Since JOHN didn't grow up or live during the 80's here is a great retrospective.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/th...180948611/

Some highlights
* In 1982, Michael Callen and Richard Berkowitz, two gay men living with AIDS in New York City, published How to Have Sex in an Epidemic, which helped spread the idea that safe sex could be used as protection against spreading the epidemic--an idea that hadn't yet become prevalent in the medical community.

So apparently the most at risk people understood what would help reduce the risk of catching the disease

* In 1981 there were 121 US deaths attributed to what we now know as AIDS
* The virus was not isolated until 1984
*federally-funded campaigns sought to address a large number of people from all backgrounds--male, female, homosexual or heterosexual. The America Responds to AIDS campaign, created by the CDC, ran from 1987 to 1996 and became a central part of the "everyone is at risk" message of AIDS prevention.
*"It's a fundamental question of public health," says Brier. "Do you spread information by scaring people, do you do it by trying to tap into pleasure or do you do it by recognizing that people’s behavior isn’t just about their individual will but a whole different set of circumstances?"

There isn't much about funding or lack thereof. In the cold hard calculus of disease funding, there weren't enough deaths to warrant huge budget increases earlier. In the early 80's not much was none about the disease other than how to best prevent it. Imagine if those most at risk embraced the idea of how best to prevent its spread at that time. That, more than any Govt funding would have helped stem the tide.
Blaming Reagan for the AIDS epidemic is like blaming Woodrow Wilson for the Spanish Flu pandemic. Which killed far more in the US than AIDS ever has.

This thread only continues to amaze me as to how insanely stupid conservatives can be.

(06-07-2014 10:29 AM)john01992 Wrote:  This thread only continues to amaze me as to how insanely stupid conservatives can be.

"I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left."
— Margaret Thatcher

"Insults are the arguments employed by those who are in the wrong."
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

As a libertarian, I support gay rights like marriage equality or better yet, just get the government out of marriage. I treat people with respect and don't care what they do in the bedroom. It's their private business. I don't have to approve or accept it, it's none of my business.

Lately, it seems that liberal gays have become increasingly militant. The struggle has stopped being about equal rights, now it is about forcing an ideology on the public at large. You can't decline to bake a cake for a gay marriage based upon religious grounds. You can't disapprove of homosexuality even on good faith religious grounds. (I'm not religious). Liberal militant gays are for the stifling of freedom when it suits them, when it advances their agenda to impose their ideology or total acceptance of their lifestyle. It's sicking since they were a group that has historically been denied freedom. Their movement is switching from oppressed to oppressor.

I read this thread and just shake my head. I'm no Reagan fan but to denounce him for "murdering" gays by not funding AIDS research at a certain level, is lunacy.

It's enough to make a normal person turn anti-gay due to the militancy put out by the liberal gay movement. It is very off-putting for gays to try to force social acceptance by destroying anyone who disapproves. Every perceived slight against gays is view as bad as what blacks went through with slavery and Jim Crow. Talk about drama queens (no pun intended). All I can do is smh.

After 30 or so useless pages of hysterical rants, it's time to re-hijack this thread and celebrate the accomplishments of RR. Although I could write for hours, I have not the time. So therefore, let me highlight the greatest accomplishments.

Reagan Tax Cuts - these not only led to higher tax revenues during the Reagan term, they set the stage for the entrepreneurial bonanza that occurred during the 1990s.

Defeat of Soviet Communism - with the assistance of Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, Reagan effectively provided the final straw of the Strategic Defense Initiative, that led to the collapse of the USSR and its puppet states. Although SDI was the final thrust, the placement of the Pershing theater nuclear weapon missiles in Italy and Germany, and the blocking of the Soviet-European gas line, were significant aspects of the strategy.

Firing of the air traffic controllers - the actual firing wasn't as important as the establishment of a reality that government employees could be fired, even those who considered themselves indispensable.

(06-07-2014 10:29 AM)john01992 Wrote:  This thread only continues to amaze me as to how insanely stupid conservatives can be.

Yeah, because the Smithsonian, where i took the excerpts from, is sooooo Conservative.

Amnesty.

Need I say more?

(06-07-2014 12:56 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  Amnesty.

Need I say more?

Yes. You may need to say more about the entire deal. You may want to say more on his feelings on it after his Presidency.

(06-07-2014 01:32 PM)Brokeback Flamer Wrote:  

(06-07-2014 12:56 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  Amnesty.

Need I say more?

Yes. You may need to say more about the entire deal. You may want to say more on his feelings on it after his Presidency.

And the fact that the "deal" and the law was never implemented nor enforced as it was promised. "Amnesty now, we'll work on securing the borders tomorrow". Tomorrow never came.

History, Fit. It's just history.

(06-07-2014 12:35 PM)Brokeback Flamer Wrote:  

(06-07-2014 10:29 AM)john01992 Wrote:  This thread only continues to amaze me as to how insanely stupid conservatives can be.

Yeah, because the Smithsonian, where i took the excerpts from, is sooooo Conservative.

it has to do with the accuracy of the information in your link. the issue is that the information in your link. the AIDS epidemic started in the middle of 1981. according to your link 121 people died of the virus in 1981 (a 6 month period) the majority of which were young healthy men with no priors medical conditions that would warrant it, and the majority of these people dying from diseases that were rarely seen or rarely deadly for this age group.

In 1981 we had practically no federal response which is completely unprecedented for any virus like that.

(06-09-2014 07:20 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(06-07-2014 12:35 PM)Brokeback Flamer Wrote:  

(06-07-2014 10:29 AM)john01992 Wrote:  This thread only continues to amaze me as to how insanely stupid conservatives can be.

Yeah, because the Smithsonian, where i took the excerpts from, is sooooo Conservative.

it has to do with the accuracy of the information in your link. the issue is that the information in your link. the AIDS epidemic started in the middle of 1981. according to your link 121 people died of the virus in 1981 (a 6 month period) the majority of which were young healthy men with no priors medical conditions that would warrant it, and the majority of these people dying from diseases that were rarely seen or rarely deadly for this age group.

In 1981 we had practically no federal response which is completely unprecedented for any virus like that.

Your beef is with the Smithsonian not me.
And 121 people dying in a year is not cause for a massive Federal response. Almost 5xs as many people aged 25-34 died of Diabetes. No one knew what it was or that it would become what it did, with one notable exception. The population most at risk knew what to do to mitigate the spread and many failed to do so.
One could also legitimately argue that, based on the vitriol towards Reagan by the homosexual community, that warnings from their own community would be better headed than one from the Reagan administration. Basically, if they wouldn't listen to leaders of their own community, what makes you think they'd listen to someone like Reagan?
And finally, in the US, the way to arrest the spread of the disease is well known, yet it still persists. If those most at risk won't take the steps necessary to avoid catching the disease,no number of billions will help.

(06-09-2014 07:50 PM)Brokeback Flamer Wrote:  

(06-09-2014 07:20 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(06-07-2014 12:35 PM)Brokeback Flamer Wrote:  

(06-07-2014 10:29 AM)john01992 Wrote:  This thread only continues to amaze me as to how insanely stupid conservatives can be.

Yeah, because the Smithsonian, where i took the excerpts from, is sooooo Conservative.

it has to do with the accuracy of the information in your link. the issue is that the information in your link. the AIDS epidemic started in the middle of 1981. according to your link 121 people died of the virus in 1981 (a 6 month period) the majority of which were young healthy men with no priors medical conditions that would warrant it, and the majority of these people dying from diseases that were rarely seen or rarely deadly for this age group.

In 1981 we had practically no federal response which is completely unprecedented for any virus like that.

Your beef is with the Smithsonian not me.
And 121 people dying in a year is not cause for a massive Federal response. Almost 5xs as many people aged 25-34 died of Diabetes. No one knew what it was or that it would become what it did, with one notable exception. The population most at risk knew what to do to mitigate the spread and many failed to do so.
One could also legitimately argue that, based on the vitriol towards Reagan by the homosexual community, that warnings from their own community would be better headed than one from the Reagan administration. Basically, if they wouldn't listen to leaders of their own community, what makes you think they'd listen to someone like Reagan?
And finally, in the US, the way to arrest the spread of the disease is well known, yet it still persists. If those most at risk won't take the steps necessary to avoid catching the disease,no number of billions will help.

that is ignorance at best. anytime a brand new virus kills that many people and in that fashion there is a larger federal response. in the first 12 months of the AIDS epidemic the govt spent 9 million on Legionnaires' disease (killed less than 50 people) while spending just $1 million on AIDS

In response to the original OP....Ron was a great American. He was however no less flawed than anyone else. He was IMO...a good POTUS...not a great one. We can however.. hope that all of them are up to the "good" status. What we have suffered through with the last two...has been a debacle.

(06-09-2014 08:23 PM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  In response to the original OP....Ron was a great American. He was however no less flawed than anyone else. He was IMO...a good POTUS...not a great one. We can however.. hope that all of them are up to the "good" status. What we have suffered through with the last two...has been a debacle.

Very well said and QFT.

(06-09-2014 08:08 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(06-09-2014 07:50 PM)Brokeback Flamer Wrote:  

(06-09-2014 07:20 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(06-07-2014 12:35 PM)Brokeback Flamer Wrote:  

(06-07-2014 10:29 AM)john01992 Wrote:  This thread only continues to amaze me as to how insanely stupid conservatives can be.

Yeah, because the Smithsonian, where i took the excerpts from, is sooooo Conservative.

it has to do with the accuracy of the information in your link. the issue is that the information in your link. the AIDS epidemic started in the middle of 1981. according to your link 121 people died of the virus in 1981 (a 6 month period) the majority of which were young healthy men with no priors medical conditions that would warrant it, and the majority of these people dying from diseases that were rarely seen or rarely deadly for this age group.

In 1981 we had practically no federal response which is completely unprecedented for any virus like that.

Your beef is with the Smithsonian not me.
And 121 people dying in a year is not cause for a massive Federal response. Almost 5xs as many people aged 25-34 died of Diabetes. No one knew what it was or that it would become what it did, with one notable exception. The population most at risk knew what to do to mitigate the spread and many failed to do so.
One could also legitimately argue that, based on the vitriol towards Reagan by the homosexual community, that warnings from their own community would be better headed than one from the Reagan administration. Basically, if they wouldn't listen to leaders of their own community, what makes you think they'd listen to someone like Reagan?
And finally, in the US, the way to arrest the spread of the disease is well known, yet it still persists. If those most at risk won't take the steps necessary to avoid catching the disease,no number of billions will help.

that is ignorance at best. anytime a brand new virus kills that many people and in that fashion there is a larger federal response. in the first 12 months of the AIDS epidemic the govt spent 9 million on Legionnaires' disease (killed less than 50 people) while spending just $1 million on AIDS

You are right, it was ignorance. In 1981 they didn't know what it was. They did know what Legionnaires disease was and how to combat it. Although I would like to see a source for that number. Not saying it is wrong, but I'm thinking there will be a list of what was funded in 81 and how much.
But again, who would the homosexual community most likely listen to? Leaders in their own community or Reagan? In this case, neither. So whether they threw 9 million or 9 trillion, it would not have really mattered. I posted the Smithsonian article detailing the efforts of the homosexual community to get the word out about how it was transmitted. It was ignored. Reagan didn't cause it to be ignored.

Any time a President dies we've lost a great American, even if I dont agree with them politically. I'm disappointed in anyone that disagrees with that.