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R.I.P. Margaret Thatcher

By Jeralyn, Section Foreign Affairs
Posted on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 11:30:19 AM EST
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Ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has died. The BBC is providing live coverage of the world's reaction.

She died after suffering a stroke at the Ritz Hotel, where she had been staying since December. She was 87.

She was Britain's first female Prime Minister, and served in that capacity from 1979 to 1990.

R.I.P.

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    R.I.P. Margaret Thatcher | 46 comments (46 topical)

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    My second favorite leader (5.00 / 2) (#1)
    by Slado on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 12:31:24 PM EST
    of all time other than Reagan.  

    She is the originator of my all time favorite quote..."Eventually you run out of other peoples money".

    A true conservative in every sense of the word.   It takes courage to stand up to criticism when you believe in something.

    She rescued a dying nation and set it back on the right track.   She also helped Ronald Reagan defeat communism.  Good LINK about her.

    RIP

    ..."Eventually (5.00 / 4) (#2)
    by NYShooter on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 12:35:37 PM EST
    you run out of other peoples money".

    After you've stolen everything they own.

    Parent

    Really? (5.00 / 1) (#3)
    by Slado on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 12:57:39 PM EST
    How so?

    You'd do well to read my link.  It is a very honest assessment of her rule and leaves open her legacy because it was truthfully incomplete.

    One can dislike reality and come up with clever quips to make oneself feel better but math is eternal.  You can't have it all and you certainly can't make everyone happy through taxation and redistribution.

    True leadership is making hard choices between changing or living with the status quo.  Thatcher found a status quo that was untenable and she fixed it.   Yes people were hurt but the greater good was achieved.  

    Parent

    Not just "other people's money" (5.00 / 4) (#5)
    by Yman on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 01:24:06 PM EST
    The thing that bugs me most about this quote ("The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money) is the suggestion that people advocating the spending of tax revenues are somehow exempt.  This isn't "other people's" money - it's a collective pool of all people who pay taxes (not just income taxes), being spent as we deem appropriate through our elected representatives.  I don't always agree with how the money is being spent, but - having just signed off on my tax return - I can assure you it's not "other people's" money.

    Moreover, advocating government spending (it's typically used to attack social program spending) does not make you a "socialist".

    Parent

    That's true (5.00 / 2) (#7)
    by sj on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 01:38:47 PM EST
    Moreover, advocating government spending (it's typically used to attack social program spending) does not make you a "socialist".
    Although I'm perfectly happy to be considered one.

    I just wanted to say that before leaving Maggie and Megan McArdle to Slado. But seriously Yman, since Jeralyn is adamant about not speaking ill of the dead, it's best to leave this thread to Maggie's admirers.

    Parent

    Not being able to ever (5.00 / 4) (#8)
    by jondee on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 01:53:36 PM EST
    "speak ill of the dead" is certainly going to cramp any in-depth discussions of the lessons of history..

    Parent
    Yeah, ... I'll do what I usually do... (5.00 / 3) (#15)
    by Yman on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 03:15:55 PM EST
    ... when someone I'm not particularly fond of passes ...

    ... follow the Bambie rule.

    Parent

    Our esteemed host's rule (5.00 / 2) (#26)
    by Peter G on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 09:53:53 PM EST
    is not that you can't speak ill of the dead.  It's not to speak ill of the very recently departed.  Reagan and Pinochet, for example, despite -- like Generalisimo Francisco Franco -- still being dead, have already passed from the cone of protective silence.  Maggie T will pass through soon enough also.

    Parent
    I stand corrected (none / 0) (#41)
    by sj on Tue Apr 09, 2013 at 09:22:37 AM EST
    Although that's what I meant, it wasn't what I said, so thanks for that.

    Parent
    Yeah, I knew that (none / 0) (#44)
    by Peter G on Tue Apr 09, 2013 at 12:05:00 PM EST
    but I had an important joke to make, so I had to pretend to be correcting you!

    Parent
    Ha! (none / 0) (#45)
    by sj on Tue Apr 09, 2013 at 12:16:47 PM EST


    Parent
    I really don't see how Jeralyn would ... (none / 0) (#12)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 03:00:41 PM EST
    ... have any problem with your critique and criticism of Mrs. Thatcher's policies, which were admittedly quite severe and caused a lot of pain to an awful lot of people. Just take care to ensure that your arguments don't devolve into disparaging personal remarks about the late PM, or into attacks on her personal character.

    Parent
    Therein lies the problem, my friend (5.00 / 4) (#14)
    by sj on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 03:10:21 PM EST
    I think her policies are a reflection of her personal character.  How could they not be?  So I'll leave this to her admirers.  

    Parent
    Well, I don't. (3.50 / 4) (#20)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 06:48:08 PM EST
    I happen to believe that given the benefit of hindsight and retrospect, many of the Thatcher government's policies were unduly harsh. In at least two instances, her government's stances on South Africa and Northern Ireland, the policy was outright wrong.

    It's been my experience that one's judgment tends to become clouded whenever differences of opinion are personalized, rather than argued for or against on the basis of actual merit or substance.

    I think whenever we attempt to dehumanize our opposition by reducing them to a caricature worthy of personal disparagement, ridicule and scorn, we run a real risk of not being able to see the forest for the trees ourselves, and we can lose sight of our original goals and objectives.

    Aloha.

    Parent

    What caricature? (none / 0) (#39)
    by sj on Tue Apr 09, 2013 at 09:19:13 AM EST
    What dehumanization?  What are talking about?  Have I disparaged her or scorned her?  I chose to say nothing.  I chose to leave it to her admirers.  

    And so I'm really, really annoyed at your unwarranted scolding.  So as long as you opened this door, don't you make assessments about the people you meet personally based on their priorities, and how they speak of others, and how they spend their time, and the energy they project?  How else do you choose your friends?

    I expect she had some fine qualities or she wouldn't have risen to Prime Minister, but one's character is largely expressed in one's actions.  

    Don't you put your energies where your priorities are?  Don't you think you express your own character with your actions?  I think I do.  Both in my virtues and my flaws.

    I'm sure sure her family grieves, and I wish them peace as I do all of those left behind.

    Parent

    I'm also sure sure (none / 0) (#43)
    by sj on Tue Apr 09, 2013 at 09:37:36 AM EST
    that a little proofreading would have improved this comment.  

    Parent
    Ah, but Maggie did not believe in society.. (5.00 / 5) (#33)
    by Dr Molly on Tue Apr 09, 2013 at 05:45:06 AM EST
    This isn't "other people's" money - it's a collective pool of all people who pay taxes (not just income taxes), being spent as we deem appropriate through our elected representatives.  I don't always agree with how the money is being spent, but - having just signed off on my tax return - I can assure you it's not "other people's" money.

    She was once quoted as saying that there is no such thing as society. Like all good wingers and libertarians, it was a hyper-individualist ideology that drove her. Society and citizenship and greater good were anathema. Pure selfishness.

    Parent

    Of all time other than Reagan.. (5.00 / 1) (#6)
    by jondee on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 01:29:35 PM EST
    I suspect ther's a chance somebody needs to get out more..

    And, the last I heard, not only has communism not been defeated, but a certain reputedly conservative administration put us in debt up to our eyeballs to them..

    Sold us to the communists, as it were..

    Parent

    LOL! Sold us to the commies! (none / 0) (#25)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 09:53:08 PM EST
    "Don't f*ck with my distribution costs! I'm making a lousy two-fifteen per segment and I'm already deficiting 25 grand a week with Metro. I'm payin' William Morris 10% off the top, and I'm giving this turkey 10 thousand per segment and another five for this fruitcake! The Communist Party's not going to see a nickel out of this g*dd*mned show until we go into syndication! ... I'm not giving this pseudo-insurrectionary sectarian a piece of my show, I'm not giving him script approval, and I'm sure as sh*t not cuttin' him into my distribution charges!"
    -- Lorraine Hobbs (Marlene Warfield), Secretary - Communist Party USA, Network (1976)

    But then, the communists never really were what they always thought themselves cracked up to be. Paddy Chayevsky sure had their number.

    Parent

    More of a Statement... (5.00 / 3) (#9)
    by ScottW714 on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 02:04:33 PM EST
    ...of how void conservatives are of leadership.
    My second favorite leader of all time other than Reagan.

    I still can't stop laughing when current republicans praise Reagan knowing damn well his tax raising A wouldn't even make it to the primaries today. Or how his administration sold Hawk and TOW missiles to Iran to fund the Contras in Central America.

    But I guess you have to go back to Lincoln to find a Republican president that wasn't an embarrassment.

    Parent

    you have to have a very powerful (5.00 / 4) (#10)
    by jondee on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 02:15:16 PM EST
    right wing mythic imagination to make skirting the constitution and covertly selling wmds to "our enemies" a negliable occurrence..

    But, as long as Dutch was "defeating communism" by stopping the Sandanistas from invading Texas and Orange County..

    Parent

    Britain was no more a ... (5.00 / 1) (#11)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 02:52:37 PM EST
    ... "dying nation" back in 1979, than the United States is presently considered such. Did the British have economic issues in 1979, when Mrs. Thatcher moved into Downing Street? Absolutely, without question. However, the primary cause of those issues was not trade unionism and socialism.

    Rather, those woes were clearly associated with the rapid contraction of the British Empire during the quarter-century following the Second World War. The Empire had collapsed under its own weight, because as the Boer War in southern Africa and two world wars proved, the expense of maintaining such vast and far-flung colonial holdings was both cost prohibitive and terribly burdensome for a mother country whose core population -- England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland -- was never more than 40-45 million people, even at the height of the imperial regime in 1920.

    Simply put, London could no longer afford its overseas commitments, and with each subsequent contraction of empire during the 1940s, '50s and '60s came a flood of expatriates and colonials to the home islands, because they were no longer welcome in those former colonial outposts where they had previously been living and working. In total, nearly 10 million people eventually made their way to England between 1950 and 1980.

    When Mrs. Thatcher assumed power in 1979, Britain was still struggling mightily to assimilate these recent arrivals -- mostly from southern Asia and Africa -- within the national fabric. Unemployment was high because Great Britain's population expanded by 20% between 1945-1980, and coupled with the country's transition to from a manufacturing to a service-based economy, there were not enough jobs being produced to cope with that rapid increase of numbers.

    The notion that it was trade unionism which ruined Great Britain was always nothing more than a partisan political argument designed to appeal to those voters in desperate need of a scapegoat, and was generally poppycock. Honestly, Britain's labor issues were also rooted in the contraction of her empire, and were never its catalyst.

    Aloha.

    Parent

    Nice rewriting of history (5.00 / 1) (#27)
    by Slado on Mon Apr 08, 2013 at 11:12:11 PM EST
    England was in complete decline and Thatcher resurrected it.

    I find it humorous watching liberals bemoan the destruction of miners while they do so gleefully today.

    Is it ok to do it through the EPA but not directly through confrontation of unions?  Must be hard keeping all the contradictions straight.

    Parent

    Not really (5.00 / 1) (#36)
    by Yman on Tue Apr 09, 2013 at 08:28:45 AM EST
    You can advocate for clean energy sources (and against dirty ones) while still arguing for good wages and working conditions for those engaged in the work ... particularly now, several decades later when we know so much more about the effects of dirty energy.

    Walk, ... chew gum.

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