Gallup poll: Reagan greatest president ever

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soundforbjt

Lifer
Feb 15, 2002
17,788
6,040
136
As for Gorby's comments you quoted, it just further illustrates why Reagan was instrumental in the process. Gorby makes is clear that the massive amount of money spent on the arms race was a 'loser' for everyone, especially for the SU. That was part of Reagan's plan, he put massive pressure on the SU to spend money, hastening the SU's demise because of economic inability to keep up.

And that is also why we are where we are now economically. His continued policies have nearly led to our downfall now.
 

soundforbjt

Lifer
Feb 15, 2002
17,788
6,040
136
So someone finally admits that the Clinton years were just smoke and mirrors

Yes, & No. Clinton took some steps to stop them and other steps that kept some going or made them worse. No President is perfect. Bush really accelerated them.
 

BigDH01

Golden Member
Jul 8, 2005
1,630
82
91
Actually, I'd credit all those mentioned as well, but that doesn't mean Reagan doesn't get credit for his role.

For continuing US policy, not winning the Cold War. He just happened to be the sitting president when the conservative Communists lost power.

As I said already, it was a combination of many things, there's no one single thing or person that made it happen. That doesn't mean someone can't get credit for taking the right steps at the right time. Carter was also in a position to do certain things, but his 'containment' and appeasement strategy was worthless.

So we can finally dispel the belief that Reagan was responsible for winning the Cold War then.

Maybe so, maybe not - pure speculation. It's easy to say in hindsight that "any" American president would have done the same, but that seems unlikely considering that even in the Reagan white house there was deep division and discord about the course(s) of action. Reading Weinberg and Shultz's books / comments about that time it's not at all clear that anyone else would have done the same thing.

And even if he had not, the Communists had not much time left.

As for Gorby's comments you quoted, it just further illustrates why Reagan was instrumental in the process. Gorby makes is clear that the massive amount of money spent on the arms race was a 'loser' for everyone, especially for the SU. That was part of Reagan's plan, he put massive pressure on the SU to spend money, hastening the SU's demise because of economic inability to keep up.

As I've already stated, the Soviets were already in decline. Reagan didn't destroy the Soviet economy, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union did that. The Soviets were already having severe structural problems before Reagan took office. It was becoming quite apparent that the economic planning boards were growing too inefficient to deal with markets with elastic supply/demand. This is part of why Gorby said the question was not serious. The demise of the Soviet Union was caused by the Soviets, not Reagan, and Gorby understands this.
 

sportage

Lifer
Feb 1, 2008
11,492
3,161
136
Was Reagan a great president.... Let me think...

Stock market crashed Oct 1987 (black monday).

Even though tax revenues doubled, the national debt tripled.

The gap between richest and poorest grew faster then ever before.
(Donald Trump became a billionaire)

The US homeless population grew to exceed the total population of
Atlanta Georgia.

AIDS became an epidemic. 50,000 died. Reagan ignored it all.


Funny how just a few of the facts kinda screw up assumptions. Isn't it?
 
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zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,125
30,076
146
it's also important to mention that crediting any US president with being responsible for the fall of the USSR is an incredible insult to those that fault and put their own lives in line in occupied territories, organized themselves, and created their own movement of solidarity, far outside of US involvement, to fracture the USSR.

These movements were beginning before Reagan was sitting, and were moving all over the place early in his first term.

Conservative revisionism at its finest. I wonder what the new Texas Schoolboard books have to say about this myth. :D
 

PokerGuy

Lifer
Jul 2, 2005
13,650
201
101
It must really gnaw at some of you lefties that Reagan is considered the best president ever by the people of the country. I don't have him as the best, but in the top 5 for sure.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,125
30,076
146
Doesn't surprise me at all.

Jersey Shore is also a very popular show.

Is that related? I don't know.... :\
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
350
126
It must really gnaw at some of you lefties that Reagan is considered the best president ever by the people of the country. I don't have him as the best, but in the top 5 for sure.

'Gnawing at you' is basically all your politics are about, completely lacking in any principles, morality, logic, facts.

Things that gnaw at me include the Holocaust, prisoner rape, poverty caused by excessive concentration of wealth, leading to things like lack of medicine and clean water, injustice.

So, ya, to the extent that the President who caused so much harm in the world, shifting the direction of the US away from the strong middle class of the liberal era to where the middle class is being destroyed and democracy is corrupted on the way to endangered, using our tax dollars for things like Salvadoran death squads and a terrorist army in Nicaragua torturing and murdering innocent people... the fact that instead of some people opposing those harms and instead ignorantly praising him to enjoy 'gnawing'... ya, it's annoying.

Congratulations on your good deed for the world, the moronic and childish glee from that.

It's the same mentality as people who wear Hitler paraphenilia in order to get 'glee' from anyone who is upset by it. Ha, ha! ha, ha!

A lot of idiots feel shame for what they come to view as the idiocy they indulged in. Like former racists, who will say they 'just didn't understand the harm' of their behavior.

That's what could happen with you, if you weren't like a child with your glee and actually had a clue about the real world impact of your punky little behavior, acting as a pawn.

A friend of mine when he was young, saw a story about a young man who was working on a car, and decided to open the gas tank with a blow torch, it exlpoded and killed him.

They thought this was hilarious, and laughed and laughed at the idiocy of the person (the same mentality as 'Darwin awards'.)

Then, a woman who was a family friend arrived at their house - and was devastated, crying, to his parents - it was her son who was killed.

He suddenly felt bad about the laughing, realizing the 'real person' involved. He felt like he'd been an idiot for the earlier reaction. There's a lesson there for you to grow up.

You are simply a child for whom stories of thousands oppressed for our benefit are some sort of 'joke' and you can take petty glee in the Schadenfreude that opponents 'gnaw'.

You aren't in any danger of the oppression, so you are free to laugh about it, vote for those who cause it, happily spend your tax dollars to pay for it, be a moral imbecile.

That's what the group you are prasing so loudly are, moral imbeciles, no different than any grop of moral imbeciles who have laughed at the suffering of others in history.

You should grow up a little and take a little moral responsibility for your own country, your own taxes.

You aren't ready to, I know that, but maybe this will help you be a little more ready sooner than you otherwise would.

Reminds me of a far smaller example on public transportation recently. A few teenage girls had loud music playing, despite the law, disturbing people around them.

Knowing the likely reaction from people with that mentality, I told them they should turn down their music. One looked at me and said "why?" It seemed like an honest question - they really didn't have a clue about their behavior. I said, 'because you're disturbing people around you, and it's the law'. One jumped in the middle of the sentence to egg on her friend, "just say no! say no!" and then to encourage 'let's turn them up.' Their mentality was very much like yours - take 'glee' if they turned them up and it upset people. Ha, ha!

(The next step of summoning the authorities for the system was pre-empted by their saying they would get off at the next stop).

People with that mentality - them or you - don't get the reasons for right and wrong. They'd only understand the police citing them, you only understand if YOU are oppressed.

If you 'don't care' about others being hurt, that's your right to be a moral imbecile - you just can't do it here without having it pointed out here by people who aren't, perhaps.

Save234
 
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Bowfinger

Lifer
Nov 17, 2002
15,776
392
126
'Gnawing at you' is basically all your politics are about, completely lacking in any principles, morality, logic, facts.

Things that gnaw at me include the Holocaust, prisoner rape, poverty caused by excessive concentration of wealth, leading to things like lack of medicine and clean water, injustice.

So, ya, to the extent that the President who caused so much harm in the world, shifting the direction of the US away from the strong middle class of the liberal era to where the middle class is being destroyed and democracy is corrupted on the way to endangered, using our tax dollars for things like Salvadoran death squads and a terrorist army in Nicaragua torturing and murdering innocent people... the fact that instead of some people opposing those harms and ignorantly praising him to enjoy 'gnawing'... ya, it's annoying.

Congratulations on your good deed for the world, the moronic and childish glee from that.

It's the same mentality as people who wear Hitler paraphenilia in order to get 'glee' from anyone who is upset by it. Ha, ha! ha, ha!

A lot of idiots feel shame for what they come to view as the idiocy they indulged in. Like former racists, who will say they 'just didn't understand the harm' of their behavior.

That's what could happen with you, if you weren't like a child with your glee and actually has a clue about the real world impact of your punky little behavior, acting as a pawn.

A friend of mine when he was young, saw a story about a young man who was working on a car, and decided to open the gas tank with a blow torch, it exlpoded and killed him.

They thought this was hilarious, and laughed and laughed at the idiocy of the person (the same mentality as 'Darwin awards'.)

Then, a woman who was a family friend arrived at their house - and was devastated, crying, to his parents - it was her son who was killed.

He suddenly felt bad about the laughing, realizing the 'real person' involved. He felt like he'd been an idiot for the earlier reaction. There's a lesson there for you to grow up.

You are simply a child for whom stories of thousands oppressed for our benefit are some sort of 'joke' and you can take petty glee in the Schadenfreude that opponents 'gnaw'.

You aren't in any danger of the oppression, so you are free to laugh about it, vote for those who cause it, happily spend your tax dollars to pay for it, be a moral imbecile.

That's what the group you are prasing so loudly are, moral imbeciles, no different than any grop of moral imbeciles who have laughed at the suffering of others in history.

You should grow up a little and take a little moral responsibility for your own country, your own taxes.

You aren't ready to, I know that, but maybe this will help you be a little more ready sooner than you otherwise would.

Reminds me of a far smaller example on public transportation recently. A few teenage girls had loud music playing, despite the law, disturbing people around them.

Knowing the likely reaction from people with that mentality, I told them they should turn down their music. One looked at me and said "why?" It seemed like an honest question - they really didn't have a clue about their behavior. I said, 'because you're disturbing people around you, and it's the law'. One jumped in the middle of the sentence to egg on her friend, "just say no! say no!" and then to encourage 'let's turn them up.' Their mentality was very much like yours - take 'glee' if they turned them up and it upset people. Ha, ha!

(The next step of summoning the authorities for the system was pre-empted by their saying they would get off at the next stop).

People with that mentality - them or you - don't get the reasons for right and wrong. They'd only understand the police citing them, you only understand if YOU are oppressed.

If you 'don't care' about others being hurt, that's your right to be a moral imbecile - you just can't do it here without having it pointed out here by people who aren't, perhaps.

Save234
Well said Craig! (Though you know he lacks the attention span to read more than the first line or two, right?) You've expressed well one of the things that gnaws at me, the glee so much of today's GOP finds in hurting others -- in evil, for lack of a better word. It is psychotic at times, and the antithesis of what America stands for (or used to stand for). Yes, the Dems have major problems too, but nothing on par with the malice and naked, self-absorbed greed one sees from so routinely from the right.
 

PokerGuy

Lifer
Jul 2, 2005
13,650
201
101
I see our resident village idiot (Craig) posted the usual wall-o-crap. Usually his garbage is good for a laugh though.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
38,363
8,675
136
Was Reagan a great president.... Let me think...

Stock market crashed Oct 1987 (black monday).

Even though tax revenues doubled, the national debt tripled.

The gap between richest and poorest grew faster then ever before.
(Donald Trump became a billionaire)

The US homeless population grew to exceed the total population of
Atlanta Georgia.

AIDS became an epidemic. 50,000 died. Reagan ignored it all.


Funny how just a few of the facts kinda screw up assumptions. Isn't it?
Good job. Yes, the thread title is ridiculous. I refer you to Gil Scott-Heron's "B Movie." He roasts Reagan too.
 

umbrella39

Lifer
Jun 11, 2004
13,816
1,126
126
It must really gnaw at some of you lefties that Reagan is considered the best president ever by the people of the country. I don't have him as the best, but in the top 5 for sure.

I don't think it gnaws at anyone other than the retards who have included him on their list every time someone points and laughs at them. Misery loves company and people are free to be as stupid as they see fit. Just like someone pointed out earlier, just because Jersey Shore is watched by millions of people doesn't mean it's good. Don't be sad.
 

werepossum

Elite Member
Jul 10, 2006
29,873
463
126
Awesome! Did I call it or what:

It's pretty clear who the real village idiot is.

Umm, I read that entire disjointed rambling mess specifically because you said it was well said and that PokerGuy at least lacked the attention span to read the whole thing.

All I can say is - Crack is bad, m'kay? Don't do crack, m'kay? Crack makes you look at Craigspeak and imagine it has some intelligent content, m'kay?

Crack might even lead you to the delusion that those annoying teenage girls so uncaring about others might be something other than Obama voters. (Well, it might if you smoked a LOT of it.)
 
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Bowfinger

Lifer
Nov 17, 2002
15,776
392
126
Umm, I read that entire disjointed rambling mess specifically because you said it was well said and that PokerGuy at least lacked the attention span to read the whole thing.

All I can say is - Crack is bad, m'kay? Don't do crack, m'kay? Crack makes you look at Craigspeak and imagine it has some intelligent content, m'kay?

Crack might even lead you to the delusion that those annoying teenage girls so uncaring about others might be something other than Obama voters. (Well, it might if you smoked a LOT of it.)
Meh. I know it's obligatory to stand up for your fellow righties, marching in lockstep together. It's something Republicans do well, and Democrats do poorly (one of the reasons they are so ineffective in spite of their greater numbers). If that's truly all you saw in Craig's post, however, I suspect you didn't actually read it either, at least not with any thought.

I think he nailed a common character deficiency of too many on the right. You see it in P&N all the time, posters who openly flaunt the joy they find in others' misfortune. It might be convenient to simply dismiss them as irrelevant sociopaths, but this amorality has become a trend in the modern GOP. It's not what America is supposed to be about.
 

werepossum

Elite Member
Jul 10, 2006
29,873
463
126
Meh. I know it's obligatory to stand up for your fellow righties, marching in lockstep together. It's something Republicans do well, and Democrats do poorly (one of the reasons they are so ineffective in spite of their greater numbers). If that's truly all you saw in Craig's post, however, I suspect you didn't actually read it either, at least not with any thought.

I think he nailed a common character deficiency of too many on the right. You see it in P&N all the time, posters who openly flaunt the joy they find in others' misfortune. It might be convenient to simply dismiss them as irrelevant sociopaths, but this amorality has become a trend in the modern GOP. It's not what America is supposed to be about.
Oh, I agree that this amorality has become a trend in America, I just disagree with attributing it to the GOP. It exists on both sides; the left has no regard for the lives of babies or the property of anyone else, the right has no regard for the lives of convicted murderers or the "right" of others to be supported for no better reason than that they wish to be supported. (As opposed to charity for those truly unable to work, which the right supports.)

I think we shall have to agree to disagree on whether reaching into one person's pocket to give something to another person makes one a moral person, or whether the life of an unborn baby is more or less worth preserving than that of a convicted murderer. Morality in our country has been largely divorced from G-d and turned into an individual attribute changeable at will, so we each see what we wish to see.
 

Bowfinger

Lifer
Nov 17, 2002
15,776
392
126
Oh, I agree that this amorality has become a trend in America, I just disagree with attributing it to the GOP. It exists on both sides; the left has no regard for the lives of babies or the property of anyone else, the right has no regard for the lives of convicted murderers or the "right" of others to be supported for no better reason than that they wish to be supported. (As opposed to charity for those truly unable to work, which the right supports.)

I think we shall have to agree to disagree on whether reaching into one person's pocket to give something to another person makes one a moral person, or whether the life of an unborn baby is more or less worth preserving than that of a convicted murderer. Morality in our country has been largely divorced from G-d and turned into an individual attribute changeable at will, so we each see what we wish to see.
I seem to have overestimated you. I'm talking about people who find sadistic pleasure in seeing others suffer. You respond with weak straw men about, "Well I think they do bad things too." I'm willing to accept there are those on the left who find glee in others' suffering, but you've failed to show it. I don't see pro-choice people laughing about how awesome it is to kill a fetus. They instead simply accept that a woman has a right to make her own choices.

As far as reaching into others' pockets (aside from you making another straw man assertion), I'm afraid you're blinded by ideology. One only needs to look at the data on how wealth distribution has changed over the last 30 years to see who is picking who's pockets. And by the way, there are many righties here who have been openly contemptuous about even helping those who cannot fend for themselves. That's the amorality I'm talking about.

Finally, as far as agreeing to disagree, I support capital punishment in general. I have reservations about how we're doing today given the significant number of false convictions, but I have no problem executing someone who is truly proven to have intentionally taken others' lives. I also find abortion deplorable ... but I'm not so sanctimonious that I feel my beliefs supersede a woman's right to make her own decisions. YMMV.
 

PokerGuy

Lifer
Jul 2, 2005
13,650
201
101
Awesome! Did I call it or what:



It's pretty clear who the real village idiot is.

Sadly, you prove that you fail at comprehension. I obviously *did* read his blathering wall of nonsense, that's why I commented that unlike most of his other idiotic posts it lacks the "so dumb it's funny" quality and is just dumb.

As for the village idiot, apparently whatever village you and Craig hang out in has more than one idiot :D