The Ronald Reagan On Everything Thread

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Originally posted by Rat Faced@16 June 2004 - 15:24
Gorbachev was talking about the Sinatra Doctrine long before Reagan was President and he was Premier.. he was advocating it in the 70's.

Quite frankly, Gorbachev deserves the credit for ending the Cold War, not Reagan... with a Premier that wanted reform and non intervention in Warsaw Pact countries it was a matter of time only before the Republics fell away from Russia.


Reagan just happened to be the President at the time, and (as any President would have) helped the Russians towards an Open Market instead of hindering them.

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However, the "Sinatra Doctrine" was first "exercised" in 1988-89, I believe; by then, most of the underpinnings of Communism had already been kicked away by Reagan.

This is not to gave short-shrift to Gorby; he was visionary enough to see the end well before Brezhnev would have.

It is fact, though:

He needed Reagan to provide the reality-check.

Little known fact:

The term Sinatra Doctrine had it's origins with Gerasimov, not Shevardnadze.

I beg to differ.

The Sanatra Doctrine was 1st exercised (de facto) 1981, when the Trade Union Solidarity was formed in Poland and the USSR did not intervene militarily to crush it :P

Gorbachev was intrumental in influencing the USSR not to interfere there, and called the policy The Sanatra Doctrine as a joke reference to the song "My Way"....the unofficial policy was made official when he became Premier in 1985.




Edit:

Changed the year from 1980 to 1981..... well, it was close from memory :lol:

Also changed that sentance to actually make sense :huh:



Edit 2:

The USSR did make threats in 1982-83 that slowed down the Democratic change in Poland.... when they found out the CIA was helping to Finance Solidarity.

It could be argued therefore, that Reagan slowed down the process and it would have happened quicker if he'd stayed the fuck out of there :P

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Originally posted by j2k4@16 June 2004 - 13:56
vid-

Any President, of whatever stripe, must earn his teeth before he can use them.

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as i said reagan was very good at getting the house to vote in his favour...look how many democrats he convinced to vote for the cuts.

but by your statements you have said that reagan didn't "earn" his teeth as he failed to control the house and they frittered his "extra money" away.

prey tell us all how the dems frittered the money away as well because reagan made heavy cuts in spending in ten out of 15 major federal agencies his first term and 9 out of 15 his second no other administration did that in fact clinton was the closest. ( i am stating this from memory so if anyone has more accurate information please let us all know).

whatever the reason i say once again with different words, these are just excuses for failures and the buck always stops here.

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Reagan entered office with teeth that prompted the Iranians to free the hostages within minutes of Reagan's inauguration, and please don't raise any BS about a "prearrangement". The Iranians were scared.

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i dissagree with your opinion on this and i also suspect that you would never have that opinion if it had been a democrat in office in the same circumstances.

I am not going to debate the policy of removing comunism because it was interference in another nations politics, something we would not stand for if another nation tried to do it to us and it also gives strength to criticism of our foreign policy. Besides i have no doubt that if it wasn't for the fact that a reformer like Gorbachev was the leader, Reagan would have stood no chance and the cold war would have got colder

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As far as "Billy Boy" is concerned, I will say he was a resounding success compared to Carter, but my disgust at his personal comportment precludes me waving his banner, sorry.

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sorry to hear you can be blinded to achievement because of human error. I am absolutely sure that no other president has lied or had an indiscresion. Of course Reagan didn't have to lie, if he ever did actually hear the question he would forget the answer.

QUOTE (j2k4 @ 16 June 2004 - 13:56)
vid-

Any President, of whatever stripe, must earn his teeth before he can use them.

as i said reagan was very good at getting the house to vote in his favour...look how many democrats he convinced to vote for the cuts.

but by your statements you have said that reagan didn't "earn" his teeth as he failed to control the house and they frittered his "extra money" away.

prey tell us all how the dems frittered the money away as well because reagan made heavy cuts in spending in ten out of 15 major federal agencies his first term and 9 out of 15 his second no other administration did that in fact clinton was the closest. ( i am stating this from memory so if anyone has more accurate information please let us all know).

Reagan made no "cuts", vid; he merely slowed the rate of growth in these agencies.

The Dems have always described such activities as cuts, which is, of course, not accurate.

whatever the reason i say once again with different words, these are just excuses for failures and the buck always stops here.

My confusion burgeons; of which "excuses" do you speak?

For Reagan not managing to hold the deficit line?

I have explained that, and you refuse to accept my explanation, which is an easy thing to do (much like describing the slowing of the growth rate as a "cut"), but is, nonetheless, your right, as an American.

BTW: Have you been naturalized? What's that like?

QUOTE
Reagan entered office with teeth that prompted the Iranians to free the hostages within minutes of Reagan's inauguration, and please don't raise any BS about a "prearrangement". The Iranians were scared.

i dissagree with your opinion on this and i also suspect that you would never have that opinion if it had been a democrat in office in the same circumstances.

Not my opinion, vid: FACT.

Are you denying it happened?

How could I deny it, were it a Democrat who presided?

It is undeniable; only a fool would deny it, and I steer clear of foolishness as a rule.

I am not going to debate the policy of removing comunism because it was interference in another nations politics, something we would not stand for if another nation tried to do it to us and it also gives strength to criticism of our foreign policy. Besides i have no doubt that if it wasn't for the fact that a reformer like Gorbachev was the leader, Reagan would have stood no chance and the cold war would have got colder

Reagan did not remove Communism, vid-he made it unviable; he did it without invading, indeed, as Ms. Thatcher noted: "He did it without firing a shot."

Just for fun, though, I wish you'd describe the standard by which you define Reagan's actions as "interference in another nation's politics".

QUOTE
As far as "Billy Boy" is concerned, I will say he was a resounding success compared to Carter, but my disgust at his personal comportment precludes me waving his banner, sorry.

sorry to hear you can be blinded to achievement because of human error. I am absolutely sure that no other president has lied or had an indiscresion. Of course Reagan didn't have to lie, if he ever did actually hear the question he would forget the answer.

A cheap shot at me, followed by a cheap shot at Reagan.

I would have expect better of you, vid.

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Originally posted by j2k4@16 June 2004 - 18:40
sorry to hear you can be blinded to achievement because of human error. I am absolutely sure that no other president has lied or had an indiscresion. Of course Reagan didn't have to lie, if he ever did actually hear the question he would forget the answer.

A cheap shot at me, followed by a cheap shot at Reagan.

I would have expect better of you, vid.

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sorry if you feel that was a cheap shot at you, it wasn't ment to be it was more a comment on the comment about giving credit. i appologise without reservation if you took offence.

as to the reagan comment, i have to make it absolutely clear that it was not a shot at his tradgic altziemers affliction rather his habbit of putting his hand to his ear and claiming he can't hear whenever the press asked a tough question and the famous "i don't recall" quote ( seeing as we where commenting about presidential standards)

Fair 'nuff.

Funny-he was always denigrated for being "merely an actor".

What wasn't too well known was how open he was about having had that as his background aided him greatly during his administration; he was always quite open about it, but this fact was not acknowledged by the media or his detractors.

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Just for fun, though, I wish you'd describe the standard by which you define Reagan's actions as "interference in another nation's politics".

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RF did,

the CIA were meddling in Poland, and so slowed down the breakup of the Warsaw Pact :P

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Just for fun, though, I wish you'd describe the standard by which you define Reagan's actions as "interference in another nation's politics".

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not going to start going into actual details of how this was done, as sweeky pointed out already RF has given an example.

My point wasn't about details at all it was about the fact that he had a policy to bring down communism in the soviet union, just having that goal is interference.
If one aims to change the politics of another nation because they are against your own (by whatever means one uses) that is interference.
We have freedom of speech here and if we don't like the way our governmant does things we can vote them out, we do not have the right to vote in other nations elections, and we do not have the right to interfere in others nations system of government even if they don't have elections. The only people that have the right to do that are the people of those nations.

Interestingly many people from the old soviet union countries found that they were worse off after the change. Where the state was providing for them they now have to make their own arrangements. Inflation ran amok and many basic goods that where scarce previously became impossible to obtain. Of course there were some that did very well out of the change.

The Russian Maffia certainly did ;)

Skweeky-

I was responding to vid's contention the U.S. interfered in the internal politics of the USSR, and I disagree that Reagan's strategy fit that particular bill.

Let me put it this way:

Soviet Communism was pretty aggressively expansionist.

This expansion constituted an "interference" in the internal politics of other countries, I would think; I will assume Rat and vid agree on this point, as it would be folly to term the historical intent of the Soviets otherwise.

This fact is not objectionable?

Imagine that, as Reagan was widely thought of as a (insert word signifying conflict here)-mongering "cowboy" who did nothing but provoke; he conducted his military build-up absent any anti-communist rhetoric.

The result would have been the same, except the finger of "blame" for the fall of Soviet Communism would have been more difficult to point at Reagan.

The "interference" argument is fallacious.

As they say down south:

That dog won't hunt."