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InvisibleXlea321
Stranger
Registered: 02/25/01
Posts: 9,134
A timely reminder
    #2777700 - 06/09/04 10:59 AM (19 years, 9 months ago)

The stupidity of Ronald Reagan.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, June 7, 2004, at 10:03 AM PT

Ronald Reagan claimed that the Russian language had no word for "freedom." (The word is "svoboda"; it's quite well attested in Russian literature.) Ronald Reagan said that intercontinental ballistic missiles (not that there are any non-ballistic missiles?a corruption of language that isn't his fault) could be recalled once launched. Ronald Reagan said that he sought a "Star Wars" defense only in order to share the technology with the tyrants of the U.S.S.R. Ronald Reagan professed to be annoyed when people called it "Star Wars," even though he had ended his speech on the subject with the lame quip, "May the force be with you." Ronald Reagan used to alarm his Soviet counterparts by saying that surely they'd both unite against an invasion from Mars. Ronald Reagan used to alarm other constituencies by speaking freely about the "End Times" foreshadowed in the Bible. In the Oval Office, Ronald Reagan told Yitzhak Shamir and Simon Wiesenthal, on two separate occasions, that he himself had assisted personally at the liberation of the Nazi death camps.

There was more to Ronald Reagan than that. Reagan announced that apartheid South Africa had "stood beside us in every war we've ever fought," when the South African leadership had been on the other side in the most recent world war. Reagan allowed Alexander Haig to greenlight the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, fired him when that went too far and led to mayhem in Beirut, then ran away from Lebanon altogether when the Marine barracks were bombed, and then unbelievably accused Tip O'Neill and the Democrats of "scuttling." Reagan sold heavy weapons to the Iranian mullahs and lied about it, saying that all the weapons he hadn't sold them (and hadn't traded for hostages in any case) would, all the same, have fit on a small truck. Reagan then diverted the profits of this criminal trade to an illegal war in Nicaragua and lied unceasingly about that, too. Reagan then modestly let his underlings maintain that he was too dense to understand the connection between the two impeachable crimes. He then switched without any apparent strain to a policy of backing Saddam Hussein against Iran. (If Margaret Thatcher's intelligence services had not bugged Oliver North in London and become infuriated because all European nations were boycotting Iran at Reagan's request, we might still not know about this.)

One could go on. I only saw him once up close, which happened to be when he got a question he didn't like. Was it true that his staff in the 1980 debates had stolen President Carter's briefing book? (They had.) The famously genial grin turned into a rictus of senile fury: I was looking at a cruel and stupid lizard. His reply was that maybe his staff had, and maybe they hadn't, but what about the leak of the Pentagon Papers? Thus, a secret theft of presidential documents was equated with the public disclosure of needful information. This was a man never short of a cheap jibe or the sort of falsehood that would, however laughable, buy him some time.

The fox, as has been pointed out by more than one philosopher, knows many small things, whereas the hedgehog knows one big thing. Ronald Reagan was neither a fox nor a hedgehog. He was as dumb as a stump. He could have had anyone in the world to dinner, any night of the week, but took most of his meals on a White House TV tray. He had no friends, only cronies. His children didn't like him all that much. He met his second wife?the one that you remember?because she needed to get off a Hollywood blacklist and he was the man to see. Year in and year out in Washington, I could not believe that such a man had even been a poor governor of California in a bad year, let alone that such a smart country would put up with such an obvious phony and loon.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2101842/#ContinueArticle


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Don't worry, B. Caapi

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InvisibleInnvertigo
Vote Libertarian!!
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Registered: 02/08/01
Posts: 16,296
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Re: A timely reminder [Re: Xlea321]
    #2777797 - 06/09/04 11:44 AM (19 years, 9 months ago)

:yawn:


--------------------

America....FUCK YEAH!!!

Words of Wisdom: Individual Rights BEFORE Collective Rights

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson

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Invisibledownforpot
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Registered: 06/25/01
Posts: 5,715
Re: A timely reminder [Re: Xlea321]
    #2777820 - 06/09/04 11:52 AM (19 years, 9 months ago)

When Bush dies, the same shit will happen. He will be all over the news and people will act like a bunch of bitches.


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http://www.myspace.com/4th25


"And I don't care if he was handcuffed
Then shot in his head
All I know is dead bodies
Can't fuck with me again"

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InvisibleKingOftheThing
the cool fool
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Registered: 11/17/02
Posts: 27,397
Loc: USA
Re: A timely reminder [Re: downforpot]
    #2777840 - 06/09/04 12:02 PM (19 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

downforpot said:
When Bush dies, the same shit will happen. He will be all over the news and people will act like a bunch of bitches.




not if he is a one term president. one termers are considered failures. like carter and ford arent gonna get this kind of send off....

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InvisibleInnvertigo
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Re: A timely reminder [Re: KingOftheThing]
    #2777967 - 06/09/04 01:06 PM (19 years, 9 months ago)

Ford won't (except in my area (Michigan) but Carter will because of all the extra stuff he's doing now, too bad his presidency was a complete failure.


--------------------

America....FUCK YEAH!!!

Words of Wisdom: Individual Rights BEFORE Collective Rights

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson

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InvisibleXlea321
Stranger
Registered: 02/25/01
Posts: 9,134
Re: A timely reminder [Re: downforpot]
    #2778096 - 06/09/04 01:58 PM (19 years, 9 months ago)

He will be all over the news and people will act like a bunch of bitches

Probably a bit better behaving like bitches than torturing, maiming and slaughtering innocent people like dear befuddled Ronnie tho.


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Don't worry, B. Caapi

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InvisibleXlea321
Stranger
Registered: 02/25/01
Posts: 9,134
Re: A timely reminder [Re: Innvertigo]
    #2778130 - 06/09/04 02:10 PM (19 years, 9 months ago)

too bad his presidency was a complete failure.

Think he failed worse than Shrub?


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Don't worry, B. Caapi

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Anonymous

Re: A timely reminder [Re: Xlea321]
    #2778138 - 06/09/04 02:12 PM (19 years, 9 months ago)

weak.

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InvisibleXlea321
Stranger
Registered: 02/25/01
Posts: 9,134
Re: A timely reminder [Re: ]
    #2778159 - 06/09/04 02:19 PM (19 years, 9 months ago)

No weaker than saying any presidency is a "complete failure". I'm sure even Shrub has done something good.


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Don't worry, B. Caapi

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Anonymous

Re: A timely reminder [Re: Xlea321]
    #2778202 - 06/09/04 02:34 PM (19 years, 9 months ago)

it is a weak article. so he made a lame star wars quote and ate tv dinners...

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InvisibleXlea321
Stranger
Registered: 02/25/01
Posts: 9,134
Re: A timely reminder [Re: ]
    #2778252 - 06/09/04 02:55 PM (19 years, 9 months ago)

And gave the green light to the invasion of Lebanon, sold arms to Iran, funded the Contras and backed Saddam...

Or were you just seeing the bits you wanted to see?


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Don't worry, B. Caapi

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Anonymous

Re: A timely reminder [Re: Xlea321]
    #2778312 - 06/09/04 03:17 PM (19 years, 9 months ago)

all pretty terrible, especially the backing of the contras. maybe instead of focusing on tv dinners and the like, the author should have spent more than part of one of his four paragraphs discussing reagan's meaningful shortcomings. while i agree that reagan had some major fuck-ups when it came to foreign policy, this article is, as i said, weak.

Edited by mushmaster (06/09/04 03:59 PM)

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OfflineBaby_Hitler
Errorist
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Registered: 03/06/02
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Re: A timely reminder [Re: ]
    #2778463 - 06/09/04 04:08 PM (19 years, 9 months ago)

I would love to see a good article about what he did, and the reasons he gave for it.

I'm too young to remember much about Reagan. I was in elementary school through most of his presidency the didn't teach us much about what was going on at the time, just US history up until the early 20th century mostly. I don't even really rember being taught much if anything about Vietnam or Korea.

Lots of crap about the revolution, and civil war, and colonization, and when and how the states were formed.


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"America: Fuck yeah!" -- Alexthegreat

“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.”  -- Thomas Jefferson

The greatest sin of mankind is ignorance.

The press takes [Trump] literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally. --Salena Zeto (9/23/16)

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InvisibleXlea321
Stranger
Registered: 02/25/01
Posts: 9,134
Re: A timely reminder [Re: ]
    #2779846 - 06/10/04 12:04 AM (19 years, 9 months ago)

the author should have spent more than part of one of his four paragraphs discussing reagan's meaningful shortcomings

The article is entitled "The stupidity of Ronald Reagan". With a title like that surely it should focus to an extent on his stupidity not just his "meaningful shortcomings"?

Incidentally, there are more than 4 paragraphs to the article.


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Don't worry, B. Caapi

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InvisibleInnvertigo
Vote Libertarian!!
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Registered: 02/08/01
Posts: 16,296
Loc: Crackerville, Michigan U...
Re: A timely reminder [Re: Xlea321]
    #2780263 - 06/10/04 05:04 AM (19 years, 9 months ago)

Yes, Carter was worse than Bush for different reasons. He was apparantly a nice guy but was inept and afraid to make decisions.


--------------------

America....FUCK YEAH!!!

Words of Wisdom: Individual Rights BEFORE Collective Rights

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson

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OfflineGazzBut
Refraction

Registered: 10/15/02
Posts: 4,773
Loc: London UK
Last seen: 2 months, 24 days
Re: A timely reminder [Re: Innvertigo]
    #2780325 - 06/10/04 05:42 AM (19 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

He was apparantly a nice guy but was inept and afraid to make decisions.




So how is a blatantly insincere jerk, who is stupid and frighteningly unafraid to make monumentally bad decisions any better?


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Always Smi2le

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InvisibleInnvertigo
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Re: A timely reminder [Re: GazzBut]
    #2780380 - 06/10/04 06:09 AM (19 years, 9 months ago)

sour grapes.

I never said Bush was great, he's just better than Carter.  A one term president who had his ass handed to him on election day.

I hate both of the candidates running but if I have to pick one i'd go with Bush.  Not that i support him but it's just so cute how libbies whine and cry.  The down side will be that the political forum will be what it's been for the last year or two.  :yawn:


--------------------

America....FUCK YEAH!!!

Words of Wisdom: Individual Rights BEFORE Collective Rights

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson

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OfflineGazzBut
Refraction

Registered: 10/15/02
Posts: 4,773
Loc: London UK
Last seen: 2 months, 24 days
Re: A timely reminder [Re: Innvertigo]
    #2780390 - 06/10/04 06:18 AM (19 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

sour grapes.




Nope. Simply stating the obvious.


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Always Smi2le

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InvisibleInnvertigo
Vote Libertarian!!
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Registered: 02/08/01
Posts: 16,296
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Re: A timely reminder [Re: GazzBut]
    #2780397 - 06/10/04 06:25 AM (19 years, 9 months ago)

as am I.


--------------------

America....FUCK YEAH!!!

Words of Wisdom: Individual Rights BEFORE Collective Rights

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson

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InvisibleXlea321
Stranger
Registered: 02/25/01
Posts: 9,134
Re: A timely reminder [Re: Innvertigo]
    #2780899 - 06/10/04 09:26 AM (19 years, 9 months ago)

Not quite Inny, you said his presidency was a complete failure. You can't hold power in America for years and not do a single good thing - even if it's only by accident. For a start I don't remember him doing anything as stupid as the the "war on drugs" or invading Iraq.


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Don't worry, B. Caapi

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