Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
That was not the point of the speech. Gorbachev enacted Perestroika and Glasnost, which increased personal freedoms within the USSR. Both reforms enacted by Gorbachev were probably inspired by Reagan. Reagan was issuing a challenge to the USSR to continue pushing reforms, increase freedoms, and join the 'free' world again by tearing down the wall.
Sounds like you know his speeches. Gorbachev agreed by not sending out tanks. No matter who the credit goes to, Thatcher, The Pope or Reagan it was a conglomerate of freedom calls.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frankie117
And just so you know, Reagan and Clinton both were massive arms dealers, the latter being responsible for supplying African warlords, more so than Middle Eastern and South American nations that Reagan kept well armed.
IIRC it may have been in Marlin Fitzwater's or Donald Regan's book. Regardless of where it was the facts are that at the time Newt Gingrich and others on the far right (which Reagan definitely was not) were ripping him at home for being too cozy with Gorby and others. BTW, this is very easy to check as there's this internet thing that your can probably find newspaper articles and op-ed pieces from that time.
As someone else wrote had a D done the things Reagan did (and always advocated doing) by talking to "evil empires" Hannity and others would have been shouting "appeaser".
As someone else posted, there's no doubt that the Reagans had no problems with gays. They had lots of gay friends from the Hollywood days. Of course the political side of the Reagan operation had to keep that quiet to keep the Dobsons and Fallwells from going nuts (more nuts than they already were).
golfgod
He gave up on trying to talk to "evil empires" death after death. He did even write to Brezhnev. Up until Gorbachev and even Gorbachev he thought they were all the same. "He's just another communist, probably more extreme because he's younger." That was comments about Gorbachev in the first few days after his appointment. To end the talks and seal the deal he told Gorbachev they'd never win because we'd out spend them. We didn't get a 600 ship navy but it wasn't far off. A very little price to pay considering the billions upon billions the appeasement cost.
It is during this time that people stopped trying to save as they had in the past and CC lines boomed and soared and government debt took off. That is the part of the current economic climate I blame Reagan for - And maybe a bit of his total bombardment on regulations.
I'll be honest, this sounds like a guess. Is there any proof that makes you think he was telling everyone to spend spend spend? Certainly it wasn't the underling fact that everyone had more money. That'd be like saying you make more money so you should be taxed more so people around you don't feel bad about your success.
I felt that way too in 1980. I was living in Illinois at the time. He was not like there. In the fall of 1980 we moved to Colorado, and I was shocked to find people supporting him. I was even more shocked when he won.
It's the conservatives who are always sarcasatically referring to Obama as the Messiah.
Agreed.
OK, so he mentioned it 5 years after it srufaced in this country, not six. BFD!
Reagan presided over the collapse of the steel industry. To be sure, the steel industry imploded on itself, with management and the unions both participating in its undoing. However, Reagan's response to the unemployed steelworkers was that people should "vote with their feet", and leave western Pennsylvania, instead of trying to help them. I hate him for that.
It's obvious you people clump lower taxes with deregulation.
If you read my post, you would have seen my part about the unions' role in that. I don't think it was Reagan's fault that the steel industry collapsed. It was years in the making. But his cold-heartedness towards the hordes (and that's what it was) of unemployed there I will never forgive him for.
Seriously? From the Screen Actors Guild President and the only union card carrying president?
Yeah, let 'em starve. Don't help them over the hump.
Your problem is helping them over the hump bankrupts an already struggling country. The same problems California faced when he took over. $1 million dollars a day more than it took in. Do you think he taxed more or cut? Was he re-elected? Was he then elected president? Yeah yeah I know Californians are whacky...
Now let's set the record straight. There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace -- and you can have it in the next second -- surrender.
Quote:
So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride—the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.
I kind of thought it was funny when he first ran against Ford in the primary but as a President Reagan was probably one of the most effective. I didn't agree with him on anything he did- very little of it anyway- but he was dealing with a Democratic Congress and Senate and still managed to get what he wanted out of them. Carter was a Democrat and could not get anything out of his own Congress.
I forgot to thank Ronald Reagan for "Trickle Down Economics"; because the middle class and poor must just love being pissed on!
How old are you? Because you must be forgetting Keynesian economics that were taking place when President Reagan took over, 10% Unemployment, 20% interest rates and 15% inflation. Hope to god you don';t get Keynesian economics for years.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
