Talk:Ronald Reagan

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Bold?

Why is it that the bulk of the history on Ronald Reagan has been cleaned of all of his beliefs and stands prior to his corporate sponsorship, following his governorship...are people that unwilling to know what he represented before that?

Attributed quotes

Pretty sure most of these are fake. Let's remove them if sources can't be found. --207.207.127.233 18:03, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

There is a question about the quote "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem". It is accurate. I saw the speech. 68.177.12.38 19:02, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

It's undoubted that Reagan said the phrase, the issue is whether the quote is wrongly attributed to him. (Perhaps a campaign aide or other individual said it first, but then was later incorporated into Reagan's speech. This happened with Herbert Hoover's quote of "a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage" when speaking about the prosperity of the late 1920s. It was not his quote, but someone else's.) 69.107.86.8 03:24, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Cleanup tag

I added a {{people-cleanup}} tag to this article, although not for the usual reasons. Usually articles tagged for cleanup are deficient in structure (e.g., they don't distinguish between sourced and unsourced quotes, or the introduction is not structured in sentences). In this case, that's not a problem. What is a problem, though, is that many of the quotations listed in the "Sourced" section have wholly inadequate citations. For a figure as notable as a recent U.S. President, nearly all of whose public statements are a matter of record, simply giving the date of a speech is not sufficient to allow the quotation to be verified. 121a0012 17:35, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I'm usually more ruthless bold about this — I typically move everything without a reliable print, web, or audiovisual source to Unsourced/Attributed. I frequently do it even for print sources that aren't specific. (I'd move the New York Times, September 22, 1980, citation, because it requires sifting through several hundred pages to find the relevant quote. I had to do that the other day to find Woody Allen's "80% of success is just showing up" quote, and this is not a nice thing to do to a researcher.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 19:54, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I removed the cleanup tag, after making a large number of cleanups and improvements and clarifications. 69.183.187.206 04:49, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Misattribution

The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations attributes that "alimentary canal" quip to theologian and mystery writer Ronald Knox. And I imagine that many presidential quotes are actually the creations of various speech writers on the Presidents staff and they remain uncredited.

Carla

what's the source and where can I find it?

There's a clip that Thom Hartmann played on his Air America Radio show recently. It's Reagan as a Democrat (before he switched parties) supporting Hubert Humphrey for an election. It was a great speech and completely contradicts everything he stood for later. Quotes from that should be on this Wikiquotes page.

Helmut Hedd: I removed the quote from Canadian politician Jack Layton after Reagan's death. Layton's comments about Reagan aren't important or of much value. Layton was a minor politician in Canada at the time of Reagan's death and his comment was a run of the mill political comment made at the time of Reagan's death. Layton has no connection in any way to the Reagan era. As a political opposite of Reagan, neither the content of his comment, nor his stature measures up to the other leaders, past and present, being quoted about Reagan.

The article states that during the 1960's, Reagan quoted American Socialist Norman Thomas in a speech he delievered back in 1927. An American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for President on the Socialist Party ticket, said that the American people would never vote for socialism but he said under the name of liberalism the American people would adopt every fragment of the socialist program. ~Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine (recording) (1961) I'm looking for credible sources for the Norman Thomas speech > Primarily, I'd like to read the speech in it's entirety, and of utmost importance is finding a credible source for the quote (if any) or derivative of a quote supposedly made by Norman Thomas. Recently this quote has resurfaced and is touted as a quote (also by Norman Thomas) from 1944... I can find NOTHING with either date. -- above was unsigned

Anyone have a source for this one? I see lots of attributions on the net but so far haven't been able to find when and where he said it.

"The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away."

-- SpareSimian 22:50, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

"Socialized Medicine"

It may be important to point out in the article that the "socialized medicine" Reagan speaks of refers to Medicare, and not any Universal Healthcare plan or the like as it can (and has been) misinterpreted as. I'm not sure if "Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine" is any official title of a work or whether it is a name prescribed by someone who posted that. However, I do think if the latter, it should be changed to reflect what it was actually in protest too, and if the former, some mention should be made about its intention to refer to the aforementioned program.--74.69.58.3 02:55, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

First Inaugural Address Full-Text Link is Dead

That needs to be fixed Purplebackpack89 22:34, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Reagan at Pointe du Hoc on 6 Jun 1984 Image

I changed the caption to the photo to match the photo. The photo was taken on 6 Jun 1984 while Reagan was at Pointe du Hoc. The previous quote was from a speech Reagan gave earlier that day while he was at Omaha Beach up the coast from Pointe du Hoc.Ebt66 (talk) 01:24, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Quotes about Ronald Reagan

The section "Quotes about Ronald Reagan" is a collection of exclusive left-wing attacks on the former president. While this is informative, this page should be improved if this section was not so biased against the subject of the article. It could and should be balanced by positive quotes about the former president.

The "Eulogies" section is rather complimentary but that is expected. Generally we do not attack people at their funerals. 203.110.235.130 00:54, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

This, so much. It looks as if someone googled negative quotes about Reagan and posted them wholesale in this section. In a brief reading I only noticed the Lech Walesa quotes being positive. Also, many of the quotes seem to be from authors of sensationalist books that derived their purpose from attacking Reagan, instead of commentary from peers or contemporaries.--74.209.20.9 15:37, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Can you all list some of the names of people you think shouldn't be included in that section? As you have this now I don't see what the purpose of this topic. He was a very unpopular person in the world, especially among people who aren't right wing christians from the USA. I hope you'll help me add more quotes about him from women, especially ones who lived outside the US~ A23423413 (talk) 16:03, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Unsourced

• The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally — not a 20 percent traitor.
  • Said as chastisement to his staff for canceling an opponent's meeting with then Governor Reagan. Quoted on KCBS radio in 1972 by Reagan's gubernatorial chief of staff.^{[specific citation needed]}
  • Variant: That person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally; not a 20 percent traitor.

• I think the best possible social program is a job.

• Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly, and leave the rest to God

Nukes

Ronald Reagan considered nuclear weapons to be “totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization.”

At least, according to this quote I've seen endlessly repeated. Can anyone find an original source for this?—This unsigned comment is by 72.182.47.200 (talk • contribs) .

Quoting from Paul Lettow's Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (2005):

According to Matlock, Reagan considered nuclear weapons "totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization," and sought to abolish them. [1]

The source he cites is: "Matlock, PL interview, September 5, 2001, Princeton, N.J." [2] ~ DanielTom (talk) 17:19, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Socialists Ignore

This one is getting a lot of traction online which leads me to believe that Reagan never said it, “Socialists ignore the side of man that is the spirit. They can provide you shelter, fill your belly with bacon and beans, treat you when you’re ill, all the things guaranteed to a prisoner or a slave. They don’t understand that we also dream.”

So far I've been unable to source this one but I think it's significant that no attribution is showing up so far. John Simpson54 (talk) 19:22, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

This quote comes from one of Reagan's hand written stories. In the book Stories in His Own Hand: The Everyday Wisdom of Ronald Reagan you can see a large portion of the anecdote, on page 91. https://books.google.com/books?id=9ut8fnmwVkwC&pg=PA91 Progressingamerica (talk) 23:00, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

acid rain caused by too many trees

Where can I find a source for him saying acid rain is caused by too many trees?[3]----Bancki (talk) 14:13, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Energy conservation is "freezing in the dark"

Many sources quote Reagan as saying that energy conservation is "freezing in the dark" (google it). The quote doesn't appear here. Can it be sourced? It's notable enough that it belongs here either way, whether it's an actual quote of Reagan's or mis/attributed to him.

Anyways I'll try to do some digging. Miranche (talk) 17:43, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Quote

"We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.

What does this quote mean 2607:FEA8:BA5:B5E0:91D4:8881:3531:2388 02:49, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Quote analysis

We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken , society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions 2607:FEA8:BA5:B5E0:91D4:8881:3531:2388 02:53, 1 December 2022 (UTC)