Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: miko2d on February 06, 2004, 09:28:29 PM
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I wish republicans listened to him.
Ronald Reagan: A Time for Choosing Speech, 1964
I am going to talk of controversial things. I make no apology for this.
It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government."
This idea? that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream-the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."
The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.
Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, "What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power." But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.
Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we're always "against," never "for" anything.
We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem. However, we are against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments....
We are for aiding our allies by sharing our material blessings with nations which share our fundamental beliefs, but we are against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world.
We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward I restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him.... But we can not have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure....
Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return to traditional proportionate taxation? . . . Today in our country the tax collector's share is 37 cents of -very dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp.
Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor's fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he'll eat you last.
If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what's at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.
They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits-not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.
Too bad he has failed. If his children's children think he had justified his existence, most will not dear to admit that in public. :(
miko
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Originally posted by miko2d
Too bad he has failed. If his children's children think he had justified his existence, most will not dear to admit that in public. :(
miko
He didn't succeed in his lifetime, no. But he didn't fail - at least not yet. Only time will tell there.
A great man, regardless; he is missed.
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^are you guys sudgesting that Ronald Reagan was not successfull in his life time?
if so that's the biggest crock I've heard yet on this board.
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Miko's just pissed cause he cant watch Hunt for Red October without tearing up anymore.
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Gunslinger: ^are you guys sudgesting that Ronald Reagan was not successfull in his life time?
He was not successfull in his time.
The processes he intended to stop developed uninterrupted.
Not only that, his wilingness to compromise on the core issues made him endorce the evil he was fighting and be used as a tool.
His name and reputation were coopted by the very people he opposed and used for purposes contrary to his ideas - as justifications for their views and discreditation of his.
if so that's the biggest crock I've heard yet on this board.
OK, tell me, who came up with the term "voodoo economics" to denigrade the core of Reagan's views? What did Reagan do to that person?
miko
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Originally posted by Saurdaukar
Miko's just pissed cause he cant watch Hunt for Red October without tearing up anymore.
LMAO!
Just for you miko. Hope the translation is close
The Hymn of the Soviet Union
Unbreakable Union of freeborn Republics,
Great Russia has welded forever to stand.
Created in struggle by will of the people,
United and mighty, our Soviet land!
Sing to the Motherland, home of the free,
Bulwark of peoples in brotherhood strong.
O Party of Lenin, the strength of the people,
To Communism's triumph lead us on!
Through tempests the sunrays of freedom have cheered us,
Along the new path where great Lenin did lead.
To a righteous cause he raised up the peoples,
Inspired them to labor and valorous deed.
[Or, the old way:
Be true to the people, thus Stalin has reared us,
Inspire us to labor and valorous deed!]
Sing to the Motherland, home of the free,
Bulwark of peoples in brotherhood strong.
O Party of Lenin, the strength of the people,
To Communism's triumph lead us on!
In the vict'ry of Communism's deathless ideal,
We see the future of our dear land.
And to her fluttering scarlet banner,
Selflessly true we always shall stand!
Dr. Ryan: (In Russian) It is wise to study the ways of
one's adversary. Don't you think?
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Originally posted by miko2d
Gunslinger: ^are you guys sudgesting that Ronald Reagan was not successfull in his life time?
He was not successfull in his time.
The processes he intended to stop developed uninterrupted.
Not only that, his wilingness to compromise on the core issues made him endorce the evil he was fighting and be used as a tool.
His name and reputation were coopted by the very people he opposed and used for purposes contrary to his ideas - as justifications for their views and discreditation of his.
if so that's the biggest crock I've heard yet on this board.
OK, tell me, who came up with the term "voodoo economics" to denigrade the core of Reagan's views? What did Reagan do to that person?
miko
such big words I no understand
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Gunslinger: Just for you miko. Hope the translation is close
Come on, what a lousy job. Translation in print? What, too you lazy to find an mp3 link to the real thing? :)
Anyway, what's all the uproar? I am very sorry that Reagan failed. I support his views. That's why I posted his speech.
miko
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Originally posted by miko2d
Gunslinger: Just for you miko. Hope the translation is close
Come on, what a lousy job. Translation in print? What, too you lazy to find an mp3 link to the real thing? :)
Anyway, what's all the uproar? I am very sorry that Reagan failed. I support his views. That's why I posted his speech.
miko
http://www.funet.fi/pub/culture/russian/lyrics/political/sovnateng.html
http://www.funet.fi/pub/culture/russian/lyrics/political/SovNatlAnthem.wav
http://www.funet.fi/pub/culture/russian/lyrics/political/SovietUnionNationalAnthem_RedArmyChorus.mp3
http://www.funet.fi/pub/culture/russian/lyrics/political/ussr.mid
all available at:
http://www.funet.fi/pub/culture/russian/html_pages/soviet.html
Soviet National Anthem original text
ГИМН СОВЕТСКОГО СОЮЗА
Союз нерушимый республик свободных
Сплотила навеки Великая русь
Да здравствует созданный волей народов
Единый, могучий Советский Союз!
Славься, Отечество наше свободное,
Дружбы народов надежный оплот!
Знамя советское, знамя народное
пуст от победы к победе ведет!
Сквозь грозы сияло нам солнце свободы,
И Ленин великий нам путь озарил:
Нас вырастил Сталин - на верность народу,
на труд и на подвиги нас вдохновил!
Славься, Отечество наше свободное,
Дружбы народов надежный оплот!
Знамя советское, знамя народное
пуст от победы к победе ведет!
Мы армию нашу растили в сраженьях.
Захватчиков подлых с дороги сметем!
Мы в битвах решаем судьбу поколений,
Мы к славе отчизну свое поведем!
В победе бессмертных идеи коммунизма
Мы видим грядущее нашей страны,
И красному знамени славной Отчизны
Мы будем всегда беззаветно верны!
Славься, Отечество наше свободное,
Дружбы народов надежный оплот!
Знамя советское, знамя народное
пуст от победы к победе ведет!
this good enough?
as far as ronnie goes i'm not even gonn argue. He was a great American and a great president. The soviet threat is no more....his doing or not the world was not destroyed 10 times over in a nuke fight and Europe isnt occupied by soviet armor. Makes me happy
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Originally posted by Gunslinger
as far as ronnie goes i'm not even gonn argue. He was a great American and a great president. The soviet threat is no more....his doing or not the world was not destroyed 10 times over in a nuke fight and Europe isnt occupied by soviet armor. Makes me happy
Reagan was a great man, but that doesn't change the fact that he only slowed the country's descent, instead of reversing it. In that respect, he failed. But he believed, and he tried, which is more than most politicians do these days.
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Originally posted by Tarmac
Reagan was a great man, but that doesn't change the fact that he only slowed the country's descent, instead of reversing it. In that respect, he failed. But he believed, and he tried, which is more than most politicians do these days.
HOW did HE fail? was it so GREAT befor him? Descent into what?
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Funniest story I ever read was how Ronnie's boys tricked
the Russians into blowing up their own Trans Siberian
Pipeline.......Largest non nuclear explosion ever seen from
space.
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I liked how he made a good deal with opec to open the pipelines wide open thus making it cost more money for the commies to pump their oil than they could sell it for.
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Used science fiction writers to con the russians into beliveing
we were on the verge of having super weapons that could take out their entire offensive missle capability as soon as it was
launched...
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Originally posted by Gunslinger
HOW did HE fail? was it so GREAT befor him? Descent into what?
1. He didn't stop our descent. In this respect, he's failed just as much as you and I have failed thus far. Although he tried, which is why I respect him as a president.
2. Yes, it was. For a long time, this country has slowly been forgetting or casting aside the ideals that it was founded upon.
3. Socialism, totalitarianism, the nanny state.
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Originally posted by weaselsan
Funniest story I ever read was how Ronnie's boys tricked
the Russians into blowing up their own Trans Siberian
Pipeline.......Largest non nuclear explosion ever seen from
space.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/02/opinion/02SAFI.html
The beginning of the end of the Cold war. You can only steal so much technology before it catches up with you ;)
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Originally posted by Ripsnort
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/02/opinion/02SAFI.html
The beginning of the end of the Cold war. You can only steal so much technology before it catches up with you ;)
FYI...Requires you to be a subscriber/sign up, Rip
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Gunslinger: I liked how he made a good deal with opec to open the pipelines...
Does not sound too plausible to me for a variety of reasons. Not looking to get into an argument here - do you have any references where I could check the details for my own curiocity.
The pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines and valves was programmed to go haywire... The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space.
While I was in college back in USSR in mid 80s, I worked for a year at the company writing controller software for Trans-Siberian pipeline. I also have friends that were working in oil-pumping industry in Siberia. From what I know of programming and the state of technology in USSR, that story seems incredible to me.
First, I doubt that even at this time, let alone in 70s there was off-the shelf software that could be bought or stolen to run an extremely customised and disparate collection of hardware that soviets were using.
Also, software was small (killobytes of assembly) and engineering time was cheap (in 1989 the salary of an engineer/programmer was 140 rubles a month while a PC-XT sold for 14,000 rubles). Reverse-engineering stolen code to figure out what it did would not be a big deal and training a good programmer from any technology engineer - which were abundant in USSR would have taken few month if there was lack of programmers. Russians had problems making chips, not writing software or designs.
As for the explosion - there were lakes of oil from horizon to horizon spilled from leaking pipelines all over Siberia and the leaking gas would have powered a european country. There were so many explosions and fires every year that CIA would have hard time figuring out which one it caused, if it did.
It probably selected one of the biggest "natural" explosions and invenited the whole scheme with software.
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As for Reagan, he compromised too much and was subject to bad influences in important matters.
John Sears persuaded Reagan to run his 1980 campaign as a supply-sider, backing the Kemp-Roth tax cuts.
Sears' strategy of skipping Iowa and concentrate on tax issues worked brilliantly, but he was fired on the day of the New Hampshire primary (which proved a great victory with more to follow) due to the influence of his detractors, including Nancy Reagan.
Then instead of taking Jack Kemp as his vice-president, he took George HW Bush - his main opponent, the candidate of establishment who did not understand or shared Reagan's views but disparaged them constantly.
He lowered taxes but did not cut spending, so the power and extent of the state increased. His lower-tax rate/higher revenue scheme seemed as its goal extracting as much money as possible from the economy for the state, not cutting the state as he promised.
What we have now is the following sorry situation. The enemies of his conservative policies on republican side - Bush & Co. have no problem presenting Reagan as a greatest hero for things he had nothing to do with, like the end of communist regime in Soviet Union - unless he somehow caused death of several soviet leaders in early 80s so that MG could come to power.
The same republicans carefully forget about his message of reducing the grasp of government.
At the same time they - and democrats - use Reagan's fallacies of unbalanced budgets and "deficits do not matter" as justification for their own actions.
So the cult of Reagan does nore harm than good to his cause. The real Reagan is in the article I posted, not the "single-handedly won the (so-called) Cold War" borrower and spender.
miko
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Originally posted by Gunslinger
ГИМН СОВЕТСКОГО СОЮЗА
Союз нерушимый республик свободных
Сплотила навеки Великая русь
Да здравствует созданный волей народов
Единый, могучий Советский Союз!
Славься, Отечество наше свободное,
Дружбы народов надежный оплот!
Знамя советское, знамя народное
пуст от победы к победе ведет!
Сквозь грозы сияло нам солнце свободы,
И Ленин великий нам путь озарил:
Нас вырастил Сталин - на верность народу,
на труд и на подвиги нас вдохновил!
Славься, Отечество наше свободное,
Дружбы народов надежный оплот!
Знамя советское, знамя народное
пуст от победы к победе ведет!
Мы армию нашу растили в сраженьях.
Захватчиков подлых с дороги сметем!
Мы в битвах решаем судьбу поколений,
Мы к славе отчизну свое поведем!
В победе бессмертных идеи коммунизма
Мы видим грядущее нашей страны,
И красному знамени славной Отчизны
Мы будем всегда беззаветно верны!
Славься, Отечество наше свободное,
Дружбы народов надежный оплот!
Знамя советское, знамя народное
пуст от победы к победе ведет!
I certainly must not have the correct international font on this end. Just looks like alot of "aieeee aieeee aieeee aieeee" to me. :lol
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Originally posted by Arlo
I certainly must not have the correct international font on this end. Just looks like alot of "aieeee aieeee aieeee aieeee" to me. :lol
that's actually what it looks like on the website. They have a jpg that has the actual script but i wont even pretend to be able to read it.
Miko I'll look around to see were I read that. I just remember seeing somthing about reagan visiting opec and the russians were pissed about their output.
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Is Miko saying reagan wanted more power to the states?.........:rofl
And lowered taxes??....:rofl
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Sixpence: Is Miko saying reagan wanted more power to the states?.........:rofl
And lowered taxes??....:rofl
If you could quote what statements of mine prompted those lines, I might be able to understand what the heck you are talking about. :)
Gunslinger: Miko I'll look around to see were I read that. I just remember seeing somthing about reagan visiting opec and the russians were pissed about their output.
I would not put it past him to just want cheaper oil for US and western Europe. Also, I cannot think of anything good - as in "not evil" - that he could have offered them in return.
miko
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Originally posted by miko2d
Sixpence: Is Miko saying reagan wanted more power to the states?.........:rofl
And lowered taxes??....:rofl
If you could quote what statements of mine prompted those lines, I might be able to understand what the heck you are talking about. :)
Gunslinger: Miko I'll look around to see were I read that. I just remember seeing somthing about reagan visiting opec and the russians were pissed about their output.
I would not put it past him to just want cheaper oil for US and western Europe. Also, I cannot think of anything good - as in "not evil" - that he could have offered them in return.
miko
Miko here's a good read. It doesnt prove my comment completly but a good either way:
http://www.museletter.com/archive/cia-oil.html
This much is clear and undisputable. Less clear is what was done with the information. Soon after assuming office in 1981, the Reagan Administration abandoned the established policy of pursuing dйtente with the Soviet Union and instead instituted a massive arms buildup; it also fomented proxy wars in areas of Soviet influence, while denying the Soviets desperately needed oil equipment and technology. Then, in the mid-1980s, Washington persuaded Saudi Arabia to flood the world market with cheap oil. Throughout the last decade of its existence, the USSR pumped and sold its oil at the maximum possible rate in order to earn foreign exchange income with which to keep up in the arms race and prosecute its war in Afghanistan. Yet with markets awash with cheap Saudi oil, the Soviets were earning less even as they pumped more. Two years after their oil production peaked, the economy of the USSR crumbled and its government collapsed.
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Sorry, I assumed when the founding fathers thing was in there, you might have been leading to the states rights to make it's own laws thing. And I had to laugh, because one of the things I remember most was how reagan blackmailed the states to make them raise their drinking age to 21. He threatened to cut off highway funds to any state that did not raise the age. Sure, make your own laws, but if we don't like them, we will cut off any federal money we can.
When congress told him he couldn't fund a civil war in central america, he sold arms to terrorists to fund it. Did he mention the founding fathers when he was questioned about it? No, he forgot. Fate can be pretty ironic sometimes.
He said he wouldn't raise taxes. Then he quadrupled your social security payments and stole the money to fill the gaping holes in his budget. So........he raised taxes!!
Now I'm not saying reagan was all bad, he lifted the American spirit when it needed it badly. But I thought Bush Sr was a better pres, and no one calls him great.
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Ronnie loves ya sixpence...
(http://www.vcsc.k12.in.us/staff/mhutch/modpres/reagan/ronald114.gif)
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Gunslinger: Miko here's a good read. It doesnt prove my comment completly but a good either way...
Thatks, Gunslinger.
That link explains how the "cult of Reagan" is being bulit attributing to him stuff he did not do and that was at best tangential to his primary goals. The information there does not seem to correspond to reality.
The USSR was a (mostly) socialist country - which means it was very inefficient economically. Inefficient does not mean that something is totaly missing - just that it's not as good or cheap as it could be. On the other hand USSR could dedicate much greater fraction of its GDP to the needs of the state. In US most of the GDP is "wasted" on such trivial things as comfort of the population - good food, housing, cars, leisure and entertainment, healthcare. Not so in USSR - population living in comfort would be less manageable, so they (government) probably would not want the wealth if they could have it.
Reagan Administration abandoned the established policy of pursuing dйtente with the Soviet Union and instead instituted a massive arms buildup
Cold War was not a real war but an armed standoff. In real war one has to match the capabilities of the enemy, hence expenses. In standoff - especially when both sides have enough weapons for a massive overkill, such is not necessarily the case. The "massive arms buildup" on american side could have resulted in zero effect to soviet side. They could have regretted it come the real war, but nobody was planning on fighting for real. Nobody ever knew - or could know - how much USSR spent on arms. Even they did not know because under socialism the monertary economic calculation is not possible.
while denying the Soviets desperately needed oil equipment and technology
Desperately? Soviets were pumping oil in 1920s. Surely they could reproduce the 50-year old pumping and pipeline technology. It is a fact that soviet energy sector was running on domestic equipment. Not as good as american but quite functional. Labor was free, talent was abundant - and that compensates for many mechanical deficiencies.
foreign exchange income with which to keep up in the arms race and prosecute its war in Afghanistan
They needed foreign exchange income to support anti-american movements abroad, pay spies for the technology they stole from the west in massive amounts and to buy some equipment that they could not manufacture as well. Also for grain imports and such.
Why they heck would they need foreign currency to prosecute its war in Afghanistan? The soldiers were free, the equipment was domestic - and the workers making it also mostly free.
Two years after their oil production peaked, the economy of the USSR crumbled and its government collapsed.
The economy of the USSR did not "collapse". I was there. And it is still there. The government did not collapse either. It was dissolved from above due to political reasons of the ruling elite.
Then the economy really got disrupted due to the break in many production links - after the Soviet Union seased to exist. Even at the lowest point of the post-soviet decline it woould be hard to call their economy as "collapsed".
It is totally silly to attribute the changes that happened to the Soviet Union to the insignificant effect the oil prices could have on its GDP - rather than M. Gorbachev coming to power.
It is also silly to attribute the drastic drop in oil prices to anything but the disarray and greediness of OPEC members cheating on their own quote agreements.
Sixpence: And I had to laugh, because one of the things I remember most was how reagan blackmailed the states to...
Right, after This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
what he did was totally opposite to what he professed.
He said one thing, did the opposite to gain some short-term compromise and discredited his views and their true supporters. That's why he is touted as the guy who "won the cold war" instead of the guy who set out to defeat his own government's tyrany and failed.
Robert P. Murphy: The legacy of Ronald Reagan was arguably worse than Bill Clinton's precisely because Reagan (allegedly) stood for small government. So when deficits and the number of crack addicts went through the roof during the '80s, liberal Democrats could plausibly blame "tax and budget cuts," even though the latter were nonexistent and the former were mostly shell games of fancy terminology (like "closing loopholes" and "revenue enhancement").
miko