Great American Speeches

[Mott the Hoople]

You didn't give a flying dog shot about "public health" you political hack. When all of these 'popcorn' statistics cited, were first on the radar, we knew that nearly all of the cases (95%) were the result of male homosexual activity. That statistic has shifted over the years, as the disease became mainstream, but in the initial phases of this epidemic, we knew what caused it, and what behaviors were most likely to encounter it, and our government refused to warn people of that. It wasn't done, because it was considered too "politically incorrect" to do that, and it's really where the fucking PC Crazy Train left the station in America!

Every other disease epidemic we've ever encountered, the public was told exactly what the risk factors were, what behavior was more prone to be at risk, and how to avoid the risk. We refused to do that! YOU refused to allow that! Now you claim it was REAGAN who did that? After the catastrophe, after the calamity, after the epidemic swept the nation and practically killed a generation, you want to do a retrospective of your warped view of revisionist history? ...What fucking gall you have!

Again Dixie, you don't know what your talking about. Saying that Reagan was silent on AIDS becasue it wasn't politically correct to speak of AIDS awareness or prevention is about one of the most bat shit crazy things you've ever said.....and that's saying a lot!

Information about the transmission of AIDS and how to prevent it, as a public health effort was started and maintained mainly by private organizations and AIDS awareness groups from the early to mid 80s. The federal government remained silent on the issue till the late 80's when public pressure became to great. The first official public health initiative to educate the public on the prevention of HIV didn't come out of the Federal Government until it instituted the nationwide "America Responds to AIDS" public information campaign in 1987 along with the distribution of "Understanding Aids" pamphlet that came out of the Surgeon General office in Reagans last year in office, 1988. Prior to that there was no organized public health effort to educate the public about AIDS awareness and prevention. I can remember Reagan actively opposing safe sex initiatives in the mid 80's because he felt promoting safe sex practices was a proxy endorsement for sexual promiscuity. In the era of AIDS not only was that laughably naive, it was extraordinarily bad public policy that cost people their lives!

 

[Mott the Hoople]

Great list... that was tough to choose one.

Thanks. It was tough weeding it down to those ten. I could have easily had 10 more great speeches in there.

 

[Cancel 2016.2]

I think that's a fairly accurate analysis. Reagan had his good points. His optimism. His ability to cross the partisan divide (a quality he would be excoriated for by today's conservatives), his intransigence towards comprimising with what he believed to be a moral evil in the Soviet Empire. Like you though, I soured on much of what Reagan did. His economic and domestic spending policies has done great harm to much of this nation and his social policies sometimes bordered on the inhuman as did his initial policies on HIV/AIDS.

His economic policies (more to the point, Volckers monetary policies) are what pulled this country out of the high inflation environment of the 1970's. As for his domestic spending.... to state this for the 1000th time... CONGRESS controls the purse strings. The President puts forth what he/she wants. CONGRESS is the one that actually creates and passes the budget. In times where Congress and the WH are in different parties hands, compromise between the two parties occurs. It did with Reagan and Tip's House and it did with Clinton and Newt's House. Why people continue to assign all the blame/success to the President is beyond me.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

His economic policies (more to the point, Volckers monetary policies) are what pulled this country out of the high inflation environment of the 1970's. As for his domestic spending.... to state this for the 1000th time... CONGRESS controls the purse strings. The President puts forth what he/she wants. CONGRESS is the one that actually creates and passes the budget. In times where Congress and the WH are in different parties hands, compromise between the two parties occurs. It did with Reagan and Tip's House and it did with Clinton and Newt's House. Why people continue to assign all the blame/success to the President is beyond me.

Because the President is not only chief of the executive branch but he's also the head of state and he expected to, well......lead.

You do have a valid point. The President can work hard to set the tone and set an example of bipartisanship in the nations interest but he can't do it alone.

 

[zoombwaz]

"Appeal to ridicule" is all you have, even in matters of opinion.

Sorry, not an appeal to ridicule. That applies only to logical arguments, something Reagan never mastered. His speeches were mostly straw man arguments, non sequiturs, post hoc ergo propter hoc arguments, appeals to personal incredulity, and ad hominem attacks, not to mention bald-faced lies.

 

[Cancel 2016.2]

Thanks. It was tough weeding it down to those ten. I could have easily had 10 more great speeches in there.

As much as I liked Reagan's speech and his tenure as President, I do agree that speech did not belong on the top ten list.

I went with Lincolns second inaugural. In a time where the nation was tearing itself apart with civil war, he showed not only his resolve to see the fight through to the end but also looked toward the rebuilding of the nation at the end of the deadly war.

 

[Cancel 2016.2]

Because the President is not only chief of the executive branch but he's also the head of state and he expected to, well......lead.

You do have a valid point. The President can work hard to set the tone and set an example of bipartisanship in the nations interest but he can't do it alone.

I understand he is the leader... but that does not change the process. To many on the left enjoy proclaiming the 'evils' of 'Reagan's spending' when Tip and the Dems were right there spending away and at times increasing what Reagan wanted via the budget process. They also tend to forget that Clinton and the Rep Congress raised the debt by about the same level (admittedly not adjusted for inflation, but still pretty close even after adjusted)

 

[Cancel 2016.2]

OK, please explain to me how preventing a pandemic that has caused the deaths of over a million people would not be a Presidential issue and then please explain to me why those Presidents who followed him did consider it a Presidential issues?

In fact it's one of the few issues in which I do heap praise upon former President Bush (and Clinton).

while I agree that he could have and should have done more, to pretend that he could have done anything to prevent the pandemic is nothing short of ignorant.

AIDs was already on five continents prior to Reagan taking office. Just because no one had identified HIV as the cause prior to 1984 doesn't change the fact that the disease had already spread.

 

[Jarod]

while I agree that he could have and should have done more, to pretend that he could have done anything to prevent the pandemic is nothing short of ignorant.

AIDs was already on five continents prior to Reagan taking office. Just because no one had identified HIV as the cause prior to 1984 doesn't change the fact that the disease had already spread.

HE could not have prevented the pandemic, he could have done a lot for the suffers of the disease by embracing the cause and illistrating to the ignorant that it was not something that should be kept under the rug or that people can transmit via casual contact.


I graduated HS in 1989 with a kid who suffered from AIDS, he died in 1994. In HS he lived with the terrable secret that he could not confide in anyone. He was a great kid, I knew something was up... but... he did not tell me until sometime after graduation. It must have been terrable to live with such a secret.

They had an infectus disease expert come to the school every year to lecture to the students about how it was nothing to b e afraid of unless you put yourself into one of the risk catagories. Now I know why my school was ahead of the curb on the issue.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

I understand he is the leader... but that does not change the process. To many on the left enjoy proclaiming the 'evils' of 'Reagan's spending' when Tip and the Dems were right there spending away and at times increasing what Reagan wanted via the budget process. They also tend to forget that Clinton and the Rep Congress raised the debt by about the same level (admittedly not adjusted for inflation, but still pretty close even after adjusted)

You've hit the nail on the head about what exasperates me about the state of our political process. It has been co-opted by the extremes of both parties to the utter frustration of the vast middle on the nation. It's the choice between the communist and the nazi's, the tax and spend liberals vs the borrow and spend even more conservatives. Patrisan politics has trumped the value of good governance and serving the needs of their constituents.

I'm frustrated to the point of giving up in the process, but that's what they really want, isn't it?

 

[Mott the Hoople]

while I agree that he could have and should have done more, to pretend that he could have done anything to prevent the pandemic is nothing short of ignorant.

AIDs was already on five continents prior to Reagan taking office. Just because no one had identified HIV as the cause prior to 1984 doesn't change the fact that the disease had already spread.

I disagree. He can, could and should of brought the resources of the Federal government to bear far sooner then he did. In fact he had a moral obligation too and he failed the American public, in this instance. The fact that all the US Presidents who followed him, Republicans as well as Democrats have made the international public health struggle one of their most important public health policy efforts speaks volumes to that fact. Reagan could have played a substantial role in mitigating the AIDS pandamic.

 

[Cancel 2016.2]

You've hit the nail on the head about what exasperates me about the state of our political process. It has been co-opted by the extremes of both parties to the utter frustration of the vast middle on the nation. It's the choice between the communist and the nazi's, the tax and spend liberals vs the borrow and spend even more conservatives. Patrisan politics has trumped the value of good governance and serving the needs of their constituents.

I'm frustrated to the point of giving up in the process, but that's what they really want, isn't it?

yes, they want people to either give up on both parties or to join one of the two parties in a lockstep march to the death of this country as we know it all the while blaming the 'other' party for all the woes society faces. (ie... dixie and cypress)

 

[Jarod]

He should have done like Lady Diana and given a big hug to an AIDS patient on television.

 

[Cancel 2016.2]

I disagree. He can, could and should of brought the resources of the Federal government to bear far sooner then he did. In fact he had a moral obligation too and he failed the American public, in this instance. The fact that all the US Presidents who followed him, Republicans as well as Democrats have made the international public health struggle one of their most important public health policy efforts speaks volumes to that fact. Reagan could have played a substantial role in mitigating the AIDS pandamic.

As I stated, I think in hindsight we can say he could have and should have done more. But again... he could have thrown 100 trillion at the problem in 1981 and it STILL would not have stopped the pandemic that was already in process of spreading in the late 70's.

 

[DamnYankee]

Sorry, not an appeal to ridicule. That applies only to logical arguments, something Reagan never mastered. His speeches were mostly straw man arguments, non sequiturs, post hoc ergo propter hoc arguments, appeals to personal incredulity, and ad hominem attacks, not to mention bald-faced lies.

Care to demonstrate?

 

[Billy the Great Khan]

yes, they want people to either give up on both parties or to join one of the two parties in a lockstep march to the death of this country as we know it all the while blaming the 'other' party for all the woes society faces. (ie... dixie and cypress)

You have won 6 internetz.

 

[WinterBorn]

Care to demonstrate?

Look, you have 2 choices. Either you can call on the Logical fallacies, as you did here, and admonish people to debate using only facts. But in that case, you yourself should be restricted by the same rules.

Or you can throw out shit you made up, create strawmen, and continue with the personal attacks & diversions.



But you can't have it both ways. Either you seriously debate a topic or you play games. Pick one.

 

[Dixie - In Memoriam]

Again Dixie, you don't know what your talking about. Saying that Reagan was silent on AIDS becasue it wasn't politically correct to speak of AIDS awareness or prevention is about one of the most bat shit crazy things you've ever said.....and that's saying a lot!

Information about the transmission of AIDS and how to prevent it, as a public health effort was started and maintained mainly by private organizations and AIDS awareness groups from the early to mid 80s. The federal government remained silent on the issue till the late 80's when public pressure became to great. The first official public health initiative to educate the public on the prevention of HIV didn't come out of the Federal Government until it instituted the nationwide "America Responds to AIDS" public information campaign in 1987 along with the distribution of "Understanding Aids" pamphlet that came out of the Surgeon General office in Reagans last year in office, 1988. Prior to that there was no organized public health effort to educate the public about AIDS awareness and prevention. I can remember Reagan actively opposing safe sex initiatives in the mid 80's because he felt promoting safe sex practices was a proxy endorsement for sexual promiscuity. In the era of AIDS not only was that laughably naive, it was extraordinarily bad public policy that cost people their lives!

Again, it was the responsibility of the CDC in Atlanta, not the President. With ANY other viral epidemic, the public was warned immediately, and people with the virus were quarantined in some cases, especially if the virus was deadly. This did not happen with AIDS because LIBERALS wouldn't allow it! It was too "insensitive" to the homosexual community to tell them their behavior was causing the spread of this disease. It was too much of a violation of their right to be perverts, for us to shut down the gay bathhouses where the disease was running rampant. Reagan could do very little about this "politically correct" public sentiment, and he had absolutely NO help from the Democrat Congress.

From the very start, there was NO effort made to contain or quarantine the disease. It took literally years to be able to adequately inform the public of the truth regarding AIDS, and even then, it was met with criticisms from the left, who feared there would be some mass ostracizing of homosexuals if it was taught that AIDS was mostly caused by homosexual activities. After dragging the left, kicking and screaming, to the realization that we had to warn people of the REAL dangers, they STILL insisted on this stupidity of condoms to prevent the spread, even though we knew and understood, the HIV virus could easily be passed, even with a condom. Abstinence was (and still is) the only way to be 99.9% reasonably certain of not contracting AIDS. To this day, people will still argue that people can get AIDS from a variety of activities, and while it is true that some got it through blood transfusions or sharing needles, the primary way it was spread to the epidemic proportions we saw, was through homosexual activities.

 

[DamnYankee]

Again, it was the responsibility of the CDC in Atlanta, not the President. With ANY other viral epidemic, the public was warned immediately, and people with the virus were quarantined in some cases, especially if the virus was deadly. This did not happen with AIDS because LIBERALS wouldn't allow it! It was too "insensitive" to the homosexual community to tell them their behavior was causing the spread of this disease. It was too much of a violation of their right to be perverts, for us to shut down the gay bathhouses where the disease was running rampant. Reagan could do very little about this "politically correct" public sentiment, and he had absolutely NO help from the Democrat Congress.

From the very start, there was NO effort made to contain or quarantine the disease. It took literally years to be able to adequately inform the public of the truth regarding AIDS, and even then, it was met with criticisms from the left, who feared there would be some mass ostracizing of homosexuals if it was taught that AIDS was mostly caused by homosexual activities. After dragging the left, kicking and screaming, to the realization that we had to warn people of the REAL dangers, they STILL insisted on this stupidity of condoms to prevent the spread, even though we knew and understood, the HIV virus could easily be passed, even with a condom. Abstinence was (and still is) the only way to be 99.9% reasonably certain of not contracting AIDS. To this day, people will still argue that people can get AIDS from a variety of activities, and while it is true that some got it through blood transfusions or sharing needles, the primary way it was spread to the epidemic proportions we saw, was through homosexual activities.

This!

 

[christiefan915]

You didn't give a flying dog shot about "public health" you political hack.

Really? And you dredged that up from.....

When all of these 'popcorn' statistics cited, were first on the radar, we knew that nearly all of the cases (95%) were the result of male homosexual activity.

We didn't "know" that, we assumed that. We didn't know that AIDS originated in Africa over 100 years ago, and that there were other ways of transmission besides homosexual activity,,, like hypodermic needles, blood transfusions, breastfeeding, etc.

statistic has shifted over the years, as the disease became mainstream, but in the initial phases of this epidemic, we knew what caused it, and what behaviors were most likely to encounter it, and our government refused to warn people of that. It wasn't done, because it was considered too "politically incorrect" to do that, and it's really where the fucking PC Crazy Train left the station in America!

As usual Americans, including the reagan administration, jumped on the homophobia bandwagon and considered AIDS to be God's scourge on immoral behaviours.

Every other disease epidemic we've ever encountered, the public was told exactly what the risk factors were, what behavior was more prone to be at risk, and how to avoid the risk. We refused to do that!

No, since we "assumed" AIDS to be the result of homosexual behaviour only, valuable time was wasted in getting to the real root of the problem, and that's what I blame on reagan.

YOU refused to allow that! Now you claim it was REAGAN who did that? After the catastrophe, after the calamity, after the epidemic swept the nation and practically killed a generation, you want to do a retrospective of your warped view of revisionist history? ...What fucking gall you have!

Maybe you can further explain this unintelligible rant because I have no idea what you're talking about. Frankly, I looked at every word that left reagan's mouth as possible dissimulation, dishonesty, or outright lying.