An Intellectuals appraisal of Reagans legacy

Foxy good buddy, you don't have to tell me any lies anymore. I'm one of you - don't you understand, I'm out to destroy the world. Hate and disdain is my way, I'm free - I'm a neocon. I'm one of you - when do I get some money. I'm looking for the rich welfare lines. I got my bigotry working, I got my hate working, I got my assholism working - if we don't like 'em, kill 'em. If they don't move paint 'em.

Good, right

Foxfrye, tell me how were the African Americans better off before those evil civil liberties began. Were they not living in shanties because no one would hire them? Did they not have to go a separate school that didn't have very many educational books so they couldn't get an education? If that is true, and it is, then it takes help to straighten out generations of that kind of oppression. What you call welfare mentality is really reality.

If your mother and father couldn't get a good education they are not going to get a job and if they don't get a good job then they are not going to be able afford to live in a decent neighborhood where they are better schools with better supplied books but are stuck in a system that is like a circle with no way out unless they get a leg up from the government. They needed money and food and they needed affirmative action and college help in order to just catch up with with the white people who have oppressed them since the days of slavery. They are now starting to catch up with the help of government assistance which is why even condi and powell is for affirmative action.

However, government assistance is also for other people who need it. The disabled and handicapped need government help all their lives in order to lead productive lives. With the help of such programs like vocational rehabilitation there is a program in my area called the opportunity center where with help from the government handicapped young adults can get on the site help and training to be able to get a job or if they can't function in a normal setting there is even a grocery store and clothing store where people in the neighborhood both individuals and various stores donate goods for them to sale. It is so good for their moral to do that and we wouldn't be able to without government assistance.

Another way government assistance helps is with single mothers who need help. If they do not get help then they start a pattern of welfare in their families. However, with government help, they can have food, shelter and health care for them and their children and training for a job and help with day care. This way that pattern of generational poverty is stoped before it begins.

Another way the government helps is when you are treated unfairly at the workplace you have a bigger institution to turn to and you are not stacked against your more powerful employers who have more money for lawyers or are in just a position to say either my way or the high way.

It just gets me mad when the new republicans keep trying to redefine everything to their own satisfaction no matter what the real reality is. I only hope that you all don't get away with it.

revel, don't get in the way of progress with revisionist history ...... :sad:

Another interesting point, but again one I have difficulty believing. After all, it implies some sort of "natural balance" that the distribution of wealth reverts to by default. But the distribution of wealth in the US now is drastically different from what it was in the 70s - which was different from what it was in the 50s, 30s, 10s. The distribution of wealth is very different in the US from what it is in the EU, but also from what it is in Mexico. The current distribution of wealth in the EU, in turn, is drastically different (with a much greater gap between rich and poor) than it was in the 80s or 60s. To cut myself short: if there is any evidence of some sort of "natural balance", its mighty hard to identify. It sounds like something to believe in, by ways of abstract concept, rather than something that can be deduced from actual developments. Ideology. Much like communism.

I don't think she ever said that.

nimh, it was the above paragraph in the quote that got me thinking she meant that. If I am wrong I am sorry and I will directly apologize to her.

This thread has become too time consuming for me. My writing is suffering, since I have to work a minimum 40 hrs per week. My writing time has to come when I find it, after I manage to wind down enough to do it.
I agree with virtually nothing foxfire has said here, but leave it to other progressive thinkers to explain to her where she is wrong.

Revel, the racial equality act was necessary and important. So was elimination of the poll tax and other artificial gimmicks used to suppress the black vote. So was affirmative action for a time.

But so many policies of the 70's, 80's, 90's purported to help blacks have in fact been important factors in making sure a substantial number of black people remain in an underclass where they are an important Democrat constituency.

Here are some articles written by Walter Williams. I selected them hastily and please overlook the "Town Hall" label on them as I could have gone to the NY Times or other sources for them; I can just find them faster on Town Hall.

When you read these, I can refer to you writings of Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, William Raspberry, and any number of other great African Americans who have educated me.

The original policies to correct former injustices were good. Many of the current policies are not so good.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20010627.shtml

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20040602.shtml

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20040609.shtml

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20040428.shtml

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20030702.shtml

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20030604.shtml

Foxfrye All I know is that I don't believe that all the black democrats are democrats because they are too stupid to know any better when someone is hoodwinking them.

Besides not all the social programs are just for the black population.

I am not saying that we should have nothing but social programs. We should just do what is needed and not any more or less.

Read the links Revel. Read the links. Or just type in Thomas Sowell or Walter Williams or somebody into your browser. It isn't that blacks are stupid. None of these guys I'm recommending you read are stupid. I wish I was as smart as any of them. But they've all lived it both ways. They've lived under segregation, they went through the reforms of the 50's and 60's, and they know how it is now. They know what they're talking about.

As opposed to all the black democrats?

I am not really in a position to argue against anything they have to say since I am not black and have not gone through the things they have. Only another black person would and I imagine that they have.

The social programs of Roosevelt and Johnson were inspired by a real need among the American population. By the time of Johnson, the Democratic party was becoming guilty of arrogance of power. Well intentioned though their social programs were, they seemed to think it was enough to merely visualize the programs and a flow of great wealth would keep them operating properly. Of course, any time there is money to be had there will be forces of corruption at hand. Also, without policing and fine tuning inertia can allow corruption to feed on itself after a time. Welfare, for instance was meant to be a hand up to the average poor, not a way of life. It was envisioned that most would go on to become productive members of society. There was no provision to cut people off the rolls, because it is a fact that some persons will never be able to take care of themselves for whatever reason. Conservatives will tell you that black women on welfare did not want to get married, but had as many babies as they could to get more money. They possibly overlook the fact that Jim Crow and slavery had long ago destroyed the cohesiveness of black families, before welfare was ever conceived. The problems of poor black people was attributed to welfare, even though the damage was done to them already.
Conservatives blame liberals for all social problems. Black Americans were prevented from voting by conservatives at every opportunity, from post slave times to the present. They were not afforded decent schools by Americans in general, but when the social conscience began to change, conservatives resisted to the end. It was conservatives who held out for all white neighborhoods and divided eating places. It was conservatives sicked the dogs on Martin Luther King for his simple act of walking on a public street to voice a non violent demand for black justice. As I said earlier, I have to get off this thread, but I wanted to throw in a few parting words.

And now that edgar has clarified that, I'm gonna shift off the civil rights discussion, if y'all don't mind. There is a nice thread in praise of the Gipper, and I just posted on it, and this one seems better for pointing out the parts of the legacy that aren't quite so flattering.

Like Ronald Reagan and AIDS:



Does everyone remember the climate when this disease first began to be reported in the media? The jokes went something like: "What do you call four queers on skates? Roll-aids."

Hospital emergency rooms refused to treat homosexuals. Would not even touch them.

Most of the talk from Republicans centered around phraseology such as "God's scourge."

Years later, the Centers for Disease Control issues an alert when three people die from the hantavirus, a disease spread by rats and confined to an outbreak of a few counties in New Mexico, but during the '80's thousands of people were dead, dying, and getting infected and 'gay cancer' still wasn't getting anyone's attention in Washington.



This is probably the most shameful legacy of Ronald Reagan. Oh yes, there was that little Iran-Contra matter; he could lie and pretend no one told him about arms for hostages while North and Poindexter ran completely amuck and afoul of the law -- and it should have gotten him impeached -- but he managed to skate through that, with no perceivable impact to his legacy.

His non-response to the AIDS pandemic tars his record permanently.

The historical record quoted by Reagan-hating liberals in the previous post is full of distortions and flat out lies. Here's the truth:



A good deal of additional information is included in the article.

Here's some additional information to correct the distortions in the previous post.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/kmiec200310230835.asp

http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article2805.html

I don't see a great deal of disparity between what "the Reagan hating liberals" presented and what the always fair and balanced Foxfyre provided. However terms such as "as I recall" and "large sum of money" sound to me as typical weasle words of a speech writer.

Foxfyre feels a desperate need to defend her icon at every comment she disagrees with, mesquite, which is why she lashes out with the "Reagan-hating liberals" ad hominem.

Name-calling has become a standard of her posts.

Remember it was Reagan who made 'liberal' a dirty word, and the Republicans still can't come up with any better insult after twenty years.

Reagan never uttered the word "AIDS" in public until the fall of 1987, after nearly 58,000 people had the disease and almost 28,000 had died from it.

That's reprehensible, not to mention indefensible.

Well you must not have read the links I provided. And I would think a commitment to finding a solution and pushing for funding should carry more weight than lip service. And if you think the article PDiddie posted was not written by a Reagan-hating liberal, I would like to know how one might be defined.

I am also unashamed that I defend a president I consider to be a great man and who will be one of the greats recorded in history. I presume those who choose to smear him with skewed and incorrect inferences are also proud of that. I like my way better.

These seem to sum up the Reagan legacy (not for conservatives, of course):

I'm so sorry that you guys don't have any heroes to brag on and all you can do is to try to belittle ours during our time of remembering and mourning and before he is even in the grave yet.