6 Objective Reasons Ronald Reagan Was Our Worst President

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6 Objective Reasons Ronald Reagan Was Our Worst President

Postby DomaDoma » Sat Jun 11, 2016 12:55 pm

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-objective ... president/

Didn't read the second page for some time, because the first consisted entirely of, well, the same boilerplate narrative that causes the futile strain of debates that made me drop off the face of TCS for months. So, having finally read page two, I have to address their most patently false point here:

The idea that Osama Bin Laden led the Afghan rebellion against the Soviet Union, based on a clueless puff-piece article from 1993.

There's the obvious point that 1993 was two administrations down the road from Reagan, of course, but that's not even close to the most egregious thing here.

The Soviets were expelled in early 1989, led by two major and opposing figures: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Ahmed Shah Massoud. Massoud was installed as the defense minister for the new government; Hekmatyar was on the outs and, by 1993, the warpath, accompanied by Bin Laden (a very minor figure in the original war against the Soviets) and, naturally, Mullah Omar.

Massoud's government would be ousted in 1994, whereupon he would go on to lead the Northern Alliance until his assassination on September 9, 2001.

The American Congress, in a repeat of the Fall of Saigon, had refused to fund and support the reasonably-free Afghan government extant from 1989 to 1994.

So, yeah. That's the sort of misinformation you need to denounce from the rooftops.
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Last edited by Marcuse on Sat Jun 11, 2016 11:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 6 Objective Reasons Ronald Reagan Was Our Worst Presiden

Postby cmsellers » Sat Jun 11, 2016 5:53 pm

First of all, it's nice to see you back Doma.

Now this is an Adam Tod Brown article. ATB's whole raison de etre is to offend people. That said...

Adam Tod Brown wrote:You could argue that merely being investigated shouldn't count, but that would be a stupid argument. Of course being investigated counts. Plenty of people live their entire lives without being the subject of an investigation of any sort, you know?

Yeah... I'm not sure that's an argument you want to be making if you want to persuade people to vote for Hillary Clinton. It also goes against the whole notion of "innocent until proven guilty." It's also gratuitous, since he's able to make the same point with just convictions.

I'd also like to note that since this article starts with "Trump = Reagan" and he's written previous articles suggesting that "Trump = Hitler" by the transitive property ATB apparently believes that "Reagan = Hitler." (In his defense, they did both have a serious hatred of the Soviet Union and were both leaders of countries allied with Italy and Japan.)
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Re: 6 Objective Reasons Ronald Reagan Was Our Worst Presiden

Postby DashaBlade » Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:48 am

Yeah, as sellers mentions, it's ATB, the author of numerous tracts about "Why this thing you hate sucks, and why you suck for not liking this thing I like."

That said, I don't really get all the Reagan worship. I was around during the Reagan era, and nostalgia and big hair aside, it wasn't all that great. I rarely find myself agreeing with ATB, but if he'd written the entire article about how the Reagan administration dropped the ball with the AIDS crisis and Reaganomics, I would have agreed with it. The Iran-Contra thing, I'm a bit less likely to blame on the White House and more on shady shit in the CIA.

The point about Osama bin Laden, I agree dead-on with Doma. If ATB had instead stuck to talking about how we funded the Taliban, that would have been accurate, but bin Laden didn't really get a lot of power in the movement until the mid-90s. I recall a security briefing when I was in the Air Force where his name in particular came up, not long after the embassy bombings in 98. Before that, I'd never personally heard of the guy.

I mean, maybe it's because I did, in fact, live during the Reagan era, but if I were going to write an ATB style rant about how Reagan sucks, I would totally blame him for Donald Trump. After all, it was because of Reagan's policies that Trump has been able to skate by on assholery for so long. Trump is a symbol of everything that sucked in the 80s, and that alone is why he must be destroyed. Erm... I mean, not elected.
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Re: 6 Objective Reasons Ronald Reagan Was Our Worst Presiden

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:57 am

Well, Reagan did evangelicalize the Right, leading to a bunch of idiots like Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, and Mike Huckabee being mainstream politicians and not some obscure state assemblyman that gets relentlessly mocked on mediaite.
That said, I disagree with ATB on Reagan being the worst US President. That title obviously goes to William Henry Harrison.
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Re: 6 Objective Reasons Ronald Reagan Was Our Worst Presiden

Postby cmsellers » Sun Jun 12, 2016 2:09 am

While I think ATB went overboard, I've never liked Reagan either. Mind you, I think every president since WWII except HW and Obama is overrated (and I think Obama will probably be overrated too when he's out of office), but Reagan is particularly overrated. He was a bad president who happened to be really charming. A lot like Kennedy really. Or Clinton, except that Clinton managed to reduce the national debt his last four years in office.

Reaganomics was terrible and he increased the national debt dramatically. His foreign policy wasn't quite as bad as ATB makes it out to be, but it wasn't particularly competent either. And he removed the solar panels Jimmy Carter installed on the White House roof as a sign of solidarity with the fossil fuel industry.

However the reason I dislike Reagan is that he had a very cavalier, very Trumpian relationship with the truth.

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And people forgave him for saying things that were patently wrong because he was charming and folksy.
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Re: 6 Objective Reasons Ronald Reagan Was Our Worst Presiden

Postby DomaDoma » Sun Jun 12, 2016 2:14 am

Eric: He who governs least, governs worst? :p

Here are my top three worst presidents of U.S. history:
3. Lyndon Johnson.
2. James Buchanan.
1. Franklin Pierce. (Same deal as James Buchanan, but moreso and with worse intent.)

It was going to be a top five list, but the competition for the bottom two slots is thick.
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Re: 6 Objective Reasons Ronald Reagan Was Our Worst Presiden

Postby cmsellers » Sun Jun 12, 2016 2:20 am

My top worst presidents are:

  1. Andrew Jackson
  2. James Buchanan
  3. Andrew Johnson
  4. Rutherford B. Hayes
  5. Millard Fillmore
That said, the name of the article is Title Team's fault, at least if Title Guy is to be believed. (According to Title Guy, he had a crisis of conscience and assembled a team to do the dirty work of creating clickbaity titles from about a month ago on.)
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Re: 6 Objective Reasons Ronald Reagan Was Our Worst Presiden

Postby FieldMarshalFry » Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:25 pm

ah, Ronald "Lets Invade A Sovereign Nation And Member Of The Commonwealth Because My Popularity Is Falling" Reagan, Ronald "Lets Supply Islamic Extremists With Weapons And Training Because We Have Oil Several Countries Away" Reagan, Ronald "Lets Overthrow Democratically Elected Governments For Being Left Wing" Reagan, fuck him, surprised people weren't dancing in the streets when he died like we did with Thatcher (Ding Dong The Witch is Dead)
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Re: 6 Objective Reasons Ronald Reagan Was Our Worst Presiden

Postby gisambards » Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:51 pm

FieldMarshalFry wrote:surprised people weren't dancing in the streets when he died like we did with Thatcher (Ding Dong The Witch is Dead)

As I've said before, I really wish you'd stop implying most British people celebrated Thatcher's death, Fry. Even most of us who dislike many of her policies still had some common decency. Just because you were willing to mock an old woman's death for reasons you probably don't understand (I'd be very surprised if anyone who mocked Thatcher's death - yourself included - actually knew much about what went down in the '80s) doesn't mean the rest of us were.
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Re: 6 Objective Reasons Ronald Reagan Was Our Worst Presiden

Postby rowdyrodimus » Wed Jun 15, 2016 5:23 pm

Ericthebearjew wrote:Well, Reagan did evangelicalize the Right, leading to a bunch of idiots like Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, and Mike Huckabee being mainstream politicians and not some obscure state assemblyman that gets relentlessly mocked on mediaite.
That said, I disagree with ATB on Reagan being the worst US President. That title obviously goes to William Henry Harrison.


Actually Huckabee was a great governor. I have lived in Arkansas my entire life and have been here with both Clinton and Huckabee as our governor and Clinton did nothing for the state. In fact, all he did was bring drug running through the state to an all time high and also brought in pre-teen prostitutes for him and his buddies to enjoy. (If it seems like BS, just look up the Mena Drug Running Scandal) There's more to the story including something that also plagued Clinton during his terms in DC but as many facts there are on it, it is still hearsay so I won't post it here (If interested message me, don't mind saying it in private lol)

I'm not advocating for Trump but I can't promote Hilary, either, as she has just as much blood on her hands as Bill. This is the worst election we have ever had. In fact, they should just arbitrarily give each candidate a letter, A or B, not let anyone know who is who and we just vote for the letter, that way nobody can feel bad for electing what will inevitably the worst President we've ever had.
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Re: 6 Objective Reasons Ronald Reagan Was Our Worst Presiden

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Wed Jun 15, 2016 5:26 pm

Yes, and hamburgers communicate with each other via the moon. What the hell kind of sources you got saying Bill Clinton's a goddamn pedophile?
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Re: 6 Objective Reasons Ronald Reagan Was Our Worst Presiden

Postby Crimson847 » Thu Jun 16, 2016 8:47 pm

rowdyrodimus wrote:Actually Huckabee was a great governor. I have lived in Arkansas my entire life and have been here with both Clinton and Huckabee as our governor and Clinton did nothing for the state. In fact, all he did was bring drug running through the state to an all time high and also brought in pre-teen prostitutes for him and his buddies to enjoy. (If it seems like BS, just look up the Mena Drug Running Scandal)


Looks like an unproven conspiracy theory. I can't find any credible information on it at all, let alone proof; Googling the term in question just brings up a bunch of conspiracy sites like whatreallyhappened.com.

As far as drug running increasing, he was governor from 1983 to 1992. The whole country was having unusually serious problems with drug trafficking and other drug-related crime during that time thanks in part to the crack boom, so it doesn't seem surprising that Arkansas was having similar problems.
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Re: 6 Objective Reasons Ronald Reagan Was Our Worst Presiden

Postby rowdyrodimus » Sat Jun 18, 2016 11:31 pm

Ericthebearjew wrote:Yes, and hamburgers communicate with each other via the moon. What the hell kind of sources you got saying Bill Clinton's a goddamn pedophile?


Former security for the Governor, owners of companies that have been established here, things like that. When you live in a small state, things have a way of getting out to the public. Just like Chelsea was actually Vince Foster's daughter. It was a well known "secret" but that was just between Bill, Hilary, Chelsea and Vince Foster, so it didn't really make much news except when Foster allegedly committed suicide while leaving no prints on the gun.

As for the pedophilia thing, Bill might not have partook in it, but he did arrange for them to be shipped in. Both Bill and Roger Clinton were/are addicted to different drugs and that's what started the whole drug running scandal in Mena.

Now, none of that takes away from what he did as President but it sure as hell taints how he Governed Arkansas. I mean, he won the election 3 or 4 times, yet nobody will admit to ever voting for him.

Basically all I was trying to say is that Huckabee was a better Governor of Arkansas than Clinton was. None of the stuff I mentioned had anything to do with his Presidency just his terms as Governor since someone said Huckabee wouldn't even bne able to be a crappy local assemblyman or something like that.
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Re: 6 Objective Reasons Ronald Reagan Was Our Worst Presiden

Postby TheSyrupNugget » Wed Jul 20, 2016 8:04 pm

At least superficially, I can understand the Trump/Reagan comparisons. They're both charismatic (Say what you will about Trump, but anyone else trying to run his campaign would be out of the race by now) former big name celebrities who appeal to the Christian right and the working class despite being the dictionary definition of "the one percent".

Meanwhile, I see Clinton as being very Nixonesque in the sense that they both seem to be guarded, uncharismatic introverts with moderate politics (I'd argue that Clinton would still be a Republican if she thought they'd ever elect a female party leader) and shady backgrounds-- Despite both being more than qualified for the job in terms of career achievements.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: This election is a no-win situation.
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Re: 6 Objective Reasons Ronald Reagan Was Our Worst Presiden

Postby cmsellers » Wed Jul 20, 2016 8:58 pm

TheSyrupNugget wrote:At least superficially, I can understand the Trump/Reagan comparisons. They're both charismatic (Say what you will about Trump, but anyone else trying to run his campaign would be out of the race by now) former big name celebrities who appeal to the Christian right and the working class despite being the dictionary definition of "the one percent".

Yeah, the more I watch Trump the more similar they seem. Their economics are different, but I wonder if Trump's protectionism is really worse than Reagan's trickle-down economics and mis-understanding of the Laffer Curve. (I'd say Trump's economic policy is merely "differently dipshitastic.") They both have foreign policies based on "we need a strong leader who our enemies will respect." I've already mentioned the complete disregard for the truth they both had. Reagan seemed friendly and affable while Trump seems angry and bitter, but he does make jokes in his own way, and I wonder if he seems charming and affable to his supporters.

Reagan blundered into a the solution of outspending the Soviet Union: the idea ws idiotic based on what we knew of the Soviet Union, but Reagan had a "very good gut"--to borrow a Trumpism--and according to Gorbachev Reagan's gut solution worked, cementing his legacy. It's possible that if Trump wins, his gut will lead him into a similarly spectacular success. If that happens, like with Reagan all his fuckups will soon be forgotten and he will be hailed as a model president who rewrote the national conversation and let the courage of his convictions do the talking.

Also, in the US, we have a weird bias for presidents who do something. Fucking up decisively is generally seen as better than doing nothing. Andrew Jackson--who accomplished two terrible things and no great things but lead a movement that defined American politics for a generation--is generally seen as a better president than William Henry Harrison--who accomplished absolutely nothing. Calvin Coolidge is often ranked as a bad president by historians (and ranked in the tend worst by Democratic historians) because he thought the country was doing well and adopted a strategy of vetoing legislation he thought would make it worse, rather than proposing bills of his own to make it even better

TheSyrupNugget wrote:Meanwhile, I see Clinton as being very Nixonesque in the sense that they both seem to be guarded, uncharismatic introverts with moderate politics (I'd argue that Clinton would still be a Republican if she thought they'd ever elect a female party leader) and shady backgrounds-- Despite both being more than qualified for the job in terms of career achievements.

Don't forget that they're both paranoid criminals with enemies lists.
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