Please forgive the query in my title. I’m a bit befuddled.
On my planet–certain modes of thought–ethical precepts–and common sense modes of action and response prevailed. Not seeing these–I’m wondering if (Star Trek) Scotty’s transporter beam has sent me to an alternate universe.
See–where I’m from–if someone endangers hundreds of thousands–or millions–of lives he’s condemned for it.
On my planet–someone who propounds and implemen’s ideas and approaches that make life more difficult for people–is reviled.
When someone endangers all of life–he’s not glorified.
Condoning or enabling–through action or inaction–the circumventing of laws established for the common good–results in a trial for these transgressions.
If someone’s approaches set the stage for and empower others to cause great harm in the future–that person’s judgment is called into question–albeit retroactively.
Impoverishing a country and the majority of its people is usually frowned on.
Going back on your word–denying truth–and causing psychic harm to victims signifies cruelty.
All this and more bad behavior elicit opprobrium–even if the person in question occasionally does something good or is personally amiable. The aggregate is what represents the being–not the exceptions.
By now you know I’m discussing the ludicrous levels of positive attention the late Ronald Reagan has received.
Sure–the country has not had the opportunity to properly honor the passing of a president in 31 years. Lyndon Johnson was the last one so honored. The crook–Richard Nixon–in an appropriate act of good taste–had requested he not be treated so. Perhaps there’s an understandable collective need for the pomp–circumstance–and associated imagery of the funeral.
But if deaths of leaders are to be meaningful–the good and the bad must both be presented–regardless of which one outweighs the other. Evaluation of a president’s life must be driven by an even-handed analysis of how his policies affected people’s lives. His legacy–likewise.
Ronald Reagan’s bequest to us is largely negative. His posthumous propagandists would have us believe whoppers like he won the cold war. If not for Gorbachev’s foresight and persistence–our planet might have become a smoldering cinder as a result of Reagan’s policies and spoutings.
Just as in the yin and yang–black-in-the-white/white-in-the-black–nothing is all good or all bad. Sadly–Reagan’s star is a black hole with some rare supernovae expiring as they get sucked in. A far more appropriate treatment of his passing would have been to speak of all that he did–truthfully–albeit with the unavoidable bias of the human aversion of speaking ill of the dead.
The media circus of the preceding two weeks and the use by presidential candidates of Reagan for their electoral ends can only be described as reprehensible–or at best–very tacky.