ronald reagan single-handedly undid communism

[OCinBuffalo]

Sarcasm detector busted?

Got it. Ignored it. Made my point instead.

[Lori]

We usually reserve sarcasm for the politics board; he's probably not used to seeing it on the friggin' basketball board.

Ah, quitcherbitchin, or I'll start dropping by here more often ...

 

(Although it is amusing that we managed to turn two short references from a 1,158-word piece into a multiple-page thread. That's where the column began, after all, pointing out the remarkable amount of time places like TSW spend on mostly meaningless back-and-forth.)

[Jim in Anchorage]

That in both cases, arguing the absolute statement -- whether in a bar or on a message board -- ignores the wider history.

 

Did Reagan play a leading role in bringing down the Berlin Wall? Of course ... but so did Gorbachev and Walesa (as Jeff noted), and I'd personally add John Paul II to the list.

Again, who made this absolute statement on Reagan? Who is he so brilliantly arguing with? I believe post #1 started with"I read somewhere"

[Lori]

Again, who made this absolute statement on Reagan? Who is he so brilliantly arguing with? I believe post #1 started with"I read somewhere"

JW is referring to Jeff's column -- which he linked directly before your first post in this thread -- as am I. Have you read it yet?

[Jim in Anchorage]

in honor of a friend, i read somewhere that ronald reagan single-handedly undid communism, did he?

 

jw

 

 

JW is referring to Jeff's column -- which he linked directly before your first post in this thread -- as am I. Have you read it yet?

From the column-

"Michael Jordan saved the NBA" is as ridiculous a position to stake out as "Ronald Reagan single-handedly undid Communism

Again, no names. Who said this? What was the context? Who "staked it out"? Wow talk about hearsay -"I read a piece from someone who heard something" No wonder he was pleased to see it go to the NBA.

[Delete This Account]

i find it quite amusing that a one-line thread, raising the subject as to whether Ronald Reagan single-handedly undid Communism has created such a sh-storm. i mean really.

 

get over yourselves. this was a test, and you all passed. thanks.

there appears -- and i could be wrong -- a far too deep and far too serious entrenchment of positions here, rooted in the fact that people have a self-important belief that this board is somehow curing cancer, ridding the world of poverty, global warming and, perhaps, eczema all the same time.

 

people, it's not.

it just might be as important/or no more important than "last post wins" without the humor.

 

jw

 

and the global warming reference was made in sarcasm.

[Delete This Account]

Your way of thinking being? Smugly act like other people who don't share your opinions don't "get it"? Sorry, I don't subscribe to that thinking at all. If you, or your fellow journalist guy is unhappy with the fact that nobody agrees with you, or, that you can't seem to win a single debate on a political message board, perhaps its time to stop blaming us, the "rules", cell phones, twitter, Holy God, and start blaming: the crappy ideas you espouse?

 

Ok, Mr. Nuance...and I use that term with extreme irony...Perhaps you would care to explain why well over half the Democrats in office at the time saw the same intelligence, concluded the same thing = we can't let another 9/11 just happen, we have to go get whatever WMD he has BEFORE he gives them away to Hamas, Al Queda, whoever?

 

Did they lie too? Were they manipulating intelligence? Or is it: that you aren't perceiving the nuances properly? Not seeing the gray are we? So why aren't you holding them accountable for not finding the WMDs? Or, is that simply too black and white?

 

How about this: another command decision is rapidly approaching along the same lines. Iran is about to obtain nukes. What should we do there Mr. Nuance? Let them have them? What if we make the wrong decision? What if Obama ends up sending in troops, and God forbid, we find out it was all a hoax? Then what? Do all the people that "disagreed"(with no possible chance of having any real knowledge either way) with "the war" all get to print out Obama Lied bumper stickers and self congratulate themselves for being able to "perceive nuance" better than everyone else?

 

What if Obama does nothing and Iran is allowed to proceed, thus touching off a Middle East arms race? Just what the doctor ordered for a region already in constant tension...what comfort will those who were for action and not appeasement gain? That they "perceived nuance" better?

 

Well, there is that matter of the drunken post you wrote stating things in one absolute after the next, ranging on all manner of topics, and each time, showing clear leftist thinking. But I suppose the rest of us "people" weren't able to perceive the nuances properly and therefore we misinterpreted it, huh?

 

EDIT: Perhaps we shouldn't be complaining about others painting us into corners when we are the ones holding the paint can and the brush?

said the person accusing me of these leftist leanings, when i accuse you of having none. and how we got on the whole middle east arms race, i don't know, but let me ask this one simple question: how did the most recent tensions in the middle east become raised to begin with? Poland?

 

jw

[OCinBuffalo]

Ah, quitcherbitchin, or I'll start dropping by here more often ...

 

(Although it is amusing that we managed to turn two short references from a 1,158-word piece into a multiple-page thread. That's where the column began, after all, pointing out the remarkable amount of time places like TSW spend on mostly meaningless back-and-forth.)

Since when does fun have to have a point or meaning? Besides, I regularly learn things here, and I like seeing issues beaten around until we somewhat distill some common ground. That happens...about 20% of the time anyway. A few, sincere, environmentalists here got me thinking in terms of "why the f not?" regarding doing the the little stuff around the house. I would not have bothered but they confronted me and made me think.

 

...and I spent a lot of years in a locker room. Where else can I go to get my daily dose of ball busting and intellectual grab ass?

[murra]

I'm sorry but this thread isn't big enough for Lori and JW's egos. They're journalists, you know.

[Lori]

From the column-

 

Again, no names. Who said this? What was the context? Who "staked it out"? Wow talk about hearsay -"I read a piece from someone who heard something" No wonder he was pleased to see it go to the NBA.

Oy. Seriously? Jeff's merely using the Jordan and Reagan cases as examples. And yes, he and I both know people willing to argue those precise points.

 

In fact, if you Google the words Reagan, Communism, and single-handedly, the search returns upward of 250,000 replies.

[Jim in Anchorage]

i find it quite amusing that a one-line thread, raising the subject as to whether Ronald Reagan single-handedly undid Communism has created such a sh-storm. i mean really.

 

get over yourselves. this was a test, and you all passed. thanks.

there appears -- and i could be wrong -- a far too deep and far too serious entrenchment of positions here, rooted in the fact that people have a self-important belief that this board is somehow curing cancer, ridding the world of poverty, global warming and, perhaps, eczema all the same time.

 

people, it's not.

it just might be as important/or no more important than "last post wins" without the humor.

 

jw

 

and the global warming reference was made in sarcasm.

Please spare the swollen head. 90% went off on on a unrelated NBA tangent.

[OCinBuffalo]

said the person accusing me of these leftist leanings, when i accuse you of having none. and how we got on the whole middle east arms race, i don't know, but let me ask this one simple question: how did the most recent tensions in the middle east become raised to begin with? Poland?

 

jw

Um what? I am not accusing you of anything. You are a leftist because you said you were? WTF? Or, at the very least, you like to yell leftist things at 3am after the bar? I am just going off of what you said, and I will leave that where it is.

 

We got there very simply: you seem to think that making command decisions with not enough good info is an easy thing. I do it every day, take my lumps for the bad ones, and even the good ones , but nobody runs around calling me a liar because I make a bad one. So, we have a new tough decision facing this President. I would like to hear if you think it will be OK to call him a liar if he makes the wrong call. Or, will we all be incapable of perceiving the nuance?

 

Yeah...I think you better stick to sports John, unless you want myself and the rest of the history machine here to crush you. Certainly the tensions in the middle east weren't "raised" by our most recent military presence there. Unless you're definition of raised = on a scale of 1-10 raising from 9.5 to 9.7. And, like I said, we can bring out the whole historical record, right out of our heads, with no google or wiki, of how things got to 9.5.

 

If anything, the recent general success of our military has seen things calm down. But, of course you can only see that if you perceive the real nuances properly. This new Isreal stuff notwithstanding. I am limiting my comments to the effects our military presence has had. Looks like our new Diplomacy For All! plan has pretty much schit the bed, everywhere in the world. But, yeah, keep talking like it's the 2006 Congressional Campaign...yawn.

 

(It's funny, they really don't see the ass whipping coming do they? Well, good, that will make the hysterics in November even more hysterical )

[Jim in Anchorage]

Oy. Seriously? Jeff's merely using the Jordan and Reagan cases as examples. And yes, he and I both know people willing to argue those precise points.

 

In fact, if you Google the words Reagan, Communism, and single-handedly, the search returns upward of 250,000 replies.

Hard to to argue with with 250,000 replies. I was more so wondering what the OP was getting at. To quote Steve Martin"when you tell a story have a point. It makes it so much more interesting to the listener"

[ieatcrayonz]

did Reagan play a role in the fall of communism? sure. might communism in the way it was structured in the Soviet Union unravel eventually, probably. thing is, Mr. Reagan didn't do it single-handedly.

 

jw

 

So how would you structure communism so that it wouldn't "unravel"? Sure you could get it off the ground by cutting the hair off all of the hippies, giving them a bath and putting them in a suit to trick people, but between the hippies and the professors you'd still have a bunch of crap that does not work.

 

The professors might be able to get it started by stealing money from the people that do all the work but eventually their utter lack of productivity would render their ill gotten booty useless. The hippies would go back to growing their hair and getting even smellier than before and the regular people would stop working.

 

The professors would start killing people off and people like Mr. Limbaw aka Alaska Darin would no longer be able to speak. As much as Mr. Limbaw is a pain in the neck, he should be able to speak even if he is rude to well spoken people like Conner.

[/dev/null]

i find it quite amusing that a one-line thread, raising the subject as to whether Ronald Reagan single-handedly undid Communism has created such a sh-storm. i mean really.

 

get over yourselves. this was a test, and you all passed. thanks.

there appears -- and i could be wrong -- a far too deep and far too serious entrenchment of positions here, rooted in the fact that people have a self-important belief that this board is somehow curing cancer, ridding the world of poverty, global warming and, perhaps, eczema all the same time.

 

people, it's not.

it just might be as important/or no more important than "last post wins" without the humor.

 

This thread pales in comparison to Last Post Wins

 

This thread = James K Polk

Last Post Wins = Genetic Engineered Hybrid of Ghengis Khan, Alexander the Great, and Augustus Caesar

[Lori]

Hard to to argue with with 250,000 replies. I was more so wondering what the OP was getting at. To quote Steve Martin"when you tell a story have a point. It makes it so much more interesting to the listener"

Have to ask him that, and I guess the Bills just signed somebody, so he may be busy for the next little bit...

But if I had followed through on posting it, it would have been solely to see the response. That's what the column was about, after all -- not the original debating points, which Jeff could have essentially chosen at random, but our response to them.

 

Stirring the pot? Yeah, pretty much. (I probably wouldn't have pulled out the Reagan quote to pick apart, though, since he's the primary reason I registered as a Republican the day I turned 18 ...)

 

Add: Good grief. Who invited crayonz?

[DC Tom]

Ah, quitcherbitchin, or I'll start dropping by here more often ...

 

You're welcome to drop by as often as you like. Just so you don't waste my precious insult time with basketball or - worse - Penn State talk.

 

(Although it is amusing that we managed to turn two short references from a 1,158-word piece into a multiple-page thread. That's where the column began, after all, pointing out the remarkable amount of time places like TSW spend on mostly meaningless back-and-forth.)

 

1158 words on wasting time on internet bulletin boards? It's vaguely ironic that that's not even close to as long as the "Last Post Wins" thread.

[Jim in Anchorage]

Have to ask him that, and I guess the Bills just signed somebody, he needs to sleep it off so he may be busy for the next little bit...

But if I had followed through on posting it, it would have been solely to see the response. That's what the column was about, after all -- not the original debating points, which Jeff could have essentially chosen at random, but our response to them.

 

Stirring the pot? Yeah, pretty much. (I probably wouldn't have pulled out the Reagan quote to pick apart, though, since he's the primary reason I registered as a Republican the day I turned 18 ...)

 

Add: Good grief. Who invited crayonz?

I doubt if the Reagan remark was random. It's a old trick to get people in a position to defend a statement they never made in the first place.

Stirring the pot here requires no more imagination then saying the sky is blue.

Nice to know he is studying our responses. I didn't know I was participating in a social experiment, but apparently we passed.

[DC Tom]

I doubt if the Reagan remark was random. It's a old trick to get people in a position to defend a statement they never made in the first place.

Stirring the pot here requires no more imagination then saying the sky is blue.

Nice to know he is studying our responses. I didn't know I was participating in a social experiment, but apparently we passed.

 

How could you not know that question was a social experiment?

[Magox]

So how would you structure communism so that it wouldn't "unravel"? Sure you could get it off the ground by cutting the hair off all of the hippies, giving them a bath and putting them in a suit to trick people, but between the hippies and the professors you'd still have a bunch of crap that does not work.

 

The professors might be able to get it started by stealing money from the people that do all the work but eventually their utter lack of productivity would render their ill gotten booty useless. The hippies would go back to growing their hair and getting even smellier than before and the regular people would stop working.

 

The professors would start killing people off and people like Mr. Limbaw aka Alaska Darin would no longer be able to speak. As much as Mr. Limbaw is a pain in the neck, he should be able to speak even if he is rude to well spoken people like Conner.