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USS Ronald Reagan Commissioning Tomorrow
wessman writes "Being an employee at Northrop Grumman's Newport News shipyard, I cannot help but be proud to see one of our products commissioned by the U.S. Navy, especially considering how long it takes to build a $5 billion Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. And I'm sure the other 18,000 workers here feel the same way. The ship is being commissioned Saturday, July 12 at the Norfolk naval base. It is obviously the most technically advanced carrier in the fleet, taking the term "hardware" to new levels. Pick a local story. From the Hampton Roads Daily Press: Anchors Aweigh, Changes Abound Aboard Carrier, Some Wanted CVN-76 Named after Daredevil Flier, 20,000 Expected for Reagan's Rite, USS Constellation Retiring Too Soon?. From the Virginia Pilot: The Carrier Reagan - Ahead of Its Class, Carrier Construction is All in the Family, Former President's Son Michael Reagan Excited about Commissioning."
So, what's the deal? Why are we honoring a man who destroyed America by naming the most expensive carrier ever built after him?
He was a president, and whatever his domestic failings, he does get the credit for ending the Cold War without WWIII.
Plus, I suspect that the darn things are just named after the president when they were first proposed.
It is simply wrong, indeed, dangerous, to name anything after a living personage, especially a politician. And double especially a President.
This is cult-of-personality gone extreme. It's a small step from this to granting titles to retired Presidents, to granting titles to current Presidents. Rather than an occasion for a solemn acknowledgement of a person's contributions -- as validated by the sweep of history -- we get partisanship, triumphialism, and politicking.
It might sound morbid but they should have waited until he was dead.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
I served on the U.S.S. Carl Vinson (CVN-70). I also spent a little time on the Nimitz after I came off active duty and was in the reserves.
What always impressed me about carriers- beyond the obvious, was that all that high tech is backed up by very simple means of getting the job done.
I worked in the V-2 division, arresting gear. We had electric motors that set the weight on an arresting gear engine for each trap. But each of those motors had a crank and they could be set by hand if power was not available.
Sound powered phones are still another slick- no power needed tool that impress the heck out of me.
But what everyone should remember - the single thing that make carriers so effective- are the people that run it.
.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Yeah, it would have been so much better for the world if the US had just turned a blind eye to the Soviet Union's goals of conquering Europe.
Considering the US has the most power, it's not surprising that we are involved in most of the war actions. The difference is that the US never starts anything, we just usually end up finishing them. And "start" does NOT necessarily mean dropping the first bomb.
As for me, I'm proud to live in a country that gives a damn and is willing to do something to back it up.
"Peace Through Strength" -- Ronald Reagan.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Believe it or not it takes more than a few days to plan and build one of these things. We were still in an economic boom (bubble, but who knew) at the time.
Plus, these things don't last forever and you don't wait until one of your existing carriers is toast to start thinking of buying another one. The defense of the country is an ongoing investment.
Ronald Reagan's pro-spending, pro-big-government, anti-labor policies are undoubtedly going to lead my beloved country to her death.
Wow, you take the cake. A liberal that can blame today's problems on a president from two decades ago. Nevermind that social spending far exceeds military spending, but blame the military spending for the deficit. Whatever.
I think Mr Reagan was a second rate President. He was surrounded by a bunch of shady characters.
But, Mr Reagan was an exceptionally decent human being, who cared deeply about the welfare of his nation, and for 8 years did the best he knew how to make this world a better place. That is more than can be said for many Presidents.
He is also a human being, and deserving of more respect than that.
HenryJamesFeltus.com
Yeah! He's up there with Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt! I mean look at everything he did! Saved the economy while he was in office only to put the country into a huge debt after he left! What other leader could do a great thing like that???
Oh yeah, forgot the [/sarcasm]
Heh, a coworker once called me a socialist for saying that Reagan wasn't the greatest president that ever lived. So I guess if you don't like Reagan, you must be a socialist! I love the logic of Republicans.
I dunno who it is
but it prolly is fhqwhgads.
Reagan was pro-defense (USSR hadn't fallen yet) but not really pro-big-goverment.
True, but remember that the concept of trickle-down economics was invented in the Reagan era as a faux-conservative justification for massive deficit spending. The idea was that heavy government purchasing would boost the economy without involving direct meddling. I guess it worked, sort of, at least better than whatever the Commies were doing (not that this wsa difficult) but it did lead us with that pesky deficit.
Reagan did also slash quite a bit of government spending in other areas, but he certainly didn't set much of an example for fiscal moderation. It remains to be seen whether Bush will surpass Reagan's record of bloat (or Clinton's record of lying. . . heh).
As far as Vietnam is concerned, remember that Reagan first became politically prominent campaigning for Goldwater, who didn't think JFK was tough enough. And NASA isn't exactly cheap, but it's nowhere in the neighborhood of military spending over the past few decades.
I did better. I watched the Iran-Contra hearings. To anyone but the most militant partisan, Iran-Contra was simply an attempt by administration officials to legally get around the pro-Communist Boland amendment. They didn't inform the President about what they were doing.
Reagan's first words on hearing about it were, and I quote: Ah, shit. Followed up, I believe, by: Those fools.
If Reagan had any shortcoming, it was that he put too much faith in the goodness and integrity of the people he appointed.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Did the thought ever cross your feeble little mind that perhaps some people love the country and its ideals but hate the leaders and their methods? Suddenly if you point out the problems you're un-patriotic, if you call for people to look at the problems in the system you're a commie, and if (God forbid!) you'd actually like to do something about the problems you see in the country you love, you should just shut up and leave.
Yeah, smart thinking. That Jefferson didn't like the British taxes? Then he should have left! The Northern states didn't like the South keeping slaves? They should all have left! Yeah, right on!
> A $5 billion aircraft carrier probably took nearly 5 years to build. During that 5 years, 18,000 jobs were created (from the /. article) and those 18,000 families had food on the table and contributed large portions of that $5 billion back into our economy, thus helping it greatly. Do you really think that even half of the $5 billion was on materials as opposed to labor? Labor is nearly _ALWAYS_ the most expensive cost in any production.
Woah, listen to the economics professor everyone. You have a point, but you could have got the same benefit to the economy by building a $5 billion gigantic rotating barbie doll. Just how big a barbie could you build with $5 billion. I don't know, but I bet I could figure it out with $1 million. Plus, this would provide lasting employment because you would need to make clothes for it. Include tourist money and we have a winner.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Love him or hate him, any compassionate person would not make fun of Ronald Reagan (or anyone for that matter) for suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Anyone with an ounce of civility would realize that its just crude. Its not funny whatsoever.
Its odd that so many liberals, so eager to tell everyone who compassionate they are, are so quick to make jokes about such topics.
[FromTheMorning]
As you can see here , it's lower (as a % of GDP) than it was when Reagan left office.
So I guess it's doing just fine.
More concerning is the massive amount of consumer debt that we have piled up over the last 15 years.
How 'bout letting us know which country you are from so we can ask you some smarmy, ill-informed questions?
The thing is is that the technology has moved on - the carriers are now the obsolete weapon. One small atomic bomb, whether it's delivered on a ship-to-ship missile or a torpedo will not only wipe out the carrier but take out its support group as well.
You are echoing a 1950's argument. With nukes [insert technology here] is obsolete. Yet Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Irag again were all conventional and carriers were invaluable. Also consider Cold War and other near-shooting incidents where carriers helped keep things calm, Cuban Missle Crisis for example. One of the various flaws in the argument you echo is that nukes are not like any other weapon. There is an extreme reluctance to use them. Use some conventional weapon on our carrier and we respond with conventional weapons on your military. Use nuclear weapon on our carrier and we respond with nukes on all your industrial and population centers, make an example of you. The preceeding Cold War policy has not been renounced as far as I know.
The US has to be prepared to fight a wide range of wars and carriers are invaluable in many scenarios. Many technologies, some quite ancient, are still valuable in this nuclear age. The spear for example. During the Iraq war I recall Marines clearing some marshy area with dense vegetation, bayonets fixed on their M16s.
Ignoring world domination for the moment, it may also come in handy when nobody wants to let us use there territory as a staging point. Sail the staging point to where it's "needed."
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Who in the hell asked the US to "be the world's policeman?
Recently?
Liberia.
Within the last few years?
Mozambique (Operation Atlas Response).
Timor (USGET and UNTAET).
Venezuala (Operation Fundamental Response).
Turkey (Operation Avid Response).
Kosovar (Operation Allied Harbour).
Central America (Operation Strong Support).
Kenya & Tanzania (Operation Resolute Response).
That just takes us back 5 years to the middle of 1998. Do some research of your own.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Quotes ... The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip." [1]
j html?articleID=10300367
In June 1989, Ronald Reagan said, "Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.
[1] http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.
Very few people understand the pure detterant force that us a Navy Carrier Group tho. Imagine Hitler trying to take the Rhine if a full air wing with enough power to wipe the force off the map was hanging around. Carrier groups are not designed to be subltle, or designed to kill a lot of people. They are just reminders that we can reach out and touch someone if they start misbehaving (ie, China and Taiwan, North Korea and South Korea and Japan, etc).
Sorry to be a realist, but people have been misbeahving since the dawn of time. Sometimes the only thing that works to avoid violence is the threat that you will get beat up more then your opponent.
This emotional tripe is so full of factual inaccuracies, I'm not sure where to begin...
1] "Like passing the largest tax cuts in history despite the Democrats controling the house AND the Senate".
BUZZ - Wrong. Reagan got control of the house for the first two years of the presidency, and - because of the presence of a highly conservative Democratic caucus from the south, he had effective control of the Senate. Oh, and in addition to "passing the largest tax cuts in history" (on the rich - naturally), he also passed the largest tax increase in history (on the poor). This is something a lot of anti-tax conservatives seem to pass over when reciting the faith.
"Reagan got more judicial nominees in than any president in history."
- TRUE, but meaningless. The country is bigger, so we have more judge positions to fill. You could also credit this to cooperation from Democrats, but the truth is that the GOP has been nearly as cooperative for Democratic appointments (sorry liberals). Between modern presidents, Clinton appointed 357 (or 44%), Reagan appointed 378. On a percentage basis though, no one beats George Washington - who appointed 100% of the judges in the country.
"He was the first president to put his foot down and stop the USSR."
- BZZZT. Wrong. That honor goes to Truman. In fact - there's this little "Doctrine" named after Truman having to do with the USSR, but I don't expect a typical dittohead to know that. They're so ignorant, they can hardly find the planet they're standing on.
You see, every President opposed the USSR. The only difference is the strategy they took: carrot, stick, or carrot and stick. From a global political perspective, it seems pretty obvious that none of these made much difference. It was the system of free trade and free expression that won over the long haul, not any macho posturing from a politician.
However, if you're determined to find a "sole cause", you would do worse that look at Japan. When that little upstart started beating the U.S. at its own game, suddenly the third world saw a model they could emulate, and the Russians began to loose faith. When Taiwan almost passed the GDP of the entirety of mainland China, even the Maoists did too.
It's a funny thing. McCarthy and the other 50s conservatives felt they had to emulate some of the methods of the USSR to destroy it. They had less faith in capatalism than many extremely liberal countries, including Sweeden - who proudly call themselves "socialist" even to this day.