Reagan’s Death - The Left Respond
Posted By John Moore on June 5, 2004
The passing of Ronald Reagan naturally brings out the humanity of the left. Not surprisingly, the majority of the comments have sexual references in them, consistent with common symptoms of Cognitive Disorder of Progressives:
From TBogg we find this homily:
Actually I find this surprising. I expected Reagan to take that long lonely walk into the sunset in late October when it could have an effect on the election. In fact, Dick Cheney has been practising smothering Lynne with a pillow, and it’s not their usual Saturday night autoerotic asphyxiation sex games…
Daily Kos, already having lost much influence for the disgusting posting regarding the Americans butchered in Fallujah, is trying to be careful, but one can sense his seething hatred:
Ronald Reagan died today at the age of 93. He earned the enmity of many of us on the left through his dismantling of the New Deal and enabling of a culture of greed — but we should not forget that he was once one of us, an FDR Democrat. His journey to the far right mirrored a similar, if less dramatic, shift that occured in the general American psyche. And while Reagan cannot be excused for his utter failure as president, we must never see him solely as a symbol of a shameful era — because his rise was attributable in part to an inertia and lack of vision that gripped our predecessors on the left. It was in part our inability to satisfy the hunger of Americans for positive leadership that caused Reagan and other former liberals to embrace a radical ideology that was before only espoused by crackpots and the prophets of selfishness.… let’s never again allow ourselves to become so self-satisfied that we allow another Reagan to capture the hearts of everyday Americans. And let us remember that in spite of his many faults, he was a human being, and his family is entitled to an appropriate level of decorum in their time of loss.
UPDATE:And let’s ensure that the same Republican machine that cried about supposedly untoward politicization of the Paul Wellstone memorial service doesn’t use Reagan’s passing as an excuse to play politics. I mean, we know that they’d never do that, but . . .
KOS commenters, who share the KOS world view, let their true lack of humanity show through:
It is about love of country and priciples, none of which Reagan stood for. Also, it is good that it happened now, so Bush can’t use it for the election
MY PEOPLE DIED BECAUSE OF THIS VILE MAN! I’M NOT GOING TO BE A GOOD LITTLE QUEER AND SHUT UP ABOUT IT!
Why should I respect him? Should Jews respect Hitler?
The “good little queer” can’t admit that “his people” died because they spread a deadly disease among themselves through an exceedingly high rate of promiscuity, performing biologically dangerous sexual acts with many partners. Nor does he or his movement accept their responsibility in the “collateral damage” of killing huge numbers of innocent hemophiliacs and others who used contaminated blood. They forget that Ronald Reagan, a former Hollywood figure, had a number of homosexual friends. Instead, the gay world seeks to shift its collective guilt for greatly amplifying the spread of AIDS by blaming Ronald Reagan.
The Hitler reference is remarkably trite, but expected.
Another KOS poster offers the start of revisionist history with the following nonsense:
But Reagan’s greatest achievement–his work with Gorbachev, including arms reduction treaties and the resulting lowering of tensions between the superpowers, which allowed Gorbachev to begin the reforms that led the Soviets to relinquish control over Eastern Europe and paved the way for Yeltsin’s final destruction of the Soviet system
That’s right, this great guy, Gorbachev, just happened to appear and Reagan was smart enough to let him destroy his own regime. Wow, that’s deep. The poster probably doesn’t remember how many Afghanis were slaughtered under Gorby, how many tons of biological weapons were produced with his approval, or how many new missiles systems were designed and built as the Russian people toiled in drudgery and poverty. Reagan “allowed” Gorbachev to begin reforms.
Back here on earth, Gorbachev was forced to make his ill-considered reforms because of the Reagan Doctrine, which sought to destroy the USSR, unlike the former containment doctrine. And people like those who write on KOS were at the front of the movement to stop Reagan’s successes, whether the emphasis on ballistic missile defense (the left said it wouldn’t work, but the Soviets were scared to death), the stationing of Pershing missiles in Europe to counter Soviet missile build-ups, the aid of anti-Communist rebels against regimes such as Kerry’s ffriends, the Sandinistas, to Angola and Afghanistan, to his “Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall” speech which demoralized many in the Gorbachev apparat.
Then we have Digby at Hullabaloo
I’ve been worried about this. When Ronald Reagan dies, the Right and its media handmaidens are going to go into a fit of maudlin masturbation the likes of which the world has never seen. It will be non-stop GOP triumphalism from dawn to dusk. JFK’s funeral will look like a trailer park trash $2,000 special compared to the spectacle we are going to endure for days on end. Lay in a supply of pepto-bismol. It’s not in their DNA to handle this with any grace, restraint or class.And, unfortunately, it will serve to reinforce the delusion that Republicans, even stupid ones, are the right people to lead us on the world stage. Reagan, after all, personally smote communism with one hand tied behind his back. Everybody knows that. And if they didn’t before the impending canonization, they soon will. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to take out “evil” before he was forced to retire. Thank Gawd Crusader Codpiece is here to fulfill his legacy.
By the time we’re done, The Reagan Cult headed by swami Grover Norquist, will have probably succeeded in renaming the country the Ronald Reagan States of America.
Or the poorly named AMERICAblog:
Oh man, get ready for the Reagan-was-a-god orgasm. They are going to milk his death for all it’s worth - partly to benefit Bush’s campaign, and partly to help enshrine Republicanism in the national consciousness. I sincerely hope “our side” is ready to respond with the facts. The last four years - Republican White House, House and Senate - are the true face of republicanism. The country wanted to see what happens when Republicans get their wet dreams fulfilled? Well, now we have the answer.
No sampling of the left would be complete without input from The undemocratic Underground:
The reality, as always, is less than flattering. Obviously suffering from Alzheimer’s far earlier than publicly declared (as far back as the 1940’s, in fact), this treacherous cretin played to the basest, worst instincts of an America humbled by Vietnam, Watergate, and the Iranian hostage situation. Americans have an unhealthy sense of entitlement, which springs not so much from our cherished freedom, but from the Me First Individualism that is the dark side of the E Pluribus Unum coin. Extremism in the defense of selfishness is a vice, and Reagan was the Dealer-in-Chief.The man who brought us Ollie North’s secret government, record deficits, the worst homelessness since the Depression, rampant filling of the troughs of the military-industrial complex, hostile disregard of truth and accountability, and perhaps occupied the emptiest suit to ever legally win the White House… is dead.
Unfortunately, his memory (pun intended or not is up to you) will survive, albeit with the same gross distortion of fact his White House and a compliant media enabled for far, far too long. And will so now, as the mourning in America unfolds.
But he is dead, and I feel the same sense of relief we should all feel when petty tyrants and despots pass into the great unknown.
Fuck you, Ronald Wilson Reagan, and everything your wretchedly hollow life stood for, in perpetuity. The damage you wrought may never be undone, and the America you claimed to love so much is a shell of its former self in no small part due to your ‘legacy’.
Fuck you, forevermore.
So speaks the left.
Tony:
You will probably find some, lots, of fault in my remark that I am not so quick to condemn for ideological reasons. I didn’t say I didn’t condemn for ideological reasons at all, and I do it quickly if it’s deserved. You don’t discuss gravity with a guy threatening to jump from a window. You simply tell him how stupid he is. That, of course, does not mean you. Seriously.
Two things:
Rhod, I just got back in town, and will mail you shortly.
And, Tony–man, I don’t know what’s up with you, but I’ve gotta’ ask: Are you on dope, or something? Either that, or your posts are simply way, way over my head; apparently, you’re well beyond my limited intellect, friend, for reading your reasoning is akin to trying to decipher the mind-set of the Iraqis, or trying to figure–as Freud lamented–what it is, exactly, that women truly want.
You’re a ‘riddle within a mystery wrapped inside an enigma,’ or something like that.
And, me? I’m just ordinary, run-of-the-mill bourgeoisie and a wannabe ‘Soviet crap lover’! I am why I am, and that’s all that I am!
I am seriously trying to understand the Tony Effect. What disqualifies Tony from a serious debate on any issue - even if he knows something about it - is his behavior. It was described once before on this site.
You see a man relieving himself on your front porch (Tony). You open the door to admonish him and he barges into your house. He calls your wife a tramp. He attacks your children. He smashes the china, screaming something about crass materialism. He middle-fingers the photoes of your grandmother, calling her a dead submissive female capitalist tool. He kicks the cat out the door and screams “be free!”, and continues in an ideological rant as he destroys your house.
If you try to stop him or show any anger or resistance, Tony is angrier at you for misunderstanding his motives. He’s hurt. He’s offended and indignant. He expects you to sit idly by, wait until he is through, and then learn something from the event.
Aptly put, Kingsmill. For me, you just described the Clinton presidency. As embarrassed as I am to admit it, I was a Democrat until 1992, or until Dems’ began publicly baring their vicious ideological teeth with the gay issue, their underhanded race-baiting tactics, their irrational gender enmity-producing behavior, and such.
Doesn’t look like things are going to change for these folks anytime soon, either.
What do you do with people like these?
Robert:
Nothing. They are a consequence of civilization and its discontents. I think you see it more where religion no longer matters, but the need for it remains. Liberalism, Leftism fulfills the same expectations and needs that conventional religions provide for others.
What Liberalism doesn’t require, and most religions do, is some moral discipline. Some sacrifice, penance and the flowering of humility. Moral chaos is the only good in Liberalism, but they don’t know it.
I think we are in trouble. The large commercial republic envisioned by Madison, the one which would “break and control faction” because everyone was pursuing his/her self-interest, has rendered something new and unpredictable.
The meritocracy has produced a leisure class which has exchanged self restraint and duty for nihilism, and converted self improvement into self projection. The appeal of the Clintons (and not only them) will be studied years from now as a symptom of the corrosion in our public life. It is very worrisome.
Hi guys,
I’ve been busy for the past few days with the start of a major football ( I think you guys call it soccer) tournament. So, imagine my surprise on coming back to find I’ve had an effect named after me, my mom will be so proud.
Nonetheless, Kingsmill’s (that’s a loaf of bread over here- is it an american brand?)post did enlighten me more than he intended. I have already confessed my puzzlement at the responses I provoked. His use of the metaphor of housebreaking and vandalism reveals a sense of ownership of this site and outrage at any intrusion. The purpose of the site would seem to be for like minded people to huddle round the same comfort blanket and reinforce each other’s prejudices about the evils of The Other( capital letters wasn’t it Rhod?). Notice the construction of the last offending sentence and you ‘ll see that I’ve become adept at setting up the patsy argument for knocking down too. And yet, in the mildest possible way, you libertarians are practising censorship. Rhod won’t post anymore, Kingsmill has disqualified me from “serious” debate(as if I’d aspire to such heights), and Robert does not understand me ,though luckily for him I’m not an Iraqi woman.
There’s just time for a couple of points before I go, as I can hear the German and Dutch national anthems commencing the next match.
Your tolerance in face of my boorish behaviour is more than you would practise in real life. A few years back in Florida, a compatriot of mine got lost after a night on the tiles, a commonplace occurence on Fri-Sun night binges in my hometown. He made the fatal mistake of seeking neighbourly guidance by knocking on someone’s front door in that state. He was shot in the back as he left the household, having failed to make himself understood (please, this is not an analogy of my situation here- we are much more trivial.) No charges were brought and nothing but sympathy was forthcoming from the police dept; to the householder- they obviously believed in the adage from the Warren Zevon song- “Don’t come in my yard if you don’t know my rotweiller’s name!”
Robert, there’s a difference between being anti-intellectual and anti-intellect. You don’t wan’t learning worn lightly. You prefer ignorance displayed heavily. Inverted snobbery is still snobbery, old bean!
May your road always be uphill with the wind in your faces and may humility smack your backsides, but only if you don’t enjoy that sort of thing.
Guys, the match has started- you don’t have to support the germans you know.
Tony:
Steady on, old boy. Your post is really over the top, wouldn’t you say? Great Britain, or as Peter Cook once said, commonly called “Britain”, produces even among its socialist improvers a bottomless arrogance. Insipid English culture reasserts itself everywhere it lands, and you are no exception. Nothing escapes you, not even vulgarity. For that reason alone, you should feel honored that anyone here took the time to answer you. They thought you were worth it.
You will appreciate this, because you can use it in conversation later, with your best public school accent and pretend that you made it up. (You are, after all, a pretender.) Every virtue is less formidable when the man is made aware that he has it, and then tells others about it. We hear very much about your virtues, usually in combination with a lament about dashed expectations.
For someone so dismissive of this website, you have spent much time here whinging (you don’t hear “whinging” here much) and moaning about yourself, your tedious vanity on display for everyone to see. We know why. You’ve lost, among those you regard as inferior to you, who perceive you for what you are, an effete loser, and you simply haven’t got the goods when it counts.
I await your stinging rebuke with no interest at all. You may have the last word.
Mr. Moore: This is the last one.
Tony, at first glance I thought I just might respond at length to your recent post–and, then again, after giving the matter further thought, I’ve decided instead to sit down and watch one of my all-time favorite movies, “Romy & Michelle’s High School Reunion.”
Sorry, old bean–I just couldn’t make heads nor tails out of your latest response, so, like Rhod and Kingsmill, I’m out of here.
Enjoy your ‘football.’ Hope fans don’t have a hissy at the outcome of that Belgian-German contest, and attempt to burn the stadium down.
Reagan signed legislation over his eight years in office that gave researchers $6 billion dollars, which helped to eventually find a way to control AIDS.
The last time I checked, AIDS was easily prevented by NOT HAVING SEX. How many innocent victims have died because of the perverted actions of homosexuals who spread AIDS throughout the world.
Now we have a millions of people dying around the world because of them and they want to blame Reagan?
Maybe if they kept their pants zipped up, this never would have happened in the first place. Lets put the blame where it belongs, on the shoulders of the homosexual community. The first recorded case of AIDS was found in a homosexual, the disease was spread from one homo to another and then it leaked into the heterosexual community and now the world.
If you idiot leftists want to blame someone about not doing anything about AIDS go blame Jiang Zemin the dictator of China who has allocated $0.00 towards fighting AIDS which is rampant in China.
The homosexual community has blood on their hands, not Ronald Reagan.
AIDS is a horrible disease, but to blame Reagan for the irresponsibility of thousands of homosexuals defies common sense. To lie and say he did nothing is even worse.
Robert:
The little crypto-fascist punk never answered a single question we asked him, either. There was an awful lot of masochism there, too. Disturbing.
I guarantee he won’t be able to leave without displaying a little more shredded plumage, unless John exercises his private property rights and “censors” him. Let’s hope. Take out the trash, John.
Mr. Moore:
I noticed earlier, but failed to mention, two points in Tony Gilespie’s last post. The one where he seems to pretend that he has friends with whom he can watch a football match.
1) He recounts a sad tale from Florida, in which he imbeds the accusation that we, here, would wish to see him, Tony, murdered. And,
2) At the end of his post he subtly accuses us here of the possibility of homosexual sado-masochism. This sort of thing is often followed by scatalogical references, so he should be stopped now.
If you scratch a Tony Gilespie, beneath the surface you usually find a repressed, paranoid, inadequate misfit pretending to be a mensch. This is obviously the case. Do we need to have other posts from this detestable buffoon?
Sorry, guys.
I think leaving the smelly trash out in the open helps make my point.
So in this case, it stays.
Don’t worry, there will be more as various idiots and haters find this page. Feel free to have at them (although my wife pointed out to me, after I shredded an idiot, that one doesn’t want to shred someone who might be so mentally ill that their defensive systems collapse and the commit suicide.
So if someone who looks really nuts (as opposed to the usual leftist psychosis) shows up, please keep this in mind.
My wife is a little too kind, but she has a point.
John
Kingsmill
Please see my comment above. This is where we can show the sickness of the left.
Some of these guys are simply Useful Idiots, college kids or young indoctrinated homosexuals spouting criticism without any knowledge.
Some are mentally unbalanced.
Some are simply haters - too many, in fact.
Because this particular article is dedicated to exposing their lack of humanity and maturity, and their level of hatred, I am loathe to remove posts.
To be honest, I haven’t been following Tony’s postings. I’ve other duties that are pressing.
Respectfully,
John
Remember when people of Tony’s and ‘JohnnyK’s’ bent practically fell over backward in their deplorable effort to ‘defend’ the ‘innocence’ of O.J. Simpson? (I hope I don’t offend any O.J. fans who’re reading this site! And, if I am, please let me know, and I promise never to darken your electronic doorstep, again!)
And, Tony: please know that I never once wished you ‘murdered’ (perhaps a little ‘roughed-up,’ say, like in a good, old-fashioned boot camp blanket party–but never ‘murdered.’)
In the sagely words of Mr. Rodney King–deity, bon vivant, and extortionist extraordanaire–”Can’t we all just git’ along?”
You know, I think I actually love contemporary illiberal ‘liberalism.’ I mean, is there anything more entertaining in life than listening to them wax philosophic?
Why, just yesterday afternoon, I passed a woman on the highway who’s bumper sticker read: “Won’t it be nice when schoolchildren have all the money they need for education, and the Air Force has to conduct a bake sale in order to pay for a bomber.?”
Now that, folks, was profound. And I do mean p-r-o-f-o-u-n-d!
Robert:
I think they wane philosophic. Had to put down issue six of the Time/Life Right Wing Agenda series to check out tinyvital. Interesting section on Churchill, by the way, just before an article about The Code. Shove together everything by John Dos Passos and Arthur Koestler and apply the code and you can predict the future.
This isn’t fair to Tony, who isn’t here to defend himself. I also never thought about killing him, and have never indulged in spanking outside of my own kids. We really pounded them, too, which turned them into fierce right-wing thugs. We’re really proud.
The other day, I had the displeasure of listening to a “conservative” Middle East “scholar” ramble through a lecture on the potential receptivity to democracy in places like Iraq and Iran. His thesis, once I mined it from a wandering trail of endless dead-ends and unanswered “what I mean is…” utterances, amounted to the following: culture, specifically that of the Middle East, is irrelevant to a nation’s capability of accepting democracy as its form of government.
He cited examples of various dictators who have already felt compelled to have “democratic elections”, thereby demonstrating that the need to have a veneer of democracy is sign enough that a free government could be sustained.
Here is the root of the first problem: the equating of democracy with freedom. Democracy is simply the rule of the majority. In a democracy, the minority gets fucked. When the minority complains about said fucking, the majority tells it:
“Fuck you, it’s in the ‘public interest’ that you get fucked. Therefore, shut your trap, get in the voting booth, and let us fuck you once more.”
Sure, democracy might be acceptable to any existing culture in the Middle East. Where you might have a problem, however, is trying to talk to some of those guys about things like constitutional republics. I.e., governments based on objective law that uphold the rights of the individual. Instilling that in the Middle East might not be so easy.
So, here we had yet another Republican who had absolutely no conception of the relationship between ideas, culture, and forms of government. He was actually asserting that dictatorships could be transformed into “democracies” with the simple application of “external pressure”. That pressure coming from (a) military force, or (b) diplomatic “pressure”.
Evidently, whether your culture makes it a habit of stoning people to death for social faux pas like adultery has no bearing on whether or not your culture will appreciate a government that protects individual rights.
There are two possible courses we can take to be safe in the long run. The first, contrary to the aforementioned horseshit, is to be cultural imperialists. That is, eliminate religion from the fucking planet and maybe teach a few people that suicide bombings aren’t the ideal course of action for a human being. The second possible course of action is to keep the barrels of our guns pointing directly at any two-bit dictator and let him know that he will suffer the same fate as Saddam Hussein should he support or harbor terrorists.
So pick your solution. Personally, the cultural imperialism thing is an optimistic choice, but frankly I don’t know if we can handle it. Regardless of what we do, we’re gonna need our finger on the button anyway, so frequent threats of mass annihilation in the Middle East will probably be necessary, and maybe sufficient.
But never mind that. Let me get to the punchline.
After the above limp-wristed conservative finished his tedious sleep-inducing speech, I felt compelled to ask a question. How, I asked, can you argue that culture is irrelevant? How can you argue that “pressure” is enough to change an entire government in the long-run?
His answer?
“I wasn’t really arguing. I was suggesting.”
Yes, he followed that up with other equally pussified language. But that was the only statement that stayed with me. And I was actually ready to semi-forget that statement, or at least not write about it. Then I turned on the news tonight.
On two cable news stations, I heard the following from two paid “experts” in defense of their supposed positions:
“You can make an argument for that.”
Granted, this isn’t as bad as refusing to “argue” in favor of “suggesting”, but Jesus Christ, it’s still pretty goddamn bad. Either make the fucking argument, or don’t make it. What the hell does it even mean to say “you can make an argument for that”? Doesn’t it matter at all what kind of argument you make?
For example, what if the only kind of argument you could make for it was a completely shitty argument? An argument devoid not only of facts, but of all common sense whatsoever? Would it really be relevant that you could “make an argument” for it?
Don’t tell me that some random moron could make an argument for something. And sure as fuck don’t tell me that you’re only “suggesting” something. Either say it, or don’t say it. If you don’t have the balls to stand up for your own ideas, then either shut your mouth, or hire a ventriloquist who has the gonads to “argue” them for you.
Though, come to think of it, I guess in either case you’d need to shut your goddamn mouth. (I like to be accurate.)