He produced his son, Ron Reagan, who is not afraid to burn in hell.
He’s right, too — you should all support the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
He produced his son, Ron Reagan, who is not afraid to burn in hell.
He’s right, too — you should all support the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
I am a life member! Thank you for showcasing this organization.
I had a fever dream he hosted SNL once in the 80’s.
Or was that a dream???
@sprocket – Not unless we had the same dream.
When I first read the title I thought: he died but not soon enough. Then I clicked on the title. You’re right his son is great. Plus dying isn’t something he did I guess since there is no real way around it.
The Reagan presidency was awful in many ways, but by present standards he’d be drummed out of the Republican party. He signed amnesty for 3 million undocumented immigrants, and of course engaged in diplomacy with Gorbachev that ended the cold war and led to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Also raised taxes quite substantially at one point. How times have changed.
Only an ivory tower liberal like you PZ could dismiss the accomplishments of such a great man. How very socialist to completely disregard the fact that Ronald Reagan
singlehandedly brought down communismwas ok in Kings Row.…I guess what I want to see here is a kookfight. Celebrity deathmatch!!!
“I guess what I want to see here is a kookfight.”
Not with Ron Reagan. I used to love to listen to his radio talk show, but it was canceled. The one reason I heard was that is he is just too nice.
It is so sad to read about his wife’s recent death.
Oh, of course not. I mean Americans who believe The Gipper singlehandedly brought down communism vs. the European Catholics who believe JPII singlehandedly brought down communism.
As Prez, Reagan did sign respectable treaties to reduce nuclear weapons and ban torture.
On all the other tentacles…
“Oh, of course not.”
Oh, sorry. I am kind of ignoring his father because I have lots of respect for Ron Reagan.
@shadowspade #4
Considering that how long his funeral/televised hagiography took I would say his death was not a good thing. Stem cells, a Futurama head jar, anything to keep him technically alive just to avoid that bizarre circus would have been preferable.
I’ve always hated how willingly this country seems to want to treat its presidents–elected officials, if anyone forgot–as demigods or emperors, and the fawning over his passing was one particularly embarrassing example.
It’s not unusual for sons to see the utter inanity of their fathers and choose an opposing path.
Fred Phelps? worst shitheel ever?
his son is a very well spoken atheist.
It’s just too bad W didn’t follow the same path after learning about his dad that Ron did.
I have been an FFRF member for years, and their monthly Freethought Today newspaper is a delight.
He also, when he was governor of CA, called in the National Guard and army helicopters to attack students and spray them with teargas… because they turned a parking lot nobody was using into a park.
he also turned in his fellow actors to the McCarthy panels when he was president of the screen actors guild.
he also traded arms for hostages, and used the profit to fund an illegal war.
no, sorry, the tiny TINY bits of good he might have had the opportunity to put his name to (though he sure as FUCK wasn’t responsible for coming up with the ideas), do not in any way come close to mitigating the pure evil fuck he was, nor come close to mitigating the endless disasters he signed off on during his tenure.
there was ONLY one worse president than Ronnie, and that was W. And that only because W has the larger death toll and economic toll on his tally sheet, not because they fundamentally did anything different.
I just love ad placement. In between this and the mustache-beer blog was an ad with “Discover more about the Book of Mormon”
C’mon Ichthyic, he wasn’t as corrupt as Harding, fumbling as Fillmore and bumbling as Buchanan. To should celebrate his brain death which happened almost 50 years ago.
QFT. Instead he took the opposite road; tried to take revenge on the guy that irked his father. After his daddy accomplished “Desert Storm” and kicked Saddam out of Kuwait, Saddam thumbed his nose at Bush (Sr.) to which W replied with “Desert Apocalypse” and smacked Saddam upside the … Mannnn did W have “daddy issues”
The deification of presidents in the US has always struck me as bizarre. Despite loudly shouted words like freedom, and democracy it is quite clear many people there really do not like those concepts very much. I think Sideshow Bob was right when he said:
Hey, he signed the Mulford Act as governor, and the Hughes Amendment as President. And post-Presidency he came out in support of the Brady Bill. But somehow these tidbits I find favorable in his record fail to garner equal appreciation from many conservatives I speak with…
because he was playing up to irrational fears of “black men with guns”
…which really was a mask for increased power for ATF.
I am actually kinda surprised, one that you have conservative friends, and two, that they don’t garner appreciation for these things, as they were driven by the right wing back then, and these days idiot conservatives appear to have no embarrassment at all about the shit they pull.
so, ironically, I AM surprised.
Now the Brady Bill? that was about the time Reagan really started suffering from his Alzheimer’s.
If this is the best you can do IN SUPPORT of reagan… the phrase “with friends like these” comes to mind.
Perhaps you should have started off with:
“I have not come to praise Caesar…”
Travis @20:
I don’t think it’s that. Look at the Pledge of Allegiance. In the US, children are taught the Pledge of Allegiance before really understanding what it means to pledge allegiance to a country. I think it’s (at least in part) a lack of understanding of what ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’, ‘justice’, ‘liberty’, etc mean. The words are used frequently, but an understanding of them is lacking. I’m reminded of a lesson my parents taught me when I was young: don’t use words you do not understand.
@16: “they turned a parking lot nobody was using into a park.”
Which is now one of the most dangerous places in Berkeley now and conveniently placed a block away from the dorms and the dining commons. PROGRESS!
Addendum: Granted Reagan’s treatment of the students and then chancellor, Clark Kerr, is inexcusable no matter what the end results of creating that park were.
One of the most dangerous areas in Berkeley, huh?
I guess everything is relative.
*Waves hi from the vicinity of North Richmond.*
Yeah… Berkeley. SCAAARY!
But don’t worry, it’ll be over soon.
Berkeley now wants to ban the homeless from the sidewalks… and among the biggest desires they are have and are aiming for is to replace those icky independently-owned and quirky shops on Telegraph with a shiny Target, and…
MORE PARKING!
So your scary park might just be a nice safe parking lot again before long.
PROGRESS!
I don’t know, if it cuts down on my friends getting raped, I’m all for it. It’s specifically that park too.
Also, it’s specifically that park. I like how you try to expand it to “OMG YOU CAN’T HAVE ANYTHING INTERESTING ABOUT BERKELEY WITHOUT A HOTBED OF VIOLENT CRIME A BLOCK AWAY FROM THE DORMS AND KEEP ALL THE OTHER INTERESTING PARTS OF BERKELEY.” I regret the wording of my first response, but seriously that park is dangerous. I should probably drop it and not have sent this further response because it’s off topic and I’ll let you have the last word.
OK, last word.
The first time I was sexually molested I was 11, grabbed by a stranger in the park a block from my house.
Around that time many other people were attacked there.
It took me several years to work up the nerve to go near that area again.
It never occurred to me that the solution was to get rid of the park or to make snide allusions to the people who first thought of creating that park as having been misguided in doing so.
Parks can definitely be dangerous places.
I’m not convinced that it’s because they are parks.
Fuck you
*sigh*