Former president George H. W. Bush died

Moldomré

Moldomré

Dry Bowser
Since this board is called Entertainment and MEDIA, I suppose this qualifies as media. Former U.S. president George H. W. Bush died last night. I dunno how many of you are from the U.S., but just thought I'd get the word out there.

R.I.P.
 
Rest in peace, senior Bush. My condolences to his family.
 
Bush was the last surviving US President who fought in World War II. His plane was shot down during their attack on Chichijima, but he still completed his attack and was able to escape to safety until he was rescued by a submarine.

This man was a hero. May he rest in peace.
 
I'm not american but I heard of the man, and the fact that he was one of the USA's presidents.

May he rest in peace.
 
The oldest president to ever live.

Though Jimmy Carter can pass him in a few months.
 
May he rest in peace. My thoughts and prayers are going to his family.
 
@Deku Better reminder: "all world leaders ever have some level of 'blood on their hands,' and calling it out for one individual who wasn't a dictator is just mean-spirited."

You know as well as I do people are going to egregiously vilify him as much or more than they did Stan Lee.
 
Stan Lee wasn't complicit in the deaths of thousands during the AIDS crisis, Bush was. I don't even know why you're bringing Stan up in this.
 
"Complicit" would imply that he knowingly, deliberately caused the deaths of people suffering from an incurable, deadly disease. Thing was, back then, no one really understood the disease. As such, I seriously doubt any of the deaths from said disease were coupled with any maliciousness from him. And implying it was is vilifying.
 
The Reagan and Bush administrations largely ignored the epidemic and he did nothing to stop the spread of the "gay disease" stereotype fueled by his religious right base. More lives could have been saved if the government had been responsible and had also not vilified the LGBTQ+ community.

I'm not going to continue this debate since I think my point is clear.
 
Tenuously related....
As a bi transgender who is also somewhat "religious right" (but not fanatic by any means, more agnostic centrist really) I am going to throw out that I utterly hate the...group of letters that is "LGBTQ+." It's demeaning to keep tacking on letters needlessly when "Q," standing for "queer," was intended as all-encompassing of the supposed community. But I digress.

I think he's done less to hurt the community than the current movements purporting to support them, given the amount of sometimes-violent harassment I've seen courtesy of the latter, and the fact that, again, in those days no one really understood AIDS to start with. And as for "blood on hands" count, FDR caused more deaths deliberately, and as another President (this one having served 3.5 terms), he is comparable.
 
Political debate, here goes nothing.

That's disingenuous. To tar LGBT+ support groups and accuse them of "violent harassment" (whatever that is, this is just like people lamenting about antifa just because a guy punched a guy with a red hat) and compare them to a president in power who has the actual ability to address the AIDS epidemic but engaged in rank denialism in order to appease the religious conservative base is a highly flawed analogy. These outreach organizations, most of them, don't advocate violence or harassment and they have virtually no power. They can't change policy no matter what they do. They can try rallying for policy, but it's up to representatives in the end.

As for the "FDR" thing, that's pure "whataboutism"; it doesn't address the argument whatsoever. It's a deflection. I might as well bring up "but Christopher Columbus killed native Americans" or "but Hitler killed Jews" or "but Andrew Jackson did the Trail of Tears" "but X democrat voted for the Iraq War" "but Obama did drone strikes", whatever. I can reach into the depths of history to try to distract from the deserved criticism that Bush's appeal to social conservatism has led to needless deaths. No one is praising FDR. No one is defending FDR for his actions (cough Japanese internment cough is awful and very bad and has tarred his legacy). But this isn't about FDR, this is about Bush's legacy.

Your "in those days no one really understood AIDS to begin with" is false. Reagan outright refused to acknowledge AIDS existed despite pleas for more protected sex. You know why? Because it was thought as a "gay" disease and social conservatives at the time had no repercussions for expressing their bigotry for gay people and Reagan and Bush must pander to that demographic to get votes. The social conservatives were in power, and so they ignored AIDS until it became an epidemic. But even when it was an epidemic, social conservatives blamed the victim and further stigmatized people. In addition, even if the disease is not understood, the social conservatives did jack shit to help CDC epidemiologists study it because fuck gay people, that' s why.

"Why are you being so mean?" is a weak attempt for civility that disregards humanity and the reality of denialism, the denialism that stems from bigotry, that kills people.

Don't care if it's complicit, intentional, whatever, these two people, Reagan and Bush, ignored pleas for help and prioritized political expenditure over human lives, and I don't have any shred of regret for harshly criticizing them or agreeing with people that do.
 
I've been bullied in a few places by supposedly pro-LGTB people for what I am and have fellow trans friends whom I've seen get dogpiled on Twitter by people claiming to support trans people, because one of them had a so-called "anime avatar" (actually drawn by his girlfriend), leading up to one of these "supporters" out of nowhere accusing him of pedophilia, because apparently apples are not only oranges, but also celery. I do not take this lightly, and neither does he. This is on Autism Speaks or PETA levels of virtue signalling.

Anyways, while you do retain the right to criticize those two, I retain the right to point out that Reagan and Gorbachev together ended a 50-year-or-so-long Cold War, and as such prevented it from eventually escalating once and for all, hence basically ensuring that the destruction of humanity would not come from said conflict. A conflict that was at least partially started through actions of FDR in his final term. Anyways, I think ending that certainly deserves Reagan some respect.
 
I have no idea what the context and what led to those responses so I can't have an opinion either way. One supporter being an idiot or a troll doesn't make the entire movement terrible. I also am concerned about your unironic use of "virtue signaling" because it's a trite abused buzzword that lost all meaning as is on par as the laughable "SJW" buzzword. I wouldn't use it.

I think for the Cold War, Reagan was given too much credit. The Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse. Reagan just was there at a good opportunity (to be fair, he had the charisma to motivate) to make it seem like he ended the Cold War because it's easier to remember that than remember the multitudes of ways the Soviet Union is imploding, from leadership changes, collapse of OPEC oil prices, and Leonid Brezhnev's death. The end of the Cold War, the fall of Berlin, and so on, they all actually happened after Reagan left office. I respect Reagan for working with Gorbachev but that doesn't make me like him as a president either.
 
I don't blame the entire movement, by any means, and in fact I like "political correctness" at its base concept. But all evidence that I've seen from any source at all indicates, even accidentally, that many members are in fact easily-ticked-off homophobes/transphobes attempting to make themselves look not so, particularly as there are many people who would and will unironically call me a transphobe for saying I'm gender dysphoric.
 
I see your stance. But I'm not sure if you can easily say what their true beliefs are. I just advise caution in using the term "virtue signaling" as it's a phrase that lost meaning and usually means trouble whenever someone utters it. It doesn't add much to the debate and obfuscates communication since it's so abused; I always have to ask for clarification and specifics when someone I feel is intellectually honest uses it because a ton of intellectually dishonest folk use it a ton.

This is off-topic but I don't know what your experiences really are but it's not okay to be labeled as transphobic for calling yourself gender dysphoric (transgender =/= gender dysphoria) and any supporters of the LGBT+ movement that do call you this are a detriment to the movement.
 
Pretty much all psychologists that say anything on the matter say they're the same, though, and I'm inclined to believe the people with PhDs in the field. Honestly, most words relating for or against the movement have lost any to all meaning, especially the "x-ist" and "x-phobic" ones. Which is sad, because racism, homophobia, and transphobia are actual things, that don't need conflated with what amounts to a neutral stance, or in order to make a "if x belief, then y belief" fallacy. But if I personally have been a victim of the actual version one of these things that's turned into a stupid overused buzzword, I retain the right to use said word unironically. And I've been affected by both actual "transphobia" and actual "virtue-signalling."
 
Doc von Schmeltwick said:
Tenuously related....
As a bi transgender who is also somewhat "religious right" (but not fanatic by any means, more agnostic centrist really) I am going to throw out that I utterly hate the...group of letters that is "LGBTQ+." It's demeaning to keep tacking on letters needlessly when "Q," standing for "queer," was intended as all-encompassing of the supposed community. But I digress.
Click to expand...
as a genderfluid individual, I personally dont really care for being labled under the letter "Q" since i dont really feel like the word queer describes me at all. especially since some dipshits have used it used in a slur context to berate me. which is why i like adding the "+" onto it. but at any rate i certainly dont find it deameaning to add more letters since all thats doing is being more inclusive
 
And to me, it feels like they're just throwing more onto the pile to get more personal attention, calling attention away from what it was initially intended to refer to. Worse still some people legitimately want to add outright bad things to it. Anyways, I personally don't think that gender identity and sexuality should be thrown in the same boat like that, as they're really different things that seem a bit similar on the outset.

Buuut yeah. More digression.
 
Santa Yoshi said:
This is gonna become a serious fiery political debate so I'm gonna somehow get this off my unread replies list and skedaddle out of here so bye
Click to expand...
The debate is actually civil and it could be far, far worse. Anyhow, enjoy your young life but eventually you should learn about politics as some people do not have the luxury to just stop listening and back out when politics are involved. See, some people have parents who contracted AIDS, some people are gay, and it hurts me to see social conservatives ruining their lives, with their far-reaching consequences affecting gay people even today. The best response to political debate is to get educated rather than shirk away, and be prepared to confront this in the future.
 
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