brilliantly...

[FORD]

The Russians had their own problems. Besides Afghnaistan and their tanking economy, they couldn't keep their leaders alive and in office until Gorby came along, and by then the damage was mostly done. And I don't think Gorby was all that concerned with Star Wars, he was trying to save Russia's ass from itself. He thought "glasnost" was the key, but it was too little too late.

[tobinentinc]

Ford, what is your hatred toward republicans?? Were you sexually moletsted by one when you were a child? Did they come into your house and kill your parents? Did they steal your girlfriend?? You are one of the most closed-minded indivduals I have ever come across. You would rather see Karl Marx president than Rudy.

[McCarrens]

Tobinentinc gets five votes from me!

I don't know who you are, but you seem okay to me...