Posted on 06/12/2004 9:23:41 PM PDT by Lando Lincoln
The death of former President Ronald Reagan brought out the worst and most vitriolic of his and America's critics, all trying to minimize the positive aspects and results of his eight years in office.
Even CNN and the Associated Press are getting in on the action. When trying to focus public attention on the few negatives of his presidency doesn't serve their purpose, the jackals resort to distorting and even creating the facts.
Even when they speak well of him, they speak only of his winning personality, his inveterate optimism, and his ability to communicate, while ignoring his policies and accomplishments.
Most of us remember President Reagan as the man responsible for revitalizing the American spirit, bringing the economy out of its tailspin, and defeating the Soviet Union--immense and daunting tasks at the time. The completion of any one of them would be cause enough to honor and respect the man; Ronald Reagan accomplished all three and more. The haters, as usual, focus exclusively on the negative, no matter how minor.
Reagan and AIDS
They want to paint a picture of a President who ''ignored'' AIDS, started wars for fun, and just happened to be in the White House when the Soviet Union collapsed of its own accord. It's a false portrait.
The whine that ''President Reagan ignored AIDS'' is simply ridiculous. AIDS was not identified until 1981, and Reagan's government spent $5.7 billion on AIDS research, beginning in 1983. In 1988 - the last year he was in office -- there were only 32,311 cases of AIDS diagnosed in the US, and a drug had already been approved that held the promise of treatment. By way of comparison, there were over 62,000 cases of diabetes diagnosed in the United States that same year, yet no outcry about this was heard from the Left then or now.
It amazes me that Liberals don't try to blame Reagan (or current President Bush, for that matter) for not halting the scourge of diabetes, a disease which has killed more people than AIDS. It's not about lives, of course, but lifestyle. Liberals have been trying to turn AIDS into a ''romantic disease'' (no pun intended, of course), much like consumption (tuberculosis) in the 19th Century. Unfortunately, AIDS is often spread by the deliberate actions of the infected. There's no romanticizing that, and no drug can stop it.
Liberals often excoriate Reagan for his liberation of Grenada and support of Nicaraguan rebels. His opposition to the spread of communism in Central America (as well as the rest of the world) seems to infuriate them. Generally, the people actually liberated from those communist regimes have a very different view of President Reagan. ''Nicaragua is free because of Ronald Reagan,'' said Nicaraguan banker Roberto Arguello. ''He was highly focused on getting rid of the Sandinistas. He made it part of his strategy to get rid of the evil empire that had planted seeds in Nicaragua, Cuba and Grenada. Ronald Reagan is revered by Nicaraguans.'' Reagan warned the nation of the growing Soviet threat in Central America in 1986. ''A few years ago, then-Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko noted that Central America was, quote, 'boiling like a cauldron' and ripe for revolution,'' Reagan said. ''In a Moscow meeting in 1983, Soviet Chief of Staff Marshal Ogarkov declared: 'Over two decades ... there was only Cuba in Latin America. Today there are Nicaragua, Grenada, and a serious battle is going on in El Salvador.' ''
But we don't need their quotes; the American forces who liberated Grenada captured thousands of documents that demonstrated Soviet intent to bring communist revolution home to the Western Hemisphere. It was partly by halting the spread of Russia's influence and power that Reagan was able to defeat them.
While Liberals believed that the United States should be reconciled to the existence of the USSR and the continuation of the failed containment policy known as the Cold War, Ronald Reagan saw a way to bring that government to its knees--now, in our time. He increased our military budget, forcing the USSR to increase its own military spending to match. In fact, given the 28.3% increase in the Gross Domestic Product during the 1980's, the overall increase in military spending as a percentage of the GDP only increased by .6% during Reagan's term, though it nearly doubled in dollar amount from $158 billion to $304 billion (in 1987 dollars). To the Soviet economy, however, a drastic increase in spending was unsustainable, and Reagan's proposed anti-ballistic missile defense system (Strategic Defense Initiative) which was a death-blow. The USSR could never hope to match it. The moment that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev insisted that SDI research be stopped at the summit in Reykjavik, and Reagan walked away from the table, the Soviet Union was doomed. The critics may have a point--if we had just waited another fifty or a hundred years, the Soviet Union may well have suffered an economic collapse. At what cost? During that time billions of people would have lived out their lives in fear and virtual slavery, and no one can tell how many would have died in its death throes. No collapsing government has ever gone quietly onto ''the ash heap of history'' of its own volition.
And Communist Russia needed to be defeated--totalitarian governments which rob their citizens of life, liberty, and the freedom to pursue happiness are the antithesis of what America is all about. We are by nature--or ought to be--opposed to such regimes.
Though there were and still are other oppressive governments in the world, Ronald Reagan defeated the chief of them all, the one that funded and fueled so many others. In a way, his economic and foreign policies were cut from the same conservative cloth. He believed in giving people a chance, not a handout.
bttt
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"Even"? CNN is leading the parade.
If Reagan killed so many, he must have been the biggest, busiest stud in the bathhouse!
An important fact to remember about Grenada is that, upon our invasion, it was discovered and proven that Grenada was, in fact, being used as a weigh station for the flow of arms from Cuba through Nicaragua on to other communist insurgent efforts throughout Latin America. Amongst the proof were arms that were of the same lot & ID numbers as those discovered in the hands of Sandinista sponsored communist rebels in El Salvador. The Soviet Union was pumping all they could in the way of cash, Cuba in the form of troops and other communist front nations, such as Czechosolovokia and others, to furnish those arms in their perpetual desire to rule Central America and thereby estabish a foothold of power in the western hemisphere. Fortunately, thanks to Ronald Reagan, the port of Managua is not today used as a Soviet nuclear submarine base or aircraft carrier turning basin.
Apparently that was a surprise bonus. The day before the invasion I inappropriately received a packet explaining the purpose of the invasion along with satellite photos of the runway, Cuban barracks and other background info, but it didn't mention arms stashes.
Interesting "inappropriate packet"! And your tagline is great!
<< Lando Lincoln
If [The United States of America's former President and Armed-Forces Commander-In-Chief, Ronald Wilson] Reagan killed so many, he must have been the biggest, busiest stud in the bathhouse! >>
Although a great number of them have already died along the way from the various elective diseases and voluntary degeneration consequential to their pursuit of their pathology's depravities -- and/or are now dying -- more than half of Mr Reagan's friends and union colleagues from his Hollywood days were poofters.
And while the totalitarian designs of GAYNazism may have been advanced an inch or two by that manifestation of evil's denigration of the very best FRiend those who have permitted others to infect them with AIDS' have ever had and/or will ever have, Ronald Wilson Reagan, only those who already have AIDS' and those who will have are actually injured by GAYNazism's psychopathological pursuits.
The facts of Mr Reagan's life -- and his actions -- speak way too loudly for GAYNazism's puny squeaks to be heard.
Blessings -- Brian
ditto!
Crosslinked:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1148235/posts
Ronald Reagan Passes- some links...
various FR links | 06-05-04 | The Heavy Equipment Guy
I don't usually comment much- but let me drop out of "lurkin' & linkin' mode" for a moment--
1- see my tagline, "The 1990's? The Decade of Frauds..."
Whether it was AIDS, Oslo, or the Clinton's Two-fer-One, that is what the nineteen-nineties were--- one media-driven scam and swindle after another.
Not so Ronnie- he was the real deal. Just like the Pope or Lady Thatcher- you might not always agree, but you knew where they stood.
People have forgotten- or are too young to remember- what a bloody mess the end of the nineteen-seventies were... not merely the Iranian hostage situation, which was merely the most visible touchpoint, but we had the Soviet Union and its proxies ( mostly Cubans, 90 miles offshore ) running rampant across the world. Angola, Yemen, Central & South America...
23% interest rates- you couldn't buy or sell a house, let alone invest in a new business.
Gasahol-- 10% ethanol in your gasoline, because we were "running out of oil..."
...and Carter told us it was all our fault!
It was a bad time to be an American.
Ronnie changed all that. Rather easily, and cheerfully- while the Jackal Pack Press kept carping about how stupid he was.
The Old Cowboy had the last laugh.
Blaming AIDS on Reagan is so absurd we shouldn't even argue about that --- the homosexuals certainly didn't complain that AIDS spread during the Clinton administration and many died during those years because he promised them a cure but that was just for votes.
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