Dr. Guy -

As you pointed out, you don't have to listen to me, or talk to me either.

So, please, do neither. We are mutual annoyances to each other. Why don't we pretend we're in a bar and just sit at separate tables on opposite sides of the room. You need to lower your blood pressure and I need to not be so reminded of seventh-grade tantrums.

We should have some grown-ups back in charge next January, and then America can begin the long task of cleaning up the monumental mess made by Bush, his cronies, and his supporters.

My blood pressure is fine. Your constant reference to 12 years olds is worrisome. You need to get out more and see that not everyone is a wide eyed child listening attentively to your gospel.

Let's see, Reagan was a great President because:

- he "called" the Soviet Union the Evil Empire .... talk, not action
- he "said" Tear Down This Wall ..... talk, not action.
- he was involved in the greatest witch hunt of the 20th century, helping to blacklist countless innocent people because they were suspected of being Communist .... which, by the way, is a belief system like any other that was prosecuted in a country which values freedom for all, unless you don't think like the government .... same as the innocent Japanese-Americans interned during WWII and the prisoners illegally imprisoned in Gitmo and on warships.

Reagan was a "B" list actor, a questionable California Governor and again, a smoke and mirrors President. His only saving grace was that he was surrounded by sneaky .... I mean, polished advisors who did a better job of covering up his inadequacies unlike old GW. Reagan happened to be sitting in the Oval Office when the Wall came down, but it was old Gorby and his regime in the Soviet Union that made things happen. But I'm sure Ronnie had a good conversation or two with Gorby .... he was a good "talker" after all.

And yes, I voted for Reagan the second time around ..... like every other election since I have been old enough to vote, I have yet to vote FOR a candidate but instead what I believe to be the lesser of two evils at the time. If I could only get a time machine and go back to those fateful November days in 2000 and 2004 .... not that my vote mattered since I am from Massachusetts, a state who would put Charles Manson in the White House if he had a "D" after his name ......

Oh, I forgot .... if it's on TV, then it must be true .....

The only way history will remotely look at him in the positive is if he personally went to Afghanistan, hunted down Osama by himself, and kills him with his bare hands.

Better rethink that one - he was dead set against those witch hunts. That is documented. his stint as the SAG president saw him fighting the mcCarthyites. besides, that was before he was president.

As for your other 2 points, yes, that was talk. But guess what? The evil empire is gone thanks to his words and deeds. The wall is gone. Ditto. You point to his words. His admirers point to the results. Hard to beat results with empty promises and hot air (you know - how some "feel your pain" and "the intentions were good - dont look at the results")

Well, at least you are honest.

True. Reagan defended the filming industry. This came after Truman's establishment of a loyalty program for federal employees which resulted in 90 organizations considered Communist subversives and 2,900 resignations and 300 dismissals from various federal agencies. So, there definitely was an element of Communism alive and operating.

I was trying to make the greater point that Reagan was against the evil of Communism which began when he was an actor and carried through into his governorship and presidency.

Grambo_Bastille posts:

It's already been pointed out that Reagan defended his union and may not be charged with guilt of helping with the blacklist. But, that's not to say that Hollywood didn't have a Soviet whiff about it...it certainly did. That means some weren't innocent. The American Communist Party was an arm of Stalin's Soviet Russia and now, that previously unavailable interviews and archives have been opened, books have been written exposing there were and are Communist spies still being outed...remember Robert Hanssen? I think it was Carl Bernstein who wrote in his autobiography that McCarthy was right and Arthur Herman's book puts it all in perspective.

The best book on the Hollywood Ten is that of Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley, Hollywood Party: The Untold Story of How Communism Seduced the AMerican Film Industry in the 30's and 40's". Billingsley uncovered the true face of Hollywood Communism and revealed how the Party through muscle of the trade unionists, celebrated writers, like Dalton Trumbo, and directors like Elia Kazan, "helped to support an oppressive regime." Ronald Reagan had a key role in fighting it.

This should give us pause for something similiar is still about today. Notice how the Hollywood Left has "respect" for bad guys like Saddam Hussein? Or that Kerry romanced Daniel Ortega's Red regime in Nicaragua and endorsed the despot Jean Bertrand Aristide of Haiti? Most of the liberals in Washington have a fatal attraction for Castro as well.

Not much has changed and Barack Hussein Obama is farther left than Kerry....what are his attractions with Marxism, Red revolutionaries, and Islam radicalists?




Your statement has me shaking my head in wonderment....do you know anything about atheistic Communism? Have the crimes of Communism vanished from modern memory? Afterall, it was one of the most bloody ideologies in all of human history...and, lest we forget, it's an evil that still exists in Cuba, China, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea. These countries are in a hellish, despotic state. Something tells me you would not like living there.

Communism is an extreme and radical kind of socialism exalting materialism, denying God, and betraying human rights. It holds that the state is supreme and it uses totalitarianism in dealing with the people. It puts the state above the individual and the family, and is a rejection of God and His relationship to mankind. Karl Marx was a primary force behind this movement with his theories on social organization, holding of property, and economic position.

Much of the indoctrination was carried out in Communist "re-education" or concentration camps. Marx said, "Man was destined to find fulfillment in a new world order in which conflict would be eliminated and socio-economic harmony at last achieved. The wars, oppressions, miseries and spiritual illusions of previous ages would dissolve into Communist peace, which was the goal of history."

The spread of Communism brought immense suffering. About 60 million people in the USSR alone died as victims of fanatical Communists. 100 million total. They were merely expendable creatures in a quest for a classless society.

Does that sound like something that should be allowed to go unchecked in the USA?

I stand corrected on my statement about the witch hunt ..... but I stand by statements that Reagan wasn't as influential in the fall of Eastern European communism as he is credited with.

Regarding the above statement, I hope you don't shake your head too much. Should it go unchecked? Perhaps not, but until GW came along, I still thought we were living in America where one is allowed to believe in whatever they want and to say so without any repercussions.

And you use the word "atheistic" as if it is wrong .... and it is "radical and extreme" to deny god? Sorry bud, but now you are treading on dangerous grounds.

Your statements about Communism are typical for someone trying to make a point ..... I agree that radical Communism is an evil, but the world is not all black and white .... not all people who believe, or did believe, in Communism advocate the slaughter of innocent people. Back in the fifties, it was considered by many to be a vehicle to redistribute the wealth .... yes, maybe it is ideological, but as an American, if I were to believe in Communism I again state that I should be allowed to without being blacklisted or jailed (for the record, I am not a Communist). Go back and read what I said, and not what you wanted me to say - I was not defending Communism, just the right to believe it in this country.

By the way, as many crimes were committed trying to expunge Communism than Communism itself. Case in point - Korean War and Vietnam Conflict .... how many of our troops died or were changed forever by those engagements? The good ol' US going to faraway lands to fight those evil Communists (unsuccessfully) when we should have just minded our own business.

Funny i'd of gone for Dwight Eisenhower myself, but then again he was not the focal point of a Fox News propoganda campaign, so i can understand how you may have overlooked him.

A simple question if i may, why Regan? What did he do for you that was so great?

Under Reagan's leadership, America was respected around the world. Reagan truly served the people. No other President has done so since.

I think he championed conservative principles and led from inner strength and character that didn't change with the political wind.

He respected God, loved our country, was truly patriotic, and understood the importance of a strong family. For Reagan all life was sacred.

All that just came naturally...as well as did his work in the COld War struggle for freedom. Margaret Thatcher, another one of my favorite politicos, credited him with winning the Cold War "without firing a shot".

Then you to get back to the books and study some real history...From this and other comments you've made, it sounds like you've been duped with the revisionist crap that's being taught in high schools and colleges nowadays.



Both North Korea and Vietnam today are under Commmunism. The people live in a police state with no freedom. Life is grim for ordinary people living there. These countries have been totally left behind in the Asian economy. North Korea is in the news today.

Check out of your local library, IN DENIAL: HISTORIANS, COMMUNISM AND ESPIONAGE by John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr if you want to learn about enormous human cost and crimes of atheistic Communism.



It is wrong. You do believe in freedom of religion, don't you?

YOu are confusing issues. First, who determines that one life is more important than another? After all, the communist started both conflicts. And they were and are still killing thousands. The killing done on the other side was to prevent the spread of it. One successful, the other not. However the deaths were not caused by trying to stop the communism, but by the communism itself.

Your statement could just as easily have been made about Nazi Germany. Look how many lives were lost trying to stop the spread? If we had failed, I guess there would be many today equating the action to stop it with the action to spread it. A nice propaganda coup, but hardly an honest comparison.

On the other hand, Lulapilgrim, Reagan did a lot of things that didn't serve the people. He was a union-buster (hardly serving "the people" there) and, I believe, began the trend of outsourcing American jobs. He also, through his economic policies that have been worsened by every Republican president since then, resulting in our potentially catastrophic deficit under Dubya. His attack on the Constitution called Iran/Contra was pretty awful, and going to Bitberg Cemetery to lay a wreath where Waffen SS members were also buried was something of a national embarrassment. If he ever took the side of "the people" over corporations, I don't remember it.

However, he was a breath of fresh air after the indelibly dreary Jimmy Carter. He got a lot of Americans to feel good about the country again, and that was important. As for ending the Cold War, while I take no credit away from Reagan, I also give a lot to Gorbachev.

I would say his legacy is mixed.

An honest evaluation. But then looking at the legacies of presidents since then and (other than a few minor accomplishments) immediately prior to him, he stands head and shoulders above all of them in that he at least accomplished great things. The rest of the cast has been just a bunch of self inflated minor bureaucrats that looked to preen their tail feathers rather than address tough issues.