More Reagan Blabber

FINALLY, someone responded with support for Ronald Reagan. I’m surprised at how long it took you people though, really, the guy was President and all. A little patriotism, please.

The arguer mostly focused on the economic side of things, ignoring the fact that what a President does during his terms has very little to do with such things as the budget until well after both of his terms have ended, and even then it’s a very hard thing to measure. However, I never said that Regan was a bad president from an economic standpoint, or at least I didn’t intend to. Admittedly, his main accomplishment was cutting taxes for the rich, where he cut in half the amount that billionaires have to pay in taxes, but he also had some positive effects on America economically. The arguer pointed this out and presented his argument very well. Let’s delve a little deeper into it though, shall we?

The beginning of the argument states that Reagan inherited a country that was in bad shape, which is true to a degree, but doesn’t make Reagan a good President. That’s like saying, “Man, when Hitler took over Germany things were just a mess!” Reagan was certainly no Hitler when it came to evil, but you can’t use the “things were really bad when he took over” rationale for supporting him as a good President. It’s just not fair for people who take over when the country is doing just fine.

On the other hand, for me to claim that Reagan did not have some positive effects on the country would be outrageous, and it’s not something that I have claimed. Regan caused unemployment to drop by 2.3% and that is certainly a good thing. As far as the Soviet Union, I think they broke their own backs more than Reagan did, but he was President at the time and thus, deserves some credit. As the arguer points out, Reagan also managed to swing the country into “actually feeling good about the U.S. again,” which I guess can be considered a positive. So, maybe the guy wasn’t so bad after all.

Still, I reject the notion that Reagan nobly gave funding to our “under-funded” military. The word under-funded and the United States military should never go together for one thing, we currently account for nearly half (47%) of the entire world’s military spending. Also, Reagan used this funding to attack innocent countries, and kill many innocent people without any provocation whatsoever, but rather just because he led the United States and he could. We tend to forget that the people in countries like Grenada are real people, and they do not deserve to be slaughtered innocently in the name of Democracy. Just because we do not like a particular leader of a country does not give us reason to attack it, without an imminent threat against us.

Reagan also shares a great deal of responsibility for the AIDS crisis that has arisen worldwide. Reagan saw the disease as gays getting their punishment from God, and completely ignored it, displaying a classic case of homophobia. He figured that gays just deserved what they got, and, now, we have him to thank for a worldwide epidemic. I’m not trying to put the entire AIDS epidemic on Reagan’s shoulders, but much of it DOES lie on his shoulders and I think more people should point that out.

He was also an obvious racist, calling the movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. a bunch of “hoopla,” while attacking welfare and other government functions that helped African Americans, including Affirmative Action. This was at a time, although only 20 years ago, where blacks were still much more vulnerable than they are today. Reagan was essentially trying to stop the civil rights movement and the progress that came along in the 1960’s. He tried to take the nation a step back.

In short, maybe I was a bit harsh on Reagan in my first diary entry, but that was mostly due to my annoyance with the constant Reagan-praise by the mass-media. In short, the mass-media has failed to acknowledge Ronald Reagan’s faults, such as his ignoring of the AIDS crisis, his movement to end civil rights, and his attack on numerous innocent 3<S