To some he was a great president but others had a contrary opinion. \uffa0It seems that when someone dies people to often eulogize only the positive aspect of that individual’s life while dismissing any of his shortcomings. \uffa0\uffa0The bottom line is that when one departs this world, will others reflect and acknowledge the impact for better or for worse that you will leave behind. President Reagan is certainly no exception as a host of persons from around the world have come forward to express their feelings as their relationship or experiences with Ronald Reagan. <\/P><\/p>\n
Out of all these outbursts of sympathy, it is vital that those in position to significantly impact the lives of others realize that nothing last forever and that one day they too will be removed permanently from the stage of life. Therefore, one must always do the right thing. After all, isn’t it “righteousness that will exalt \uffa0a nation?” Too many of our leaders have ignored or pretended to be unaware of this fundamental biblical teaching. The end result of all this will be a nation void of all moral principles with a leadership whose agenda is their own selfish interest. This undesirable priority unfortunately will be at the expense of the masses who must suffer, be denied their basic entitlements, or be oppressed to appease their leaders.<\/P><\/p>\n
However, the President who inspires me the \uffa0most as to how greatness is a measure of a man is Abraham Lincoln. \uffa0He stated that “I do not want to \uffa0be remembered as a great president, but I want to be remembered as a great man.” \uffa0\uffa0\uffa0The two may not necessarily be connected as some of the great presidents such as Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler were some of the world’s greatest tyrants. \uffa0When push comes to shove they did \uffa0not do the right thing to preserve the \uffa0peace or improve the quality of life for all especially the small \uffa0man.<\/P><\/p>\n
When President Lincoln entered a liberated Richmond, Virginia, \uffa0the Confederate’s capitol city during the American Civil War, scores of \uffa0negro slaves now realizing that they were free knelt down before him and tried to kiss his \uffa0\uffa0feet. \uffa0\uffa0Not looking for any rewards or self-praise, President Lincoln informed his admirers that they must kneel only before God!<\/P><\/p>\n
President Lincoln had put everything \uffa0including his political career on the line by making a \uffa0total emancipation of all slaves as the platform for his re-election and to justify the civil war.<\/P><\/p>\n
President Reagan on the other hand, \uffa0was not popular with minorities, especially Blacks. It is so ironic that the political party (Republican of which both Lincoln and Reagan represented) that freed the negro slaves could muster up only single digit support from them during Presidential elections. His perceived \uffa0support of \uffa0right-wing conservatives including the racial apartheid government of South Africa was a slap in the face to those who sacrificed for civil progress. \uffa0His austerity program affected Blacks and minorities \uffa0tremendously as they were the beneficial recipient of \uffa0\uffa0many government \uffa0programs. They were the main beneficiaries of most government programs such as health care, education, job training, welfare, etc.<\/P><\/p>\n
This insensitivity to the cries of the needy and some of America’s most disadvantaged resulted in \uffa0hardship for an increasing number of Blacks and minorities. \uffa0\uffa0Yet money was easily found to build bombs and buy guns for the biggest peacetime military build-up in the history of the United States. Another controversial and often misunderstood aspect of Ronald Reagan’s Presidency was his economic policy referred to as “Reaganomics.”<\/P><\/p>\n
Basically, his policy was to cut taxes particularly form the rich \uffa0and reduce government spending to improve the economy. This supposedly would stimulate the economy by having the private sector using the “market force” of supply and demand take the risk to expand the economy. Failure to do so would eliminate any hope \uffa0of improving the economy in the \uffa0\uffa0long run. President Reagan referred to this form of “wishful thinking” to expand the economy as “voodoo economics.” \uffa0\uffa0”Voodoo economics” was the disastrous practice of some countries including the Bahamas to rely solely on the government to expand the economy. \uffa0\uffa0\uffa0Instead of encouraging the private sector to develop the economy, \uffa0it was the \uffa0government who over taxed the people to finance wasteful, mismanaged unprofitable ventures. \uffa0\uffa0Today’s Bahamas is still paying for those bad, nationalistic economic \uffa0policies developed under the PLP government during the 1970’s and 1980’s.<\/P><\/p>\n
Another one of Ronald Reagan’s questionable policy was one that impacted the Bahamas and questioned his integrity. \uffa0Despite Ronald Reagan’s claim of an all out war against drugs and “Just Say No” policy, the \uffa0public was stunned when it was revealed by “60 Minutes” that a plane shot down over Nicaragua \uffa0by the \uffa0Sandinista government who were fighting \uffa0the Reagan-backed Contras was leased by a \uffa0Bahamian drug lord. \uffa0To this day no one has satisfactorily explained the relationship between the Bahamian drug lords and the CIA , especially in light of the 1984 Commission of Inquiry investigating drug smuggling and corruption in the Bahamas.<\/P><\/p>\n
As someone who attended Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in January 1980, \uffa0I can \uffa0recall the great joy of \uffa0relief when it was announced during the ceremonies that after 444 days in captivity, the Iran hostages were \uffa0\uffa0on their way home. \uffa0\uffa0Hence \uffa0Ronald Reagan’s presidency was off to a good start as far as foreign policy was concerned.<\/P><\/p>\n
Undoubtedly his greatest achievement was ending the Cold War and tearing down the Berlin Wall \uffa0- the yoke of oppression. \uffa0For millions of \uffa0eastern Europeans this was their liberation from the “evil empire” that kept them imprisoned behind a nine hundred mile long electrified fence supported with automatic machine guns and attack dogs. Death \uffa0came to hundreds for trying to escape their harsh and oppressive existence behind the wall where provisions in treaties established by the United Nations entitling all persons to fundamental human rights were ignored for decades.<\/P><\/p>\n
The ending of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union is probably Ronald Reagan’s greatest legacy. With thousands of nuclear weapons far more powerful than the ones hitting Hiroshima and Nagasaki pointed at each other whose deadly fallout could have been unleashed at a moment’s notice, the world was indeed in danger of self-annihilation in which there could be no winners. A Doomsday Clock monitored how close the world was to an all out nuclear war. When the Cold War ended, the B-52 bombers and submarines that have been carrying nuclear weapons since 1953 on a 24\/7 cease to exist. This was a remarkable achievement considering not a single shot (or missile) was fired.<\/P><\/p>\n
Despite his many achievements, regrettably after his presidency ended, his mind deteriorated. \uffa0His experience and wisdom could have helped to reduce conflict and promote human rights in the world.<\/P><\/p>\n
Dr. Leatendore Percentie, DDS<\/B><\/P>
\nBoston, Massachusetts
\nJune 28th, 2004<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With \uffa0the recent passing of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, those who knew him had an opportunity to express their opinion as to his legacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245493\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}