Huh, CNN's subtitle for their "Remembering Ronald Reagan" graphic is

"Mourning in America"

That's kinda edgy? I bet their graphics people are envious of The Daily Show graphic writers, who get to pun any way they like.

I shit you not, I once saw a screen subtitle on CNN that read "Bootylicious." They were doing a story about a recently uncovered sunken ship full of treasure.

It is difficult for the rest of the world to respect a President or his office if his statements, actions and public policies are not worthy of respect.

At least six out of the last seven Presidents have done their part in causing their office to be held in disrespect; probably seven, depending on how you feel about Jimmy Carter.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Originally posted by Clodfobble MSNBC once did a story/interview on
Niger Innis but an extra 'g' found its way in the subtitle - you can guess where they put it.

Soooo in other words: lie to the world about how we feel about the President? Have them assume that "we" agree 100% with his policies, views, etc.? Sorry, no can do. If I have something to say, negative or positive about the Commander in Chief, then I am going to say it. Reagan was NOT (IMO) the best President, and quite personally, I cringe at all this hero worship being praised upon him. However, he DID seem like a good person overall.

Quote:

both parties and the media are equally guilty of dragging the presidency through the mud. i see no problem in going after the policies/politics of the individual, but i have a serious problem with going after the individual. it is not helpful to anyone, and i believe it is just plain wrong.

Punish the sin and not the sinner? I was never a believer in that.

However...

People are going to remember Reagan however they want to remember him. You think some of the comments are bad here...you ain't seen nothing compared to some other sites I've been on.

I have to say as I remember the Reagan years, I didn't particularly like the aspect of nuclear warheads pointed in our direction and waiting to see who would blink first, but he seemed like an ok guy, and I did like his speaking voice (probably fine tuned because of his acting days).

You know, I was in the middle of typing out a detailed response to this...and then it hit me. This could be simply summed up with one quote:

"Until you have walked a mile in my shoes, no one has the right to tell me what route to take." Dr. George Keller

Remember? Not really. Oh well, maybe it would have helped if Jim was talking to someone who actually DID remember. I'm going to take a wild guess and say marichiko did not.

Quote:

See, watch: "Sometimes Lumberjim logs on as Perry5 just to stir the shit some more..." See how that was humor, because they're obviously different people but on an ironic level there are similarities?

Hmm...not quite. Guess I'm not on here as much to "get it". *shrugs*

Quote:

It's like every time Radar is involved in a thread the rest of you lose all sense of perspective.

LMAO, now THAT was funny!!!!

:p

Excellent guess. Don't have the foggiest. Nor do I remember "somebody5" (Looks back thru thread). Oh, Perry5. Was that recent?:confused:

I have no idea what the hell they're talking about either.

Couldn't tell ya. I just come here, speak my peace, and then I'm out. I really don't recall a lot from here unless it's something really "hot" or Syc points something out to me and we talk about it. Other than that *shrugs* I just go on about to the business at hand with my support board, research and chat.

BTW, I read your story. My god..I thought I heard everything. Colorado sucks when it comes to the disabled. I was reading up on carbon monoxide poisoning too:

CO Headquarters: The Most Complete Website on Carbon Monoxide Toxicology in the World
http://www.coheadquarters.com/CO1.htm

Functional changes:
http://www.coheadquarters.com/coNeuropsych1.htm

Not that I didn't understand before (because I could relate to what you are going through on other level), but after reading that, I now have a better understanding of it.

I felt compelled to look up some information for you. I don't know if you've been trying to do the same, but here a link that I found that I hope that can be of some help:

Immune Web-CO support groups and info
http://immuneweb.org/classifieds/groups.html

I hope things start working out for the best for you.

:)

Nicely summed up.

There are conservabots out there currently redoubling their efforts to perpetuate the myth that Reagan was the Greatest President Ever -- the most popular, the most successful, fulfilled every campaign promise, served all Americans well, defeated the Evil Empire, blah blah blah, and thus he was an American Hero and a Role Model and a Superb Leader and should have his face and name glued onto everything in America that isn't nailed down.

The link I provided on Page 2 of this thread helps debunk much of that. He wasn't an abject failure, but he wasn't a conquering hero of ultraconservatism, either. The army of Dittobots loves to pimp Reagan's accomplishments, but often neglect to mention things like Iran-Contra, massive federal deficits, the (necessary) rollback of many of his prized tax cuts, the S & L scandal, the small army of Reagan's appointees and Cabinet members who were indicted and/or convicted of various crimes, his luck in having Mikhail Gorbachev with whom to negotiate, his frequent compromises with the Democrats (surely a cardinal sin in Dittoland), his diminished capabilities in the later years of his Presidency, and other flaws. Many of the accomplishments they cite are overstated and exaggerated, as well.

It's like photographing a man who's wearing a pimpin' suit-jacket only from the waist up, in hopes that no one will notice that he's forgotten his pants and has dog crap on his shoe.

Reagan might've been a good person in private, a devoted husband, a nice guy, etc., but that's irrelevant to the larger debate; calling him a poor leader does not equate to calling him a bad person.

But if you bring up Reagan's obvious flaws now, it's practically a declaration of war in the eyes of those who worship him and hail him as the father of modern conservatism. To them, we should all morph into Peggy Noonan and breathlessly stare wide-eyed at Saint Ronnie, saluting the Man Who Saved America, and to suggest otherwise is somehow inherently offensive.

Screw _that_.

Every editorial deserves a rebuttal. When others are putting Reagan on a pedestal and pumping out one-sided spin, it's not a "smear on the office of the Presidency" to show up and give the other side. Five months away from a vitally important election cycle, it's doubly important to take the blinders off about America's recent history, particularly when Bush will have little hesitation in painting himself as following in Reagan's footsteps. America needs to know where those footsteps might lead.

At the very least, Americans need to wipe away the fantasy that the world, our leaders and others can be viewed in black-or-white, good-or-evil terms. There's some truth on both sides of the Reagan argument, just as there will be for every President one may consider.

*standing ovation* Please, let me return the "props"...VERY well said. :)

Hopefully, he meant himself (going to hell). :p

LMAO - until you wrote this i thought i was the only person in the world who saw that!

i guess that's kind of the point. all presidents will do something we think is disgraceful. and while these events shouldn't be ignored, i think the US had created a national passtime out of trashing our presidents, to the detriment of the people in other parts of the world view us. while you are in the time period of the event all problems seem exponentially more important than what they really are.

Harding(i think it was) did his assistant in a coat closet at the white house and got her pregnant. that was a long time ago and that won't even make it into most history books, and rightfully so. he was human, he failed.

Lincoln had failings, but he is more remembered for the good
kennedy screwed anything in a skirt but he is remembered well
insert any president's name in there and to varying degrees the same can be said.

the media and people at the time showed respect for the office, if not for the man behind the desk. and i think the nation was better served in that manner. since watergate the US has reveled in the mire of trashing our leadership, and i think it is time to stop. you don't have to like them, but i don't think showing a certain amount of respect is too much to ask.

whether i personally agree with what they support or not, i believe most pol's take their stands because they think it is the right course of action, rather than some deep dark desire to screw the world over. only a long view of history can accurately show whether they were right or not. anything less than 30-40 years is too soon to really grasp the long term effects of decisions in politics.

their failings should not cause us to pick up our pitchforks and go after them on a personal level. disagree, debate their politics, and by all means vote for someone else, but do so with some respect for the OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT.

in 50 years, kids in school will read about clinton/monica and say, so? what else happened during his presidency?

when looking at reagan they will see that he spent vast sums of money. only history will tell us if that really contributed to the demise of the soviet union.

they will look at Bush I and decide whether he was right to stop at the iraqi border or not.

when looking at GW they will see that he went into Iraq without UN support. only history will tell us how that plays out.

i just don't see why we have to personally attack these men with such disregard for basic human respect.

The personal attacks on GWB pale in comparison to the attacks on his policy. The reverse was true for Clinton.

believe it or not i really am speaking in general terms here. i am not a big fan of any of the guys we've had recently.

I'm not Radar, so I won't speak for him. If it were me, I'd wait at least a week out of respect for the family before urinating on Reagan's grave. At LEAST. A dump -- at least a MONTH. It's only right.

As far as I'm concerned, respect has to be earned. Being elected President doesn't confer respect in and of itself; it just means that the President and his PR team fooled more people than the other guy did. If a president is a buffoon, a pussyhound or a scoundrel, there's no reason to pretend that he's anything but that; the rest of the world can see that our emperor has no clothes, and will think we're idiots for pretending otherwise.

Thank you very much. I can't tell you how much I appreciate the occasional word of kidness and understanding. Its been a long hard road. (And no, I'm not whining, just being matter of fact).

One thing I will give Reagan his props for was his aversion to nukes. Even though SDI was and is a pie-in-the-sky boondoggle, at least Reagan was thinking defense, not offense.

The Bush administration wants to reinitiate research into tactical nukes for 'bunker busting'. So we have re/development of a type of nuke most likely to be used first, by an administration which believes in 'preemptive warfare', run by a President who probably believes that, at worst, if he screws up and destroys the world, there will automatically be a place in heaven for himself and his loved ones. YIKES!:eek:

I think it took GWB to make me appreciate Reagan. If you have to be a conservative, at least do it right. (right, right-wing, get it?)

Yup - either rotten.com, bangedup.com, or gorgasm.com has the still. It is possible that the KKK has it as a screensaver....

In a nutshell, we'll find out in five more months.

If Kerry wins, the above shouldn't be a major worry.

If Bush wins, start looking for another country with low population density and no attractive targets. New Zealand, perhaps.

(Scratch that -- if Kerry wins, I'm just as worried about what Bush may do in the lame-duck months.)

Bush already considers himself to be the equivalent of Moses. He beleives God has called him to lead the people of Iraq to freedom. There's a quote to that effect in the article I cited in the "Bush saved from alcohol by Jesus" thread. The man is stupid and a zealot on top of that. Others behind the scenes pull the puppet strings for reasons of their own. The American people brought it on themselves by collectively taking the "blue pill" and going to sleep. Good luck with your visa application for New Zealand.:(

thank you.


and don't think I didn't notice the comparison to one perrry5. you'll get yours, too, clodfobble. :)

nice to see Fox and Chirac didn't stick around for the funeral.

I watched part of the services today, which were quite lovely.

But I did find myself wondering ... was rain in the forecast for today before the funeral was scheduled?

Well, it was forecasted for here (In Phila.), and sometimes the forecast here is the same for MD/DC.

The services were indeed lovely and moving as well. The eulogies were delivered with such grace, especially Lady Margaret Thatcher.

I nearly had a major breakdown when an irish tenor sang, "Ava Maria"...for some reason, that song hits me right in a place where I just want to sit down and cry my eyes out! :D His voice was beautiful. *sniff*

Amazing Grace is the one that always gets me.

Particularly on bagpipes, which is the way it's usually done at cop and fire funerals.

I blame myself for Radar's behavior in this thread. I probably shouldn't have titled it RIP Ronald Reagan. Radar is just following instructions.

What is it with amazing grace anyway? My wife swoons over this, it will be played at her funeral. It's a great song granted, but why do people get so loopy about it?

By any chance, has she seen the "Amazing Grace" documentary on PBS? Very well done, and could easily increase the sentimental feeling towards the song,

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
and mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

When we've been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we've first begun.

John Newton 1725-1807 (stanza 6 Anon)

Sorry, Radar. Someone beat you to it.

And he got Nixon's too ...

Interesting wording, that...

Which may raise the question of whether in this circumstance taking a big stick and whacking somebody's peepee in rebuttal amounts to protected speech.

Stupid pissy fascist person. Reagan's wisdom did the whole planet so much good, and the slavemongering slaveminded jackasses have never recovered.

Reagan did the world as much good as Josef Stalin. He spent generations of Americans into debt at birth, he tripled the size of government, he spent like a drunken sailor and left our children to pay the bill. He traded arms for hostages and then lied under oath about it.

I still may piss on his grave someday, and there's not a thing you, or a thousand of you could do about it.

nope there isn't a thing i can do about it. or want to do about it. except continue to laugh at you for thinking your vitriolic splash actually matters.

I'd be happy to let dead presidents lie, if only they didn't keep trying to name stuff after him. Especially in DC.

At least the Reagan Building is shaped like a toilet.

Except teach you a new and undesired meaning of the phrase "to jerk off."

There are numerous rocky hills around the Reagan Presidential Library, and each of the numerous hills has numerous cactus patches on it. We wouldn't mind dragging such a pissy fellow through and over the entire lot of them. We'll insult his intelligence, too. You don't want to be that bad a jerk. Seriously.

WE? You seem to have a penchant for commiting other people to violence. :crazy:

Oddly, if he really is a member of the Libertarian Party he signed this- "I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals."

I did take that pledge and I was serious about it. I won't initiate force, but I'll use plenty of it on those who do initiate it against me.

Radar, it still wouldn't be at all healthy for you to try something like that. Do you have any idea at all just how popular Ronnie is out here, and with how much reason? Have you any idea at all just how libertarian the guy was? Close to the perfect politician: a Republican who thought like a Libertarian. I voted Libertarian both times Ronnie stood for election, but I was satisfied to have him in the Oval Office instead.

He wasn't libertarian in the slightest. He tripled the size of government, he lied under oath about trading arms for hostages, he spent at least 5 generations of Americans into debt from the cradle to the grave. He didn't think like a libertarian. Like most Republicans, he just talked like one, but grew government at levels even Democrats would be embarassed by. He spent more than a TRILLION DOLLARS on SDI which gave us absolutely NOTHING. Not a single prototype. It gave us nothing. He also took credit for the the fall of the Soviet Union which he had NOTHING to do with. Communism was crumbling on its own as it always does.

Radar, close your mouth and open your eyes, dammit. Study the man's philosophies.

Better for libertarianism if collectivist totalitarianism doesn't merely fall, but is pushed.

You misspelled empty rhetoric.

He wasn't talking about you, Radar. Urbane Guerrilla claims to be a member of your party as well, strange as that may seem.

Or not so strange. As the case may be...

What I'm finding interesting is that right here in our own little Cellar, we have the full rainbow of the libertarian party in microcosm.

Careful using the rainbow as a descriptor...

White is all colors.

What is so bad about being a Libertarian? I thought Radar was just an extremely bad example of one. Is the whole damn party like him?

There's noting bad about being a libertarian, per se ... but it has a lot more shades of meaning than just radar's version, is what I'm getting at.

So, he is a bad example of one! I knew it!

He's rude, too. Just FYI.

:lol2:
You crack me up, man.

"My Memories of Ronald Reagan's Passing" by Anon E. Mouse

Ronald Wilson Reagan passed away with 5 or 6 hours of my mom. She was friends with Reagan and spent a lot of good times out at the ranch. I liked Reagan for his compassion and for being kind to my mom, so my attachment to him was purely visceral. Losing both of them at about the same time sucked dick.

Anyhow, I drove back here to the Bay Area from Fairburn, GA, alone, giving myself a lot of time to be alone and all that stuff, low and slow over Route 66. On the second day of driving, I turned on the radio to listen to the national memorial and had to pull the damned car over because I felt like all the nice things folks said about reagan applied to my mom, too, and it ws just too much to bear, so there I was, a puddle of tears and snot, sitting on the side of a highway out in the middle of Wet Dog, OK.

As luck would have it, I went through my mom's photos and what do you think ws right there on top? A picture of her and our former President! Whoa, huh?

So there you go.

Actually, I'm a good libertarian. And there aren't several types of libertarians. There are some who claim to be libertarians, but who really aren't. This is the biggest problem in our party. You get a bunch of morons trying to change the party into the Republitarian party or the Demotarian Party. You get people who say they don't support the initiation of force, yet support starting a completely unprovoked war like that in Iraq. You get people saying they don't support government force to tell us what to do with our own body...unless it's having an abortion. Then it's ok to initiate force against them.

There are no shades of gray. You're a libertarian or you're not. You either support the initiation of force for political gain or social engineering, or you don't. Claiming to be a libertarian who supports the war in Iraq is no different than saying, "I am a Christian because I believe in every part of the bible other than the parts about Jesus". By definition if you don't believe in Jesus, you're not a Christian, even if you believe in every other part of the bible.

The same is true of libertarianism. You can support smaller government. You can support the elimination of income taxes. You can support legalizing drugs. You can support unrestricted gun ownership. You can believe in nearly every part of libertarianism other than the NAP (Non-Aggression Principle), and you're not a libertarian. You can disagree with the Libertarian Party in all areas but as long as you believe in the NAP, you're still a libertarian.

For the record, I'm a fantastic example of a Libertarian and an intelligent, reasonable, open-minded, well-educated, well-rounded person in general. Not to mention I've got a wonderful sense of humor and a warm personality.

Oh, and did I mention humble? ;)


Your Friend in Liberty,


Paul T. Ireland
Executive Committee
Libertarian Party of California

Well. There ya go. That is what's wrong with Libertarians.