ronald reagan just died

[Huskyhunks]

Textbook analogy does not equal real life.

[BDBionic]

How fortunate you were an adult back in the 80s, eh? Otherwise you might be forced to present an actual argument.

[djdez]

Originally posted by BDBionic


Does my having been an elementary school student at the time change the fact that 6 billion dollars were spent by the federal government expressly for AIDS research while he was president? Does it change the fact that Reagan did in fact mention AIDS publicly on numerous occasions?

And it wasn't Ronald Reagan who kept Ryan White out of school. It was fear, misunderstanding, anxiety and ignorance about AIDS that did. We sit here in 2004 without a cure and yet assign Reagan the burden that he should have created on in 1981.

For every statistic someone points to as evidence of his callousness towards AIDS patients, I can point to another that's testament to a concerted effort to combat the epidemic. Again, it's how we interpret things and the impressions we have of them.

Brian, I don't know where you're getting your numbers from...but they seem about right. That's because every viral disease that the government sunk money into was considered money gone to AIDS research by the Reagan administration. So $10 million towards research on the common cold was considered AIDS research.

My biggest gripe about Reagan is the lack of public awareness. Dude he refused to bring up the topic in public for 4 years!!! We look to our leaders for direction. He had an obligation to America and he shirked it. Agreed, it wasn't Reagan that kept White out of school. It was Reagan's right-wing backed agenda of ignorance and intolerance at all costs that kept poor Ryan out of school. However, they did finally realized that the actual cost of their ignorance was too great to pay. Call me harsh - but for the past 10 years Reagan paid his price for his actions. Karma came back and collected and I do feel his debt is now paid.

[BDBionic]

Joe,
Those numbers come from the CRS report for Congress and address specifically funds earmarked towards AIDS research, not viral infections or disease research on the whole, but research, treatment and prevention of AIDS specifically and in particular.

I should point out that I'm not attempting to sit here and say Reagan was a white knight leading the charge against AIDS in the early days of the pandemic.

What I'm saying is that there wasn't a complete and total lack of action - an impression that's taken root in the minds of a lot of people.

And that it's a question of contextual relativism. The convenience afforded by 20+ years of hindsight, our own political and social prejudices and circumstances, our personal beliefs and experiences and how those affect what we see and how we interpret them. I'd not expect a gay man that lived through the early days of the AIDS epidemic to love or even not despise Reagan as it would only make sense through their particular experience that they end up there.

But I hardly find it all too unbelievable or even impossible to understand the reactions of his administration at the time. The degree to which AIDS was not understood, how it was perceived by an entire world and nation and not just Ronald Reagan.

If you see in Ronald Reagan in the early days of the AIDS epidemic indifference, ignorance, anxiety and a failure to act, I think it's a reflection of the attitudes and stance of a nation as a whole at that time. He shared the nation's response to and perception of the epidemic. He didn't cause it.

[trellus]

I think it's clear that Reagan's response to AIDS was tepid at best, and probably grossly negligent or even worse; people can argue ad nauseum about the details on this for either side but I think the jury is in with most fair-minded people, and the verdict is clear: Reagan failed BIG TIME on AIDS. I think it's a mistake for those of us who are warm and fuzzy about ol' Dutch (as few as there may be in our midst, that is) to try to dress up a very glaring failure just because it doesn't fit with out general feelings about the man.

However, I think it's a mistake to leap from criticizing Reagan for not doing enough on AIDS to characterizing him as "evil". It's easy to one-dimensionalize and demonize someone with whom we have a particular quarrel, and it might be therapeutic, but it's neither intellectually honest nor helpful; bashing a popular president (and that's an indisputable fact that he was popular, given his landslide electoral victories) will not win us new allies in the continuing struggle against AIDS.

Besides, now is the time to respect our nation by respecting a leader whom many of our fellow citizens admire. I won't argue about who SHOULD get the credit for it, but the fact is Reagan was at the helm at a critical time, and it was on his watch that the Soviet Union -- a state that was hardly kind to our community -- underwent tremendous reform and eventually dissolved altogether (under Bush 41, of course, but really a process that started with Reagan). It was also under his watch that our economy experienced tremendous growth -- bigger than even the good Clinton economical revival -- and our "general malaise" also lifted. In short, he revived America, economically, militarily, and restored pride in America. His failings were stark (race relations, the failed War on Drugs, other aspects of social policy), but I challenge anyone to find the Perfect President.

I say, all in all, not bad -- not bad at all.

[Huskyhunks]

Oh brother. Now I'm really not understanding things. Reagan's recovery was charged to the American people and we are still paying for that debt. Hello, out there. America went from a country of huge surpluses to a country of astronomical debt.

Russian's weren't killing Americans. Aids was the killer in full crisis mode. Only a tiny fraction of money allocated by Congress actually went to fight Aids. 6 billion was a drop in the bucket to the projects like the supercollider (remember that!) and shit like that costs billions of dollars and never did anything but sit there and collect dust.

Reagan is famous for one reason - his conservative ideology. That will be his legacy. He demonized the word "liberal" every chance he could. He was an extremely devisive person and actually made very little public policy.

[trellus]

Huskyhunks,

I can assure you that if Reagan had had it ENITRELY his way, there would have been even more spending cuts than he was able to get through the Democrat-controlled Congress (well, the House, at least, where budget bills are born), and we might not have the huge deficits we had during the Reagan years and the resultant national debt. However, he deemed (as I do) that his tax cuts to stimulate the economy, and the military buildup, were even a higher priority than deficit spending in the short-term (which thank goodness, turned into surpluses in the Clinton Economy).

Russians weren't killing Americans, perhaps, but they were killing and oppressing Russians and others; and it is unfortunate, but true, that we tend to think of other people's problems as "their" problem and not our concern. Does this sound familiar? It should, it's how the rest of America viewed the AIDS problem as "their" problem.

I'm sorry, but whenever there is oppression on a grand-scale, it DOES affect us. I'm an American, but I'm a human, first, and an American second. The oppression of other people -- whether against our own community at home or abroad, or against anyone -- is a concern of mine. It would be small-minded of me to think that *my* problems are supreme, and everyone else can eat cake.

It isn't an "either/or" thing: Reagan didn't have to choose between fighting AIDS *or* standing up to menace of state-imposed "communism" (which was anything but in my opinion). He could have -- and should have -- done both.

Incidentally, I do agree with you on how he demonized the word "liberal" and made it the evil "L" word -- an unfortunate thing, since I happen to proudly think of myself as an Alan Colmes liberal. I hope that we can reclaim the "L" word and clean up its tattered image, but I don't think the best way to do it is to trash the "C" word, either. I disdain the notion that liberals are the only ones who are compassionate or that conservatives are the only ones who are "responsible" or "tough on crime". That is outmoded, unsophisticated thinking, in my humble opinion.

[djdez]

Originally posted by trellus

Incidentally, I do agree with you on how he demonized the word "liberal" and made it the evil "L" word -- an unfortunate thing, since I happen to proudly think of myself as an Alan Colmes liberal. I hope that we can reclaim the "L" word and clean up its tattered image, but I don't think the best way to do it is to trash the "C" word, either. I disdain the notion that liberals are the only ones who are compassionate or that conservatives are the only ones who are "responsible" or "tough on crime". That is outmoded, unsophisticated thinking, in my humble opinion.

I agree 100%. Though I do think right-wingers (religious fundies)are demon spawn

[trellus]

Goodness, well, I might agree with you, except that my parents are part of that labeled group, which would make me... demon spawns' spawn? ;-)

No, seriously -- I understand FULLY -- perhaps more than you might imagine -- why you feel that way, having grown up with in a fundamentalist Christian environment that was very oppressive to gays. However, my personal experience was that you can't treat everyone in this group, even, as a single, monolothic fount of evil. There were definitely some very virulently anti-gay folks among my own little world, but most were indifferent, and my parents in particular are very supportive of me, if not my "lifestyle choice".

I firmly believe that as more and more of us are out and we put a face to the, er, "filthy fag of face evil", as the lovely Fred Phelps likes to call us with all the Godly Love he can muster, even the majority of fundamentalist Christians will not tolerate the strident anti-gay agenda of the closet cases amongst them. Color me naive, but I am that goofy optimist that likes to think few people are beyond "salvation", so to speak.

I think we need to have a more mature understanding of the religious right, which is to realize that many of the Bible-carrying Christian Army that vote actually espouse, to a large degree, the same values that most Americans cherish, and that they don't know who WE are, REALLY -- through ignorance and misinformation by their Generals like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, we've been mischaracterized.

[Xstr8guy]

I had to look up "ad hominem" on dictionary.com

[Xstr8guy]

BD, you make a good debater and a simple man like myself could never keep up with arguemnts. But I think your political beliefs have clouded your view of history.

A great article here... excerpted below. http://www.thebody.com/encyclo/presidency.html

For Reagan, AIDS presented a number of potentially serious political risks. As a presidential candidate, Reagan promised to eliminate the role of the federal government in the limited American welfare state, as well as to raise questions of morality and family in social policy. When AIDS was first reported in 1981, Reagan had recently assumed office and had begun to address the conservative agenda by slashing social programs and cutting taxes and by embracing conservative moral principles. As a result, Reagan never mentioned AIDS publicly until 1987. Most observers contend that AIDS research and public education were not funded adequately in the early years of the epidemic, at a time when research and public education could have saved lives.

This larger conservative climate enabled the Reagan administration's indifference toward AIDS. The administration undercut federal efforts to confront AIDS in a meaningful way by refusing to spend the money Congress allocated for AIDS research. In the critical years of 1984 and 1985, according to his White House physician, Reagan thought of AIDS as though "it was measles and it would go away." Reagan's biographer Lou Cannon claims that the president's response to AIDS was "halting and ineffective." It took Rock Hudson's death from AIDS in 1985 to prompt Reagan to change his personal views, although members of his administration were still openly hostile to more aggressive government funding of research and public education. Six years after the onset of the epidemic, Reagan finally mentioned the word "AIDS" publicly at the Third International AIDS Conference held in Washington, D.C. Reagan's only concrete proposal at this time was widespread routine testing.

Reagan and his close political advisers also successfully prevented his surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, from discussing AIDS publicly until Reagan's second term. Congress mandates that the surgeon general's chief responsibility is to promote the health of the American people and to inform the public about the prevention of disease. In the Reagan administration, however, the surgeon general's central role was to promote the administration's conservative social agenda, especially pro-life and family issues.

Care to guess how many lives could have been changed and/or saved? It took the administration nearly 5 YEARS to do anything substantial!!!?

[BDBionic]

hehe XStr8 I dunno if I'm all that great a debater. Fitting for a Reagan thread, my debate teacher once told me "You have this amazing ability to ever so eloquently and convincingly say absolutely nothing at all." . That's a good article, XStr8. I'd read it for the first time awhile back.
Although I don't fully agree with all of what its author says, it does bring up some good points, especially in talking about the politics of the situation rather than trying to suggest the policies of the administration came about through some kind of personal hate or disdain for homosexuals.

There's no denying, as I mentioned a couple pages earlier in this thread, that politics go in to every decision a president makes. We set ourselves up to be nothing but bitter if we ignore that reality. Political concerns. Political decisions. Public opinion. Advisors. Congress. Constituent support. It's from all of that policies are written and implemented. Again, the context of the times and circumstances of the situation have to be looked at in trying to understand why people did, what they did and when. It's neglectful to apply modern day context to the events of 20 odd years ago and wonder why we can't make sense of it all.

I think the most telling phrase in that article is where Reagan is quoted as saying he believed AIDS was like the measles and would go away soon enough.
He wasn't alone in that belief. And he can't have been expected to have a revelation-inducing understanding of the disease or its implications when no such understanding was possessed by anyone at the time.

As far as my personal politics, I consider myself to be quite passionately liberal with respect to social issues and am not the least bit fond of the right wing conservative movement. I appreciate lower taxes just as much as the next guy and enjoy the idea of smaller government, but I haven't sold my soul for a bigger refund check come April. So I don't think my politics really have much, if anything, to do with my view of Reagan.
I'm a young gay liberal male who attended an almost revolutionary liberal arts college, votes Democrat, and has been politically active for causes termed "liberal" and "left wing" for a long, long time.

My defense of Reagan doesn't come from the need to rationalize some existing political ideology because the political ideology rationalized through that defense doesn't even exist in the first place!

I could go back in time and condemn our Founding Fathers for being elitist slave owners. I could condemn FDR for sitting idly by while war waged around us and not taking action to defend freedom and liberty until we had no choice but to. But I don't see much point or value in going about condemning those of the past armed with the knowledge gained through years since passed.

Just because we rightfully call "hero" those that are willing to break the mold, challenge the status quo and revolutionize the world in which we live doesn't mean that everyone else is a villian.

I think we have every right to wish Reagan had done more to address the spread of AIDS in those early days. And the animosity some have towards him is an understandable emotion. But I think it's a bit much to have expected the world and the President to have shared some of our perceptions of events as they unfolded.

When I sit back and look at and study this country and the world as they were before he was president and as they were after he left office and see the degree to which he touched so many people, I fail to see why his failure to act in the early years of the AIDS epidemic is reason enough to rule his entire presidency a failure or his entire life a shameful one. I as much as the next man would love a perfect president but quite frankly don't expect one anytime soon or blame those of the past for not achieving that status.
And when looking at his accomplishments compared to his failings and the degree to which such an overwhelming number of both Americans, Europeans, newly fee Eastern Europeans and others adored the man, I see no reason why his death shouldn't be mourned and his life should be celebrated.

[Huskyhunks]

Applying fallicy methodology is not very impressive. In fact, the only people who use that line of argument are attorney's who know their clients are guilty and can't present a factual argument so they must rely on systematically picking their opponent apart by arguing:

if (a) is this, then (b) must/must not be this. It's basically a technique, an exercise, that can be applied to any statement. It's used to sway opinion for a guilty/not guilty verdict but it speaks nothing about right or wrong, ethical or unethical, and does not go to the essence, the heart of the matter.

I was surprised to see your opinion on Ronald Reagan and for me, the reward, the (heart of the matter) was "where is this guy coming from". It was not to be in competition to win an argument. In fact, I thought to myself "this is the viewpoint of a child", my instincts were correct. Your viewpoint is the viewpoint of a child. Just as valid any 30 year old of that time period, but very unquestioned and naive. But then I thought, how could you question it without first hand knowledge as an adult ?

So if you won your argument, that's great because I got what I needed. I needed a context for your words. I needed to find the framework of your thoughts and I accomplished that. I have no doubt that you will try to come up with some sort of fallicy argument to invalidate what I've just said. But that's ok, because when you become fascinated by the process of questioning the world around you, that's when your intellectual curiosity takes you to whole new level of thinking without the rigid boundaries of semantics like fallacy methodology. I believe that's what your teacher was getting at.

[BDBionic]

see, you're doing it again! Can't present a real argument so instead you try and mold the conditions of the discussion itself to leave no one but yourself the ability to be right.

Can't attempt to dispute the things I said an so instead go off on some tangent about how the logical fallacies you tried to use to cover yourself are, themselves, above criticism.

For someone who tries to look like the big, bad adult here, you sure can't present an argument like one.

You're attempting to dictate on account of age alone your correctness here. Say not that someone's points are invalid on account of their own merit, but that their age alone makes their entire argument unworthy of consideration.

That's a copout ploy, plain and simple. And then, when called on it, you use the exact same fallacy to defend that! If anything, you're good for a laugh. I'll give you that much.