Ronald Reagan and "States' Rights"

[_JS]

Reagan was the typical Goldwater style Republican who opposed the Civil Rights Act, but was not a racist. It was a great way to wink to those who felt some sympathy to the Civil Rights Movement, but were put off by the Black Power Movement. Reagan was a "law and order" Governor during the turbulent time of the 60's and often that could mean using the police to bust college students or black folks in the head in the name of keeping the order. One of Reagan's big campaign themes was to "clean up the mess at Berkeley." That meant two things: hurting those whose politics many in the mainstream white middle class and upper class abhorred and enforcing conformity to the establishment ("law and order").

Reagan sent the Highway Patrol in on one Berkeley protest, which resulted in the death of a 25 year-old. He sent in the National Guard the next time. It was about Berkley that Reagan famously said, "If it's to be a bloodbath, let it be now."

I don't know if Reagan was a racist or not. I don't think it matters. He certainly didn't care about people or individual rights. He used those terms to sell what he was peddling.

Are "we" speaking ill of the dead here?

Do not speak ill of the dead.
      -- The Seven Sages, from Diogenes Laertius

I'm telling the truth.

And though some of you deify the guy, last time I checked, he is not a saint nor a god.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Do not speak ill of the dead.
      -- The Seven Sages, from Diogenes Laertius

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That's the best you can do?

Reagan was to politics what Coca-Cola is to thirst, what pretzels are to hunger.

[The_Professor]

Reagan was the typical Goldwater style Republican who opposed the Civil Rights Act, but was not a racist. It was a great way to wink to those who felt some sympathy to the Civil Rights Movement, but were put off by the Black Power Movement. Reagan was a "law and order" Governor during the turbulent time of the 60's and often that could mean using the police to bust college students or black folks in the head in the name of keeping the order. One of Reagan's big campaign themes was to "clean up the mess at Berkeley." That meant two things: hurting those whose politics many in the mainstream white middle class and upper class abhorred and enforcing conformity to the establishment ("law and order").

Reagan sent the Highway Patrol in on one Berkeley protest, which resulted in the death of a 25 year-old. He sent in the National Guard the next time. It was about Berkley that Reagan famously said, "If it's to be a bloodbath, let it be now."

I don't know if Reagan was a racist or not. I don't think it matters. He certainly didn't care about people or individual rights. He used those terms to sell what he was peddling.

Are "we" speaking ill of the dead here?

Do not speak ill of the dead.
      -- The Seven Sages, from Diogenes Laertius

I'm telling the truth.

And though some of you deify the guy, last time I checked, he is not a saint nor a god.

Ok, so you readily admit Diogenes would be disappointed in your action of speaking ill of the dead?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Ok, so you readily admit Diogenes would be disappointed in your action of speaking ill of the dead?

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What possible difference could this make to anyone?

[The_Professor]

Well, you violate a basic human dignity principle. Isn't that bad enough?

[_JS]

Well, you violate a basic human dignity principle. Isn't that bad enough?

I don't really understand this bizarre diversion. But I'll play.

So, you should speak in reverence of Nero, Ted Bundy, or Il Duce because they are dead?

That Nero, he sure kept his garden parties well lit with human torches. The smell was likely pretty rough, and the cries of anguish might have interrupted polite conversation - but we shan't speak ill of the dead or Diogenes may not liken us to a canine.

[Lanya]

Let the dead bury the dead.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Let the dead bury the dead.

An ideal suggestion it would seem, but it appears as though you would always end up with at least one deceased guy who had to bury himself, or an unburied dead guy.

Better than having hundreds of them lurching about imitating Boris Karloff, arms outsreatched and saying arrrrrrnnnnnngh!!!  Nnnnnnghhhhrrrrr!  Grrrrrrroooooouuuuaaannnn!

[Plane]

Reagan is getting well deserved praise these days
as Americans peruse the candidates
Nostalgia for the Gipper afflicts us 
Cause none of these compares much to Dutch

It isn't fair to hush Reagan's verbal assassins
While his champions sing his paeans
Let the nattering nabobs Jeer his name
 Were here he here, he would just say- "There you go a-gain"

[Xavier_Onassis]

I would say that each and every candidate running for president has the potential to be a better president than Reagan.
He was a walking, talking, fumbling, doddering disaster whose main attribute was to project a kind old grandfatherly image for a man who was not kind at all, a man who welcomed bloodbaths on university campuses and ptomaine on the hungry beneficiaries of the food the SLA extorted from the Hearsts.

He was a great actor, though. A triumph of advertising and a monument to friendly deception.

[The_Professor]

Back to the original isse at hand, it never ceases to amaze me that if someone shouts "states rights", the "racism" frenzy begins. If a Western state shouted "states rights", five gets you ten the outcry wouldn't be the same.

Where there is smoke, there is fire is not always the case, gentleman.

[Plane]

I would say that each and every candidate running for president has the potential to be a better president than Reagan.
He was a walking, talking, fumbling, doddering disaster whose main attribute was to project a kind old grandfatherly image for a man who was not kind at all, a man who welcomed bloodbaths on university campuses and ptomaine on the hungry beneficiaries of the food the SLA extorted from the Hearsts.

He was a great actor, though. A triumph of advertising and a monument to friendly deception.

Reagan united the nation as well as FDR did ,as well asTheodore Rosevelt did, almost as well as Lincon and in the same league as Washington, he was the sort of good president that we are lucky to get once in a generation.

I hope it isn't forty  years before our next great president , but whenever such a great president is found ,there will certainly be someone to beleive and repeat the worst rumor and discount the best accomplishment just as there is for all presidents best and worst.