Can someone explain to me why this guy was a bad president? Wasn't

>>24559
Shameless self-bump

If I remember correctly, he was the first president to start heavily decreasing taxes on the rich, and was the first president of a long line even to this day that seek to make the rich richer

He redefined "conservative" to mean neoliberal in America.

> A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. As the Tower board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages. This runs counter to my own beliefs, to administration policy, and to the original strategy we had in mind.

>>24559
From what I have seen you'll either love the guy or hate him. Modern Republicans don't shut up about him.

>>24740
That's true, but I think he really believed that that would help the country as a whole. A rising tide lifts all boats and all. Wether or not that actually happened is really debated so.. yea. At the very least, it's fun to make fun of him. I love Reagan impersonations.

he started the trend of economic deregulation and weakening of unions and lowering taxes on the wealthy which is the primary reason why the middle class is so much worse off today, 30 years on, than it was when he came in

additionally he sold weapons of mass destruction to the taliban, saddam hussein, and supported fascist coup d'etats in central and south america sowing many seeds of the international problems we're dealing with today.

He refused to take action on the AIDS epidemic as he literally felt it was divine retribution against gay people, letting the public health crisis significantly worsen before government action was finally taken.

He did however end the Iran hostage crisis and to a degree helped reunify Germany which does deserve some credit.

>>24849
the reagan administration was similar to the bush administration in that he was never really the one making the decisions, particularly in his second term as he became increasingly debilitated by Alzheimer's

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Ok, how bout another question. Would you consider him to be one of the most influential presidents of the past century? And if so, was it in a good or bad way?

>>24960
Awful, but inevitable. Thatcherism did something similar in the UK, but not quite as severe.

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We're still living with his deficit for a start.

The whole "covertly selling weapons to terrorist state in order to fund drug lords and mass murderers in Central America" is also up there.

>>24559
He bought coke to downtrodden area
And the whole terrorist deals lol

>>24960
Reagan was a terrible president, but he was a very influential one. I'm not speaking here out of moral outrage at his AIDs stuff/foreign policy/etc., but simply put his economic policies are what has America up a shit creek without a paddle at the moment. Only problem is, they work so well for the guys at the top that nowadays they're common sense, so no one can think of a thing to do to change anything except these tiny motions left and right within Reaganomics.

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>>24984

Thatcher will be remembered as the final nail in the coffin of the British Empire. She was heartless, arrogant and plain wrong on so many things (but I still would've let her fuck me).

>>24786

ill leave you with four words

IM GLAD REAGAN DEAD

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>>25081

>>24559
iran contra
amnesty for spics

>>24559
The war on drugs

He presided over a fairly good economic times during his presidency and America becoming the sole superpower, making him fairly popular and shitlibs have been irate about it ever since because they are objectively correct and always right and no right winger has ever done good ever.

>>25010
This is disingenuous, to say the least. From an economic POV, so much of this, earlier part of Reagan's presidency was concerned with fire-fighting, dealing with the mess he'd inherited from Carter. He had to deal with that before being in a position to bring in any non-reactive policies of his own.
Tl;dr - This table is not so much misleading as meaningless

Most important positive achievement of Reagan - not achieved alone, for sure, Thatcher and Pope John Paul II also had significant and substantial roles - the defeat of Soviet, Communism, the ensuing restoration of liberty to numerous oppressed nations of central and eastern Europe. A big, big, deal, and a very major positive achievement of Reagan

>>25694
>believing America did shit to "defeat" communism
You know The Cold War ended because of Soviet-led initiatives to disarm and retreat from Europe? Gorbachev is the man who "restored liberty" (if that's what you want to call it) to that part of the world. Reagan and his "evil empire" shit actually led to the tensest and most dangerous part of the later Cold War.

>>24559
Left-wingers who regard heavy and heavily progressive taxation as some kind of divinely ordained law hate him for stealing less of people's money, including rich people's.
Right-wingers deify him for continuing deregulation policies that started under Gerald Ford and the hated Jimmy Carter. He gave tough speeches about the Soviet Union so they also forget that he started our policy of giving into terrorism. This idiot saved Yasser Arafat's life in 1982. Who knows how much better the Middle East would look if the Israelis had got the bastard.

>>24897
>he started the trend of economic deregulation
No that was Jimmy Carter
>weakening of unions
No that was Robert Taft
>which is the middle class is worse off
Except it isn't
Stinger missiles are not wmds
AIDS is not a public health crisis, AIDS is an easily avoidable illness.

>>25058
I dislike Thatcher for a lot of reasons, but what particularly bothers me is when people compare her to Churchill for "winning" the Falklands...

...totally ignoring the fact that it was her office's fuck-ups that caused the Falklands War and had she not been in power, NO British soldiers would have died

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>>25694

>reagan's neo-liberalism didn't lead to banking crash
>reagan supported liberty even though he supported dictators and terrorists
>eastern europe is great since fall of USSR

>reagan didn do nuffin rong

Ladies and gentlemen, the village idiot!

>>26163
Anyone who doesn't think Eastern Europe is a lot better since the fall of Communism needs to go talk to somebody from Eastern Europe.

>>26221

I'm Polish.

>>26221
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1221064/Oppressive-grey-No-growing-communism-happiest-time-life.html

>>26315
sure you are buddy. do you know anyone over 30?

>>24559
I R A N - C O N T R A
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>>26336
>dailymail

>>26336
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Mechanism
Hungary was the most free market of the warsaw pact countries

>>26336
this explains further
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goulash_Communism

>>26345

What a stupid question.

Are you rattled, you silly neocon?

>>24559

He was controlled by corporate interests and he had reckless foreign policy.

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>>26388
Surely that indicates that it's not communist liberal lefty pinko propaganda and that maybe (whisper it) people weren't spending every minutes of every day suffering and waiting for America to come save them.
>>26397
>>26414
>b-but socialism where people are happy isn't real socialism!

>>26438
>b-but socialism where people are happy isn't real socialism!
Isn't it funny how that's actually true whenever you examine the facts? Like how Denmark is more capitalist than the United States? Go read Solzhenitsyn, maybe you'll learn something.

>>26469

>Like how Denmark is more capitalist than the United States? Go read Solzhenitsyn, maybe you'll learn something

Oh, take a day off Podhoretz.

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>>24559

>>26525
well you clearly aren't interest in an actual discussion, just name calling so goodbye.

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>>26550

>being this rattled

>>26469
You do understand how illogical that is, moving the goalposts so that the only real socialism is the kind that fits your worldview? You're basically just doing the inverse of the REAL COMMUNISM HAS NEVER BEEN TRIED train of logic.

>>26569
My original point was that communism leads to your society becoming a shithole. He pointed out some hungarian lady claiming hungary under communism wasn't a shithole so i quite rightly pointed out that Hungary didn't really follow communist economic ideology.

>>26619
What is "communist economic ideology"? Surely the communists decide what that means, not the people opposed to communism. How is an economic ideology followed by communists not communist, exactly?

>>26709
you know you remind me of the fact that whenever Nancy Pelosi getting asked why she supports abortion rights she always invokes her alleged Catholicism as a reason to why her views on abortion cannot be questioned.

I dont understand - didn't he pave way for decades of economic growth?

Also I hear William F Buckley attributed to his winning of presidency numerous times - how true is this?

>>25845
nixon got us off the gold standard, so you can say it started with him

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>>26773
I'm not saying you can't question these things. Of course questioning is important. But it's a two-way process. If you can question the authentic socialism of the Hungarian Workers' Party, then surely you can question your own convictions regarding the automatic failure of socialism in practice. As-is you're just looking for the things that suit your bias and discarding the rest.

>>26850
oops i mean a fixed exchange rate for gold and foreign exchange rates in general iirc

>>26868
True but he also created the EPA and did nothing to reverse Johnson's policies.

>>24559
his lack of action on aids makes me hate him

but him and thatcher, which I studied at college, were quite the fucking double act.

>>26776
Regarding Buckley, I'd agree. Buckley was a leading figure of the "New Right" in the 60s that Reagan levered to rise to power.

>>25845
>AIDS isn't a public health crisis
Go back to /pol/ please.

>>26853
The fact that we can't even agree that Eastern Europe as a whole is a lot less bad today than under communism because people like you will divert the discussion to bullshit like this is why this board is doomed.

>>26908
has anybody ever caught AIDs through the air? Through casual physical contact? It seems to me those are homophobic myths disproven decades ago. Maybe you should go back to /pol/?

>>26897
>>26776
The notion that Buckley and NR moved public opinion enough rightward to get Reagan elected is an interesting theory but it's a documented fact that Reagan's ideology was shaped by reading NR.

>>26936
What does this have to do with AIDS not being a public health crisis
>>26968
I think generally the success of Buckley paved the way for Reagan to be "electable" in that sense, yes. It's not just public opinion that matters here - the NR having power in the Republican Party (and thus able to push Reagan as a candidate) was also a condition of Reagan's presidency. Reagan being influenced by Buckley is moot

>>26918
I presented some evidence and you said it didn't count. If you want to get into the specifics of the role of the market in socialism and the ideological legacy the NEM belongs to, that's fine, but as it is you're getting angry with me instead of engaging with anything I'm saying. I think the person here whose capacity for discussion is lacking is more you than me.

>>24559

Reagan was the lightning rod around which a shift in American politics took place. Whether it was for the better or not, his presidency probably had more of an impact of the country than anyone since FDR

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>>26897
>>26968
:^) the thought of that makes me all warm inside :^)

>>27028
the key word here is public, AIDs is a health crisis but it's not something that affects the public as a whole, only those who choose to engage in risky behavior.

>>24928
Oh please, there's no damn way someone could handle the pressures of POTUS, even a fairly hands-off POTUS, with Alzheimer's

>>27032
can we at least agree that the anecdotal of this one lady from one country in the Warsaw pact notwithstanding the current situation in Eastern Europe, including Russia is dramatically better?

>>27088
Um
What magically makes "those who choose to engage in risky behaviour" not "the public" mate

>>27143
It's a public health crisis if it's something that a given individual cannot reasonably avoid short of never leave one's house, that's the "public" in "public health" and thus the government has an obligation to step in and prevent it from spreading (see, ebola in west Africa). Otherwise it's just a plain old private health crisis. If anything that effects any member of "the public" qualifies as a "public health crisis" than your wanker's cramp is a public health crisis.

>>27138
I would say that in some senses it's better, in some it's worse. I'm not personally advocating a return to the NEM or some hypothetical golden age of Goulash Communism, you understand - but at the same time there were many real and dramatic changes in Hungarian society after communism in which a lot of poorer and more marginalised people lost out. I'm simply trying to avoid being black and white about it.

>>27218
how on earth is that distinction between private and public able to be maintained outside of dismissing AIDS as a health crisis. by that logic, the effects of smoking/weight or whatever you want to choose is not a "public health crisis" despite it placing massive strains on the public health, because you can just... not smoke and eat better?

War on drugs getting crazy

Military budget getting out of control

Funded the shit out of the Talibans, hilarity ensued

Supported every right wing dictatorship in the world

He is literally Satan reincarnated

>>27250
Indeed, smoking (except for second-hand smoke maybe, which I've seen evidence is an overblown risk) and overeating are not properly speaking public health crises and the government should have no role in interfering with these problems.

>>27143
It's only an epidemic among homosexuals. They make up ~50% of cases while making up as little as one percent of the population.

The public is not partaking in promiscuous, unprotected sex, a certain special interest group is. Even in unprotected sex, transmission is not guaranteed.

The only reason its even an issue is because homosexuals are at great risk for drug abuse (intravenous contamination), and sex addiction/promiscuity.

>>27231
okay and what about Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Russia, etc?
I get it if you mourn the loss of Hungary's welfare state but come on, let's get real. Saying everything isn't black and white shouldn't make us incapable of distinguishing between dark and light gray.

>>27250
I should clarify that I'm speaking in the context of a free market health system where people are not subsidizing each other's health care, which if I'm honest doesn't really exist anywhere in the world right now.
continued from this>>27309

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>>27045

And no doubt he would've enjoyed being warm inside of you.

>>27218
Nurses, Doctors, Sanitation Workers, and Cops all risk exposure fairly regularly, without what you'd call "risky" behavior.

>>27365
>mfw he slept w Jack Kerouac

what a truly strange time

>>27331
Russia I know for a fact is for the most part almost as grim-looking now as it was then - the only difference is that there are rich people in Moscow and St. Petersburg and that the poor are more miserable than ever before. Anywhere outside of the westernmost cities is post-apocolyptic. Gangsters run everything.

I don't know much about Poland or other countries, only having visited them briefly, but I've spent enough time in Hungary and Russia to be able to say that a lot of people regret the way things turned out. Do they want Soviet-style socialism back? Mostly not. But they are aware that the transition itself was handled extremely badly, and miss the stability of life back then, compared to the uncertainty and chaos of today. This is why (to return to the actual topic) I would not say that the way the Cold War ended was an unambiguous victory for the people of the Soviet bloc in the long term. Planned reform as in China and Vietnam would have worked out much better.

>>27469
Hmm I actually agree with a lot of this. It's undeniable that privatization was handled extremely badly and corruptly in Russia. I would say that many of the problems in Russian life today are the result of the Bolsheviks ruining Russian civil society. My sense is that Russia today at all levels is much wealthier now than during communism despite the corruption. The idea that life with the possibility of nuclear war hanging over one's heads constantly was more stable and certain is a strange one to me. Estonia and Poland today are perhaps truly paradisical compared to then. I would say the fall of communism was an ambiguous victory, as almost all victories inevitably are. I think the people who were in the gulags are certainly better off.

>lowered taxes
>deregulated the economy
>defeated socialism
What's not to like? The only fuck up was with the budget.

>>27903
he was really bad on foreign policy though.

>>27365
the original internet discussion
>Godwin's law followed by accusations of homosexuality and threats nobody had any intention of backing up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYymnxoQnf8

>>27944
More or less. He did have a lot of dialogue with Gorbachev and with other socialist leaders, which might have ended the Cold War.

>>27756
It depends on how you measure these things, really. Under the Soviets Russians were happier, generally better off financially, and better educated than they are today. The socialist system brought with it a sense of community and solidarity that is wholly lacking there today. And of course, guaranteed employment and food were things many Russians, especially in the 1990s, valued greatly. Planned socialism did have its upsides to the people living under it - and while there were many serious flaws that did need fixing, I believe there was more to be gained through keeping the apparatus of socialism and reforming it than suddenly pulling it away from people.

This is a moot point, though. If such a thing could have happened in Eastern Europe it would've. The system had no ability to reform itself and the corrupt realised they could make more money without it and so, in the name of "freedom", pretended to be democrats and liberals, lying to the people. That's really what happened after the romance of 1989 - people who wanted freedom were sold down the river by their new leaders.

But nowadays is it is less the legacy of socialism and more the legacy of the bitter betrayal of the 1990s that defines that part of the world today: we have yet to see if the trauma of the nineties and the nationalist populism it has created will be justified by what happens next.

>>28029
>happier
citation needed
>better off financially
citation needed
>better educated
citation needed
>sense of community and solidarity
citation needed
>guaranteed employment
"We pretend to work and the pretend to pay us"
>guaranteed food
In bread lines, are you even trying?

>>28021
I'm referring more to his horrific appeasement of Islamist fanaticism.

>>28115
The fact that your only actual counterpoints are a old Soviet joke and the mention of bread lines says something. Yes, people queued for food. They were still guaranteed to get it. I'm not saying that's objectively a good thing, but it's a thing that, during the catastrophe of the nineties, many Russians missed. You're looking at this from your perspective and not theirs.

>>27469
>the poor are more miserable than ever before
Lol, no. Do they have to wait more than 8 hours in line outside during the winter in order to buy bread? Are they not free to speak their minds (to some extent, now that Putin is in power)? Don't they have access to international media and etertainment? Are't they allowed to buy superior foreign products, such as cars, microwaves and computers, without having to wait decades and pay a ridiculously high price?
Russia is still a huge mess, with a widespread culture of corporatism, corruption and crime, though most of it is thanks to socialism.

>>28187
The idea that Russians were better off financially in any way is preposterous. The plethora of jokes about how bad it was should illustration enough of this. Were they actually guaranteed to get bread? Was there always enough bread to feed everyone? Certainly not in Ukraine during the Holodomor.

>>28187
read this:
econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/03/the_love_potion.html

>>27903
Economic deregulations aren't something to like.

>>28201
Is that how we measure happiness? Is happiness just access to consumer goods and being able to say what you like about the government? Most Russians I know, even the majority who don't have any real ideological affinity for socialism, argue quite angrily that it is not.

>>28228
Holodomor was the 1930s. I'm talking about the USSR of the 1970s and 1980s. For the average citizen it was slow, dull, maybe a little absurd, but not the kind of Stalinist caricature you seem to think it was.

>>28434
Honestly, if I had to do all the things I listed in my post during my whole life in a frozen wasteland, I would be very unhappy.

>>28434
Obviously the USSR was a lot better in the 1970s and forward as it was a gradual unwinding collapse. There was still gulags operating in Siberia all the way up to the collapse. Happiness is not really measurable but the notion that the average Russian is not much wealthier today than at any time during the Soviet period is ridiculous and I'd really like to know where you get that claim.

>>28312
Yes, it is.