The kids were alright

3 years ago by PugJesus to c/politicalmemes

AllonzeeLV 158 points 3 years ago

If I could wave a magic wand and undo a Presidency, it would be Reagan's.

Trump was a big loud stupid animal, but almost completely ineffective at legislative work. McConnell carried all the water of his few cruel "accomplishments." All Trump wanted to do was hear/see himself talk/tweet. He thankfully got in his own way a lot.

Reagan, on the other hand, was competent evil, and his malice towards American peasants is felt by most of us every day whether we realize and acknowledge it or not. One of the few people I can say without an ounce of guilt or shame deserved the traumatic way he died and far worse.

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Nietzsches_moustache 78 points 3 years ago

I see a lot of comments posted about Reagan, like this one, that infer that he was the mastermind behind reaganomics. The evidence though suggests otherwise. It more likely that Reagan was the perfect headpiece to the administrators that pulled the levers.

There’s a great story that was told by former Australian Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, about how on his first trip to the USA he had dinner meeting with Reagan to talk about economic matters globally, and domestically between the US and Australia. Hawke told of how once the pleasantries were over and they started to talk shop, Reagan handed the conversation to the advisors, who were also present, whilst Reagan sat there munching on his steak. Hawke said Reagan looked oblivious and was uninterested in the discussion.

Destructive president, absolutely. Evil genius, not so sure. I think that title silts squarely on Maggie Thatcher.

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Dagwood222 32 points 3 years ago

James Garner was Reagan's Vice President when Reagan ran the Screen Actors' Guild. Garner said that Reagan could barely handle that job, when he was much younger.

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Madison420 10 points 3 years ago

There's no suggestion. He was almost certainly demented already save on several occasions referred directly to his "handlers" about speech and question preparation.

My favorite is the televised address where he was asked a question and they turned out the lights and shuffled Reagan offstage but not before he says something to the effect of "my handlers have told me not to answer that".

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Clent 22 points 3 years ago

Perhaps that's where this timeline went off the rails.

He wasn't supposed to survive.

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Dagwood222 21 points 3 years ago

There was a urban myth called the Zero Theory. Lincoln was elected in 1860, died in office. 1880 President Garfeild died in office, 1900 McKinley died in office, 1940 President FDR died in office, and 1960 President JFK died in office. The 1980 President should have died in office...

edit...skipped Harding, elected 1920 and died in office.

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PugJesus 14 points 3 years ago

You forgot Warren G. Harding, elected 1920, died in office.

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Dagwood222 1 point 3 years ago

Silly me....

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FlyingSquid -2 points 3 years ago

Of course, if you keep going, we would have President Harris right now. Ick.

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Dagwood222 3 points 3 years ago

So Harris is a big 'ick' but President Dick Cheney would have been cool beans?

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MarmaladeMermaid 5 points 3 years ago

That comment made me wonder if I did skip time lines, I don’t think dying at home at 93 with your wife by your side is particularly traumatic.

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AllonzeeLV 25 points 3 years ago

I can't think of a more traumatic way to die than Alzheimer's. You get to witness your own sense of self, your own identity unravel slowly, and witnessed by those you care about most. Cancer hurts, torture hurts, but its happening to you. Alzheimer's is losing yourself in front of yourself every moment, leaving you in a worsening state of fear and confusion until there isn't enough of you left to know your own name anymore. Then a blank slab sits in your place painting water colors until the slab forgets how to chew and eat and even breath until the slab of your vacant husk finally expires long after any you that you would recognize was cognitively dismantled a piece at a time.

Couldn't have happened to a bigger garbage person than Reagan.

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seitanic 16 points 3 years ago

Don't forget the AIDS crisis.

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AllonzeeLV 17 points 3 years ago

Oh, my friend, I never did.

I made a point of not itemizing his innumerable sins against humanity, because I have in the past, and I didn't feel like taking an hour on my reply.

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MrFagtron9000 -4 points 3 years ago

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blackbelt352 11 points 3 years ago

I'd say Nixon, without the Southern Strategy, the republican party wouldn't have been basically taken over by the subsumed Dixiecrats.

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chaogomu 22 points 3 years ago

Andrew Johnson. He reversed the reparations that were starting to happen, and put the former slaveholders back in power in the south. By the time Grant got into power, the slaveholders were firmly entrenched again.

All the problems of the modern day conservatives date back to not finishing the civil war, and Andrew Johnson is the reason why.

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dual_sport_dork 10 points 3 years ago

Reagan and certainly Nixon are two we could have done without. Pretty much every ill and evil of the modern conservative movement can be traced back to one or the other, or both.

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reagansrottencorpse 4 points 3 years ago

Same

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freecandy 1 point 3 years ago

Well well well...

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FlyingSquid 4 points 3 years ago

Reagan, on the other hand, was competent evil

At first, anyway...

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DocBlaze -1 points 3 years ago

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FlyingSquid 63 points 3 years ago

The sad part is that some of those kids probably grew up to vote for Trump.

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GreenMario 38 points 3 years ago

It's Oklahoma they absolutely did.

Source: lived in Tulsa for a few years. That whole state can just get sent to the shadow realm and nothing of value would be lost.

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Madison420 10 points 3 years ago

Send a warning first but use plain English and add in a random LGBT or democrat slogan.

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GreenMario 8 points 3 years ago

Bernie Sanders presents

The WOKE-A-PALOOZA

Located just over the border

All Democrats/liberals/leftists and Antifa get in FREE

Oklahoma is merging with Outworld so bring your whole family! Quick! For reals.

Sprinkle in some acts and features that would make fashies skin crawl so they stay away and hey one big ass party while OK implodes into non existence. Then we add Puerto Rico as a state so we don't need to update anything.

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Etterra 3 points 3 years ago

I think they need to have their own special land - some place reserved just for the far right. They can have their own laws there, and have a treaty with the federal government to give them special rights, but only on their reserved land. Well have to give it a special name though. Something catchy that gets the idea across. I'm open to ideas.

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Hazdaz 48 points 3 years ago

His presidency was probably the single biggest inflection point in this country's history in the last 50 years, second only to 911.

Shame that JHJr wasn't a better shot.

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nickwitha_k 31 points 3 years ago

Having been around during 9/11, Reagan was a bigger inflection point. He was directly responsible for ramping up the arming of the groups that would go on to form al Qaeda. But, that's a small contribution compared to overseeing the decoupling of productivity from pay and his war on labor.

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Etterra 7 points 3 years ago

Yeah he did more damage, IMO, than can be literally calculated.

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DragonTypeWyvern 4 points 3 years ago

Eh. I tend to view him as a symptom, not the disease itself.

Better he died more obviously brain-rotted and feeble than martyrd after he did all the damage anyways.

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Viking_Hippie 1 point 3 years ago

Just because it's not the underlying cancer, a tumor will still kill you. Had he croaked earlier, he might have caused a lot less damage to the US and by extension the world that it's not given premature Bush Sr would.

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MrFagtron9000 2 points 3 years ago

Do you really think anything would be different with an early HW Bush administration?

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Hazdaz 2 points 3 years ago

1000% yes.

Reagan was shot only about a year into his 8 years in office. If he was taken out then and Bush Sr stepped up, then the total reign of that awful administration would have been many, many years less. Plus Bush didn't even come close to having the same pull as Reagan. Reagan was charismatic. He was a POS, but he knew how to talk to people and get them to agree with him - he was an actor for Pete's sake, so he had all the "soft skills" to connect with both Republicans and Democrats. Bush Sr was nothing like that. He was just another "generic" politician who couldn't even get reelected.

Our country would be vastly different today if JH Jr was a better shot.

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pottedmeat7910 36 points 3 years ago

These are children.

What excuse do modern Republicans have? When they made jokes about Pelosi's husband getting beat with a hammer?

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PugJesus 17 points 3 years ago

I mean, for a given value of vileness, I don't see anything wrong with being privately amused about a person in a position of power getting some form of suffering inflicted upon them, though calling for it is nothing less than a plea for civil war. The problem with the whole Paul Pelosi incident was:

Republicans openly make calls for political violence and then take no responsibility when it happens.
Paul Pelosi wasn't a politician or anyone of serious note. He simply had the sheer gall to be a member of a politician's family.

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MrFagtron9000 2 points 3 years ago

Why do I have to pretend to be sad when people I hate die?

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reverendsteveii 25 points 3 years ago

Fun fact: John Hinckley is out of prison. He has a YouTube channel where he records cute little love songs and he sells art on eBay.

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FlyingSquid 7 points 3 years ago

I hope he's gotten over Jodie Foster.

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pigup 12 points 3 years ago

Based

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wintermute_oregon -3 points 3 years ago

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BrokebackHampton 21 points 3 years ago

It'd be nice to get back to that level of civility where we can disagree and not cheer the death of other.

Thick irony when talking about the guy who quite literally cheered as AIDS wreaked havoc on gay people

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wintermute_oregon -14 points 3 years ago

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Primarily0617 14 points 3 years ago

guys.

Guys.

GUYS!

Reagan didn't literally text me the party popper emoji when freddie mercury died so he must be a friend to the lgbt spectrum

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wintermute_oregon -13 points 3 years ago

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flipht 19 points 3 years ago

Flip side, it would be real nice if the regressive right hadn't systematically assassinated every left leaning leader through the 70s, and then used public policy to murder thousands of other "undesirables," and then come in and tone police and try to use civility to circumvent criticism.

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PugJesus 11 points 3 years ago

How many deaths does Reagan get to cause before it exceeds "Agree to disagree" territory?

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wintermute_oregon -11 points 3 years ago

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darq 12 points 3 years ago

I mean... Reagan not only cheered on the death of LGBTQ+ people, he actively caused many of those deaths because of his policy decisions during the AIDS crisis.

Civility is out the window. But it was Reagan who threw it.

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wintermute_oregon -11 points 3 years ago

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PugJesus 5 points 3 years ago

I never wish death on anyone. It what keeps us human.

So, you wouldn't wish death on, say, Hitler? Would you say those that did in WW2 were no longer human?

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young_broccoli 0 points 3 years ago

Hey! Say what you want about Hitler, but he did kill Hitler. Show some respect!!!!1!!

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wintermute_oregon -9 points 3 years ago

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GreenMario 11 points 3 years ago

We can as soon as "the other side" stops calling for our extermination.

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wintermute_oregon -9 points 3 years ago

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Bernie_Sandals 12 points 3 years ago

Idk how to take "Transgenderism must be eradicated" other than as a statement of extermination or destruction of an identity as their goal.

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wintermute_oregon -8 points 3 years ago

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SatanicNotMessianic 3 points 3 years ago

Hello, Trolley
Well hello, Trolley
It’s so nice to have you back where you belong…

I think it’s fine to wish that no one has to die, ever. It’s expected to wish that no one ever gets murdered, or eaten by wild tigers, or starves to death in the midst of plenty.

You can let your trolley run over and kill six people, or you can divert to a siding and kill a single person. And that single person is also Hitler in 1932, and instead of six people it’s six million. Or, rather, 11 million total victims of the camps. Or around 80 million deaths in total.

If we could, for the purposes of the thought experiment, save 80 million lives by killing Hitler in 1932, would killing Hitler be a moral act? Is it mandatory, meaning that choosing not to kill Hitler, knowing for certain what was about to happen, would be an immoral act?

The surgeon problem is a fun inversion of the trolley. You have Hitler on the operating table, and the only way you can save his life is to harvest the organs from six otherwise healthy patients. You have to kill six random people so that 1932 Hitler can love and go about his business with WWII and the holocaust. Except instead of six people, it’s 80 million. You can see it’s the exact same dilemma as the trolley problem but made more - forgive me - visceral.

If we don’t high five the surgeon who chooses to let 1932 Hitler die rather than harvesting the organs from 80 million people, it’s only because the decision is so obvious that it doesn’t even seem to need congratulations. It’s not that we’re avoiding celebrating because we would have preferred a scenario where you are a vampire and could hypnotize Hitler to give up politics and return to art school, and then fly around the world hypnotizing the other world leaders to not punish the German people over the decisions made by their government. You could hypnotize US leadership to let Japan pursue economic development, and hypnotize Japanese leadership to be a liberal democracy rather than a militarized autocracy. But those scenarios don’t seem appropriately serious enough for the discussion.

The thing is that you can’t agree to disagree with a Hitler. James Baldwin wrote

We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.

We can disagree on tax policy and agree to debate and take it to the court of public opinion.

When people talk about the ethics of murdering Hitler, it’s not about tax policy.

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wintermute_oregon -5 points 3 years ago

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Primarily0617 9 points 3 years ago

in your hypothetical situation, a bomb being dropped on Hitler and the war being over are inexorably linked

so it seems like what you're saying is that you're not quite on the ball enough to understand your own thought experiement?

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wintermute_oregon -7 points 3 years ago

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ThrowawayPermanente -9 points 3 years ago

Fake story. Everyone knows that only Republicans hate the other side enough to support political violence.

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theodewere 6 points 3 years ago

the idea that you have to choose a side to hate an asshole only got started in the 90s.. now there's a whole "side" of nothing but assholes.. you figure it out..

only little assholes liked Reagan.. ask Robert Downey Jr..

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ThreeHalflings -11 points 3 years ago

Downvote as your country is dismantled by people who think their own political positions are more important than the will of the people, and who will break whatever laws they want to advance them. Cheer the people who do it. Cling to your failed state.

If you support the right of any given person to shoot any other given person whose politics they disagree with, you deserve your country's fate.

America today is the direct descendant of the America which cheered the attempted assassination of a president whose policies they disagreed with. And all of you here who cheer the resolution of political differences with violence are cheering living in a failed state.

Do you support James Earl Ray's choice to resolve his political differences with violence?

Your country has become a joke, and you're all supporting that.

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Saneless 11 points 3 years ago

Remind me what power MLK had that could make tens of millions of peoples' lives worse just because he was a selfish asshole

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ThreeHalflings -11 points 3 years ago

And here is the expected non-sequitar. Your country is a joke and you just try to deflect.

Go make a difference, stop rubbing yourself against Lemmy posts to get off.

Do you or do you not support people who resolve disagreements by assassinating people? Or is it just the people who you deem worthy of death that should be assassinated?

Maybe we could democratise this, maybe vote on who should be assassinated to keep it fair, so it's not just one guy on Lemmy deciding?

Maybe we don't need to assassinate people at all.

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_Mantissa 4 points 3 years ago

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Saneless 1 point 3 years ago

I don't believe in killing anyone, anytime

I just thought your comparison was terrible and the only thing they had in common was they've given political speeches. One had all the power in the world and one was a guy at the bottom begging for change

Aside from that, cry more, bud

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politicalmemes

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Welcome to politcal memes!

These are our rules:

1) Be civil

Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.

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Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.

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Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images

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