NationStates Jolt Archive

This is the list of the 10 greatest presidents according to my government and politics book. Except Clinton. He's like, the 25th, but I added him as #10 anyway.

If you hate the US in general, just vote for the president you hate the least.

Where's Ronald Reagan? Was he not voted the best American of all time(or around the top spot) on the Greatest Americans?

Where's Ronald Reagan?

About 6 feet underground, being eaten by maggots.

About 6 feet underground, being eaten by maggots.
good call. My man Billy Clinton is by far my favorite Pres.

Your politics book sucks, both for pretending that you can classify political leaders in terms of greatness and for suggesting that any of those men deserves to even be mentioned in a sentance containg the word great with the exception of maybe two.
Why I hate all of them:

Lincoln: One of our nation's would be dictators, luckily Mr. Booth did this nationa great service by blowing the fuckers brains out. He didn't give a rats ass about the slaves and he instigated the civil war. He supressed the press and suspended the wirt of habeus corpus.

FDR: The last of America's would be dictatores, fortunatly polio reduced him to a pathetic cripple ande ventually killed him. Proved that by staying i office well best two terms. Got us involved in a war we had no business being in by provoking the Japanese and blatantly lying to the American people, all for neo-imperialism. A dirty racist who forced the Japanese either to fight or live in concentraion camps. Extended the power of the Federal goverment ireversably.

George Wahington- One of the better ones. A revolutionary who had the chance to be a dictator but turned it down. Established the good precedent of two terms. Unfortunalty, he wasn't above slavery, though he did release his servants upon his death.

TR: The father of neo-imperialism and big government in the US. Tries to gain more that two terms, but the people had some sense at least.

Harry Truman: Ok, what the fuck? This guy dropped the atom bombs, and while they probably caused less Japanese cassualties than an invasion, he, more than likely, just wanted to kill Japs. His goal in World War II was to kill as many non-Americans as possible, he said so himself, look it up. He was an incompant admistrator. He started the Cold War, and sent thousands of drafted Americans to their deaths in Korea. The only good thing he did was fire MacArthur, a military genius but a jackass none the less. A neo-imperialist.

Woodrow Wilson- Used misinformation, propaganda and outright lies to take the United States into a war where we didn't belong and, as most Europeans will tell you, we weren't needed. A dirty racist who segregated fedral offices. A neo-imperialist.

Thomas Jeferson:A revolutionary, who supported an uncommon number of personal rights for his time. Still, he was a slave owner, and a brutal one at that. Still, he kept us out of war.

John Kennedy: Would only be remembered as mediocre if he hadn't been good looking and assinated. A neo-imperialist and Cold War beligerant.

Dwight Eisenhower: He didn't know what the fuck was going on in his cabinet, so I can't really blame him for the neo-imperialist and Cold War intigating that went on during his two terms.

Bill Clinton: A farily good do nothing president, though definatly a neo-imperialist and an inconsistant man.

Where's Ronald Reagan? Was he not voted the best American of all time(or around the top spot) on the Greatest Americans?

That poll was crap.

1 Ronald Reagan
2 Abraham Lincoln
3 Martin Luther King
4 George Washington
5 Benjamin Franklin
6 George W Bush
7 Bill Clinton
8 Elvis Presley
9 Oprah Winfrey
10 Franklin D Roosevelt

Oprah Winfrey????????????????

That would be like declaring Celine Deion one of the greatest Canadians of all time.

It's a popularity contest, nothing more.

I would put Madison and Jefferson before Ronnie.

Your politics book sucks,*snip*

Lordy.

Why not try and name ten people yourself?

Where's Ronald Reagan? Was he not voted the best American of all time(or around the top spot) on the Greatest Americans?

Reagan was %12, although in retrospect I should have included him...

Lordy.

Why not try and name ten people yourself?
There aren't ten people worth naming.

Ok, what the fuck? This guy dropped the atom bombs, and while they probably caused less Japanese cassualties than an invasion, he, more than likely, just wanted to kill Japs. His goal in World War II was to kill as many non-Americans as possible, he said so himself, look it up. He was an incompant admistrator. He started the Cold War, and sent thousands of drafted Americans to their deaths in Korea. The only good thing he did was fire MacArthur, a military genius but a jackass none the less. A neo-imperialist.

I'd rather kill 150,000 enemies than lose 1,000,000 Marines. But I guess that's just me.

As for incompetence, his re-organization of the Defense Department was rather benefical.

TR: The father of neo-imperialism and big government in the US. Tries to gain more that two terms, but the people had some sense at least.

I like our National Parks and Anti-Trust Act, thank you very much. Oh yea, and that little Panama Canal helped international trade quite a bit.

Woodrow Wilson- Used misinformation, propaganda and outright lies to take the United States into a war where we didn't belong and, as most Europeans will tell you, we weren't needed. A dirty racist who segregated fedral offices. A neo-imperialist.

Income Taxes and the Selective Service Act came in handy, though.

Thomas Jeferson:A revolutionary, who supported an uncommon number of personal rights for his time. Still, he was a slave owner, and a brutal one at that. Still, he kept us out of war.

And he helped initiate an Embargo Act that damaged the American Economy.

Perhaps you should look on the bright side more often.

-snip-

Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

Hmmm maybe he needs to move his bed around. He tends to do that quite often. ;)

Who's the favourite president that's a sex machine to all the chicks?

TAFT!

Canyadiggit?

Lincoln: One of our nation's would be dictators, luckily Mr. Booth did this nationa great service by blowing the fuckers brains out. He didn't give a rats ass about the slaves and he instigated the civil war. He supressed the press and suspended the wirt of habeus corpus.

FDR: The last of America's would be dictatores, fortunatly polio reduced him to a pathetic cripple ande ventually killed him. Proved that by staying i office well best two terms. Got us involved in a war we had no business being in by provoking the Japanese and blatantly lying to the American people, all for neo-imperialism. A dirty racist who forced the Japanese either to fight or live in concentraion camps. Extended the power of the Federal goverment ireversably.

George Wahington- One of the better ones. A revolutionary who had the chance to be a dictator but turned it down. Established the good precedent of two terms. Unfortunalty, he wasn't above slavery, though he did release his servants upon his death.

TR: The father of neo-imperialism and big government in the US. Tries to gain more that two terms, but the people had some sense at least.

Harry Truman: Ok, what the fuck? This guy dropped the atom bombs, and while they probably caused less Japanese cassualties than an invasion, he, more than likely, just wanted to kill Japs. His goal in World War II was to kill as many non-Americans as possible, he said so himself, look it up. He was an incompant admistrator. He started the Cold War, and sent thousands of drafted Americans to their deaths in Korea. The only good thing he did was fire MacArthur, a military genius but a jackass none the less. A neo-imperialist.

Woodrow Wilson- Used misinformation, propaganda and outright lies to take the United States into a war where we didn't belong and, as most Europeans will tell you, we weren't needed. A dirty racist who segregated fedral offices. A neo-imperialist.

Thomas Jeferson:A revolutionary, who supported an uncommon number of personal rights for his time. Still, he was a slave owner, and a brutal one at that. Still, he kept us out of war.

John Kennedy: Would only be remembered as mediocre if he hadn't been good looking and assinated. A neo-imperialist and Cold War beligerant.

Dwight Eisenhower: He didn't know what the fuck was going on in his cabinet, so I can't really blame him for the neo-imperialist and Cold War intigating that went on during his two terms.

Bill Clinton: A farily good do nothing president, though definatly a neo-imperialist and an inconsistant man.

Lincoln: While AL did some fairly undemocratic things, he pushed us through the Civil War at the cost of his own health and eventually, life. Apearently, you haven't read a history book in your life, otherwise you would have seen that that Lincoln's election simply was the icing on the cake to a conflict that had been brewing under the surface of America for several decades.

FDR: A racist, yes, but how many white Americans weren't one at the time? American involvment in WWII would have been impossible to avoid (as was the case in the Great War) because of Japenese aggression in China and the Pacific, although the war in Europe could have been avoided.

George Wahington: Good call.

TR: All major nations were imperialist back then, TR simply set us on the track to becoming a world power.

Harry Truman: While he might have not cared for Japs, Truman did NOT start the Cold War. You show you're lack of knowledge of world history when you say this. Regardless of who was president, the Cold War would have started anyways.

Woodrow Wilson- He tried pretty hard to keep us out, but with the German submarine warfare policy, I doubt he would have sat and waited.

Thomas Jeferson: What war? 1812? We were kinda pulled into that by the British impressment of U.S. sailors.

John Kennedy: Still, he promoted civil rights in country and helped to defuse the crisis in Cuba in the 60s.

Dwightie: A mirror of Ulysesses S. Grant. Nuff said.

Bill Clinton: Camp David accords and Bosnia. What was in it for us? Although you have a point with the inconsistant man remark, he didn't have to lie to us about his...habits...heh.

Out of those 10, I place them in the following order:

1) Slick Willy
2) FDR (actually, he ties for first. But since we can't choose multiple polls, he's second)
3) John Kennedy
4) George Washington
5) Thomas Jefferson
6) Abraham Lincoln
7) Theodore Roosevelt
8) Harry Truman
9) Woodrow Wilson
10) Little Ike (Dwight. His parent's called him that as a kid. I did a report on him in Government Economics.)

Lincoln: One of our nation's would be dictators, luckily Mr. Booth did this nationa great service by blowing the fuckers brains out. He didn't give a rats ass about the slaves and he instigated the civil war. He supressed the press and suspended the wirt of habeus corpus.

One of the greatest ironies of the civil war is that lincoln would have been far easier on the south then the radical reconstruction was.

I'd rather kill 150,000 enemies than lose 1,000,000 Marines. But I guess that's just me.
We shouldn't have even been in that war in the first place.
As for incompetence, his re-organization of the Defense Department was rather benefical.
I am firmly against any strengthining of America's standing army.
I like our National Parks and Anti-Trust Act, thank you very much. Oh yea, and that little Panama Canal helped international trade quite a bit.
I don't like the fact that the federal government owns so much land. It's disgusting. As for anti-trust laws, there wer far better ways on dealing with that that wouldn't have stregnthed the feds.
Income Taxes and the Selective Service Act came in handy, though.
Income taxes and "Selctive Service" are both ways in which the federal government has enslaved the American People.
And he helped initiate an Embargo Act that damaged the American Economy.
That embargo kept us out of war.
Perhaps you should look on the bright side more often.
There is no bright side to politics.

None of them.

One of the greatest ironies of the civil war is that lincoln would have been far easier on the south then the radical reconstruction was.
Do you have a time machine? He was a brutal man who gave the full go ahead to Sherman's genocide.

Lincoln: While AL did some fairly undemocratic things, he pushed us through the Civil War at the cost of his own health and eventually, life. Apearently, you haven't read a history book in your life, otherwise you would have seen that that Lincoln's election simply was the icing on the cake to a conflict that had been brewing under the surface of America for several decades.
It may have been a powder keg, but he lit it.
FDR: A racist, yes, but how many white Americans weren't one at the time? American involvment in WWII would have been impossible to avoid (as was the case in the Great War) because of Japenese aggression in China and the Pacific, although the war in Europe could have been avoided.
I'm sure the Japanes would have been willing to buy those Islands from us. They could have out them to much better use, anyway.
TR: All major nations were imperialist back then, TR simply set us on the track to becoming a world power.
We didn't and still don't need to be a world power.
Woodrow Wilson- He tried pretty hard to keep us out, but with the German submarine warfare policy, I doubt he would have sat and waited.
We could have followed Jefferon's example and enacted full embargo on Europe.
John Kennedy: Still, he promoted civil rights in country and helped to defuse the crisis in Cuba in the 60s.
He promoted civil rights becasue it was politically expediant. He didn't get involved until after Burmingham. He was a racist himself. He casued the crises in Cuba, ever heard of the Bay of Pigs?

Your politics book sucks, both for pretending that you can classify political leaders in terms of greatness and for suggesting that any of those men deserves to even be mentioned in a sentance containg the word great with the exception of maybe two.
Why I hate all of them:

Lincoln: One of our nation's would be dictators, luckily Mr. Booth did this nationa great service by blowing the fuckers brains out. He didn't give a rats ass about the slaves and he instigated the civil war. He supressed the press and suspended the wirt of habeus corpus.

FDR: The last of America's would be dictatores, fortunatly polio reduced him to a pathetic cripple ande ventually killed him. Proved that by staying i office well best two terms. Got us involved in a war we had no business being in by provoking the Japanese and blatantly lying to the American people, all for neo-imperialism. A dirty racist who forced the Japanese either to fight or live in concentraion camps. Extended the power of the Federal goverment ireversably.

George Wahington- One of the better ones. A revolutionary who had the chance to be a dictator but turned it down. Established the good precedent of two terms. Unfortunalty, he wasn't above slavery, though he did release his servants upon his death.

TR: The father of neo-imperialism and big government in the US. Tries to gain more that two terms, but the people had some sense at least.

Harry Truman: Ok, what the fuck? This guy dropped the atom bombs, and while they probably caused less Japanese cassualties than an invasion, he, more than likely, just wanted to kill Japs. His goal in World War II was to kill as many non-Americans as possible, he said so himself, look it up. He was an incompant admistrator. He started the Cold War, and sent thousands of drafted Americans to their deaths in Korea. The only good thing he did was fire MacArthur, a military genius but a jackass none the less. A neo-imperialist.

Woodrow Wilson- Used misinformation, propaganda and outright lies to take the United States into a war where we didn't belong and, as most Europeans will tell you, we weren't needed. A dirty racist who segregated fedral offices. A neo-imperialist.

Thomas Jeferson:A revolutionary, who supported an uncommon number of personal rights for his time. Still, he was a slave owner, and a brutal one at that. Still, he kept us out of war.

John Kennedy: Would only be remembered as mediocre if he hadn't been good looking and assinated. A neo-imperialist and Cold War beligerant.

Dwight Eisenhower: He didn't know what the fuck was going on in his cabinet, so I can't really blame him for the neo-imperialist and Cold War intigating that went on during his two terms.

Bill Clinton: A farily good do nothing president, though definatly a neo-imperialist and an inconsistant man.

Oh, boy, where do I start.
Lincoln: The nation's greatest president. Kept the union together, did his best to advance the 13th Amendment, which guaranteed civil rights to the newly freed slaves. A common misconception is that Lincoln made the Civil War inevetable, while it was actually his predecessor, James Buchanan, who made it inevatable. Buchanan is at the very bottom of the list, by the way. Lincoln, wasn't even on the ballot in the southern states in 1860.

FDR: His New Deal alleviated the Great Depression and brought into reality progressive programs like Social Security, that now every civilised first-world nation has. Whether he provoked or didn't provoke the Japanese, they attacked us first, and we had every right to protect ourselves. Furthermore, the Japanese had a long history of aggression in China. *See Nanking Massacre* In any case, the United States had a moral obligation to help the Allies in WW2, even before Pearl Harbor. Or would you rather have the fascists dominate Europe, and the sadistic militarists dominate Asia? Segregating the Japanese Americans is definetely a taint on his record, but if he didn't, many Japanese Americans would have been killed by redneck vigilantes. A classic case of damned if you don't damned if you do.

George Washington: No real argument here

TR: I'm no huge fan of his either, but he did meditate peace between Japan and Russia in 1905. And he did establish national parks that would be free from corporate exploitation.

Harry Truman: Dropping the big one probably wasn't necessary, but don't judge him just on that. He didn't start the Cold War, the USSR did. He suggested a multinational (communists included) weapons inspection agency that would work to prevent nuclear proliferation, but the USSR turned down a golden opportunity because they feared "capitalist exploitation". What a load of bullshit. The North Koreans attacked first, and we had to defend democratic South Korea. Harry Truman did just that.

Not bad for a failed suit shop owner.

Woodrow Wilson: He didn't create the war lust in America, the yellow press did. And the Germans sinking ships willy-nilly didn't help either. He is responsible for the League Of Nations, prototype of the United Nations. So, you see, he wanted to foster piece and stability, only to be stabbed in the back by the US Senate, which refused to let America into the League. "We weren't needed" in WW1? For the Allies, it was a matter of time before they fell, and the French army was very close to mutiny in 1917. By this time, Russia had been defeated, and the Germans had developed very effective stormtrooper tactics. Sure, the Allies had tanks, but these weren't very dependable.

Thomas Jefferson: No real arguments here.

John F. Kennedy: Did a good job during the Cuban missile crisis, created the Peace Corps, and passed a civil rights bill. For that, I forgive the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

Dwight Eisenhower: Ended the Korean War, and chose not to get us into Vietnam in 1957. Probably could have done something about McCarthy though...

Bill Clinton: A masterful politician who was willing to compromise with the Republican controlled Congress to get things done. Too bad his universal heath care initiative didn't pass.

Conclusion: So, you see, these are all great presidents, some greater than others, but all great presidents neverthless. The historians know what they're talking about, and they know their facts, unlike you.

Where's Nixon?

Al Gore

Why bother getting out of bed in the morning. Hey, fuck progress, fuck history, fuck having a spine, and hey, fuck the rest of the world! We'll be farmers, safe on our northern shell while military dictatorships carve up the world.

Whether you choose to accept it or not, America's presidents are some of the greatest leaders that the world has ever known. Granted, they are human, and not perfect, and a great many of them are incompetent and even criminally negligent, but a greater portion of these men have helped America to become one of the most progressive, influental, and powerful nations this world has ever seen.

We shouldn't have even been in that war in the first place.

I am firmly against any strengthining of America's standing army.

I don't like the fact that the federal government owns so much land. It's disgusting. As for anti-trust laws, there wer far better ways on dealing with that that wouldn't have stregnthed the feds.

Income taxes and "Selctive Service" are both ways in which the federal government has enslaved the American People.

That embargo kept us out of war.

There is no bright side to politics.

I can't help but be amazed at your stupidity. Americans shouldn't have been in WW2? You DO know that after Europe and Asia fell North America would have been attacked on BOTH sides by the Germans, Italians and Japanese? You DO know that was probably the only war in human history necessary to fight? Fool. You'd be speaking German or Japanese now under a repressive dictatorship if those government leaders and millions of soldiers didn't die for your ass.

Where's Nixon?

You gotta be kidding right? Ever heard of WATERGATE?

He is by far the absolute worst president in U.S. history (in my opinioin, G.W. Bush is second worst). If he didn't do certaint things in his presidency, he probably would've gone down in history as one of the greatest.

Why bother getting out of bed in the morning. Hey, fuck progress, fuck history, fuck having a spine, and hey, fuck the rest of the world! We'll be farmers, safe on our northern shell while military dictatorships carve up the world.

Whether you choose to accept it or not, America's presidents are some of the greatest leaders that the world has ever known. Granted, they are human, and not perfect, and a great many of them are incompetent and even criminally negligent, but a greater portion of these men have helped America to become one of the most progressive, influental, and powerful nations this world has ever seen.

My point exactly

My point exactly

I agree with him too. Something good always comes out of something bad.

Why bother getting out of bed in the morning. Hey, fuck progress, fuck history, fuck having a spine, and hey, fuck the rest of the world! We'll be farmers, safe on our northern shell while military dictatorships carve up the world.
Sounds good to me.
Whether you choose to accept it or not, America's presidents are some of the greatest leaders that the world has ever known. Granted, they are human, and not perfect, and a great many of them are incompetent and even criminally negligent, but a greater portion of these men have helped America to become one of the most progressive, influental, and powerful nations this world has ever seen.
What Patiotic nonsense. America's presidents are a pack of theives, liars, thugs, mass murderers and cowards, just like every other nation's leaders.
I can't help but be amazed at your stupidity. Americans shouldn't have been in WW2? You DO know that after Europe and Asia fell North America would have been attacked on BOTH sides by the Germans, Italians and Japanese? You DO know that was probably the only war in human history necessary to fight? Fool. You'd be speaking German or Japanese now under a repressive dictatorship if those government leaders and millions of soldiers didn't die for your ass.
Sometimes I weep for America's education system. First of all, the only war America need to fight was the Revolution, though it did fail in the end.
Appeasing Japan would have been incredibly easy, just sell our Pacific territories. As for Germany, Russia would have ensured that the situation remained stable. You can't very well send most of your armed forces halfway 'round the world with a hostile industrial power on your doorstep.

You gotta be kidding right? Ever heard of WATERGATE?
Which is exactly what made him one of the greatest. Politicians are scum, presidents are some of the worst, and Nixon knew it. He knew what he was about, and the people know what he was about, which gives him higher marks than anyone else will manage.

And I'll throw my support with Undelia, with three exceptions:
Clinton was a worthless fuck. His method of dealing with the world managed to be both limp wristed and ham-handed simultaneously, his sackless approach to the world set up a lot of the terror crap that's given Bush his start, and he has a personality cult built around him.
FDR was terrible, but WWII was ultimately neccessary. However, I don't like the way he went about getting into it. We should have moved earlier, rather then first piddle around with selective embargoes and arms smuggling.
Truman dropping the bomb is a Good thing, but the fact that he proceeded to let the Cold War begin is unforgiveable. After WWII, America was the top shit, much of Europe was in ruins, and Russia was setting up the contruction of its war machine. If there had been a move to quash USSR ambitions then, we might have been successful in saving the massive amount of money and life that was poured into fighting the "ruskies", we definitely wouldn't have nukes all over the place, and the current "War on Terror" would never have happened (no USSR would mean no sponsoring Saddam, the Taliban, the Contras, etc). Even if the Russians had to be left alone, they sure as Hell shouldn't have been handed so much territory as repiritions.

I voted FDR personally. Probably that being a Brit, I think the president that led America into WW2 is probably one of the most imprtant ones in recent history. The US was kinda vital militarily and economically to the allies. Might not of lost without military help, but the world would have been far worse place if the Americans hadnt joined the "shooting" war. Without economic and industrial help, the other allies would have almost certainly been screwed.

And suggesting Woodrow Wilson should have put a complete embargo on Europe duriing WW1. Great, another victory lost to the Allies. The French and British required financial and incudustrial help from the US to fight that war, as they almost exhausted themselves doing so. And Britain relied on many food supplies from the States. With a complete embargo set up the Germans would have almost certainly won. Militarily America was less important. By the time the Americans had come in significant numbers the war had essentially ben won, but without the Americans the war would have lasted longer, as the 1918 German offensive was an attempt to win the war before the Americans arrived in great numbers. The failure of that offensive spent the German army as an effective force, and eventually led to them surrendering later that year.

Oh, and the Cold War was inevitable, no matter who would have been President. Neither the Western Allies or Russia trusted the other further than to defeat the Germans. The only other possibilty would have been open war, but that would have been worse. "OK, we have been fighting the Germans for 6 bloody years. Now we are going to fight the Russians." "But I thought they were our allies?" "Yeah, but they are commies, lets go" "But Europe is completely ruined. Britain and France are exhausted, Germany is a big ruin and America has been preparing for peace." "Doesnt matter, we cant trust those damn commies, so we have to kill them."

Oh, and the Russians were not given much territory (compared to its side. I suspect many older poles would disagree it wasnt much land) as repreations. Eastern parts of Poland were given (and in compensation Poland was given large parts of Germany). What Russia had control over was its sphere of influence, just like America, Britain and France had theirs to the West. That deal had been made during the war, and wass more to do with controlling the post war Europe for the short term. The Eastern block developed as Stalin never wanted Russia to be attacked like it was by Germany ever again. He wanted "Buffer states" to protect Russia.

Sounds good to me.

What Patiotic nonsense. America's presidents are a pack of theives, liars, thugs, mass murderers and cowards, just like every other nation's leaders.

Sometimes I weep for America's education system. First of all, the only war America need to fight was the Revolution, though it did fail in the end.
Appeasing Japan would have been incredibly easy, just sell our Pacific territories. As for Germany, Russia would have ensured that the situation remained stable. You can't very well send most of your armed forces halfway 'round the world with a hostile industrial power on your doorstep.

So you wouldn't mind living in ignorance and poverty? Your arrogance is astounding. Here you are telling us we don't know our history, and then you go on telling us that appeasment would have worked. Oh, sure sell, Hawaii to the Japs, then Alaska, who needs that barren wasteland, right? Might just as well give away California, there's thousands of people of Japanese descent there anyway. Appeasment is like feeding a cannibal a finger to save an arm.

Sometimes I weep the fact that millions of brave soldiers had to give up their lives for ungrateful wretches like you.

I think we should have moved to take out the Bolsheviks in Russia before they even had a chance to get their act together. Wasn't there a provisional democracy in Russia when the communists took over?

What Patiotic nonsense. America's presidents are a pack of theives, liars, thugs, mass murderers and cowards, just like every other nation's leaders.

Yes, I'm a Patiot. I'm also a Patriot. You just hate your country and every single action it has taken after the Revolutionary War.

And suggesting Woodrow Wilson should have put a complete embargo on Europe duriing WW1. Great, another victory lost to the Allies. The French and British required financial and incudustrial help from the US to fight that war, as they almost exhausted themselves doing so. And Britain relied on many food supplies from the States. With a complete embargo set up the Germans would have almost certainly won.
If the Germans had won WWI, the world would have been a much better place. Think about it, no German anger, no Nazis; no Nazis, no WWII; no WWII, no Cold War; no Cold War, no Terrorism

Your politics book sucks, both for pretending that you can classify political leaders in terms of greatness and for suggesting that any of those men deserves to even be mentioned in a sentance containg the word great with the exception of maybe two.
Why I hate all of them:

Lincoln: One of our nation's would be dictators, luckily Mr. Booth did this nationa great service by blowing the fuckers brains out. He didn't give a rats ass about the slaves and he instigated the civil war. He supressed the press and suspended the wirt of habeus corpus.

FDR: The last of America's would be dictatores, fortunatly polio reduced him to a pathetic cripple ande ventually killed him. Proved that by staying i office well best two terms. Got us involved in a war we had no business being in by provoking the Japanese and blatantly lying to the American people, all for neo-imperialism. A dirty racist who forced the Japanese either to fight or live in concentraion camps. Extended the power of the Federal goverment ireversably.

George Wahington- One of the better ones. A revolutionary who had the chance to be a dictator but turned it down. Established the good precedent of two terms. Unfortunalty, he wasn't above slavery, though he did release his servants upon his death.

TR: The father of neo-imperialism and big government in the US. Tries to gain more that two terms, but the people had some sense at least.

Harry Truman: Ok, what the fuck? This guy dropped the atom bombs, and while they probably caused less Japanese cassualties than an invasion, he, more than likely, just wanted to kill Japs. His goal in World War II was to kill as many non-Americans as possible, he said so himself, look it up. He was an incompant admistrator. He started the Cold War, and sent thousands of drafted Americans to their deaths in Korea. The only good thing he did was fire MacArthur, a military genius but a jackass none the less. A neo-imperialist.

Woodrow Wilson- Used misinformation, propaganda and outright lies to take the United States into a war where we didn't belong and, as most Europeans will tell you, we weren't needed. A dirty racist who segregated fedral offices. A neo-imperialist.

Thomas Jeferson:A revolutionary, who supported an uncommon number of personal rights for his time. Still, he was a slave owner, and a brutal one at that. Still, he kept us out of war.

John Kennedy: Would only be remembered as mediocre if he hadn't been good looking and assinated. A neo-imperialist and Cold War beligerant.

Dwight Eisenhower: He didn't know what the fuck was going on in his cabinet, so I can't really blame him for the neo-imperialist and Cold War intigating that went on during his two terms.

Bill Clinton: A farily good do nothing president, though definatly a neo-imperialist and an inconsistant man.


Lincoln: Led us through the civil war, he used something that is lawful called 'martial law', the north was threatened and was almost overran. Good decision on his part. As for him instigating the civil war, don't even say that. Slavery had been an issue for the better part of the nations life back then.

FDR: my personal pick for best president, when you lose your job you don't starve because of him and his policies. His social safety net and his government projects not only saved millions from outright starvation but also developed the nation in the process. And because he stoped the tide of total starvation and outright collapse of the American nation, prevented the Communist sympathizers from having a viable reason for overthrow of the American government.

George Washington: Did more than his fair share of getting Americas its independence. If he wouldn't have got control of a strategic fort on New York that, along with Benjamin Franklins coaxing of the King of France, wouldn't have secured French help in the war of independence.

TR: Look, everytime you get a fresh glass of water or a hamburger and you eat it and you don't get deathly ill from it, you have him to thank. Plane and simple.

Harry Truman: The guy saved potentially millions of American lives when he dropped the atom bomb, and in the process secured Japan as a non-communist nation after the war. As for Korea, those soldiers died to further American freedom and ideals around the world.

Woodrow Wilson: Great president, if his League of Nations proposal would have been accepted by congress, WW2 may have been averted. It was American outcry against the Germans that caused him to ask for a declaration of war, not him simply wanting a war. Also, it was in American financial interest that The United Kingdom (Great Britain) win the war.
And, as you can clearly see after the Russian Revolution, the war was clearly drew between democratic and non-democratic nations.

Thomas Jefferson: Louisiana purchase, helped further the idea of 'manifest destiny'

John Kennedy: Showed the Soviets that we weren't going to be pushed around and that, yes, we were willing to fight and play hardball for ourselves.
What followed was benificial for both America and the Soviets.

Dwight Eisenhower: Yes, he did. Don't ever compare him to Ronald Reagan like that. He let his cabinet formulate plans and work semi-independently so that ideas could flow and the best decision could be made. You have the interstate system because of his presidency.

Bill Clinton: My second favourite president, wouldn't mind to see him in there for a third time. You have the economic boom of the 1990's to thank for him, which was one of the biggest and longest lasting booms ever. Pre-Clinton American income on average: $18,000. Post Clinton: about $38,000.

If the Germans had won WWI, the world would have been a much better place. Think about it, no German anger, no Nazis; no Nazis, no WWII; no WWII, no Cold War; no Cold War, no Terrorism

If the Germans won WW1, Europe would have been under the leash of a militaristic dictatorship, but I know that you are self-serving scum with no interest in preserving civilisation.

Sounds good to me.

What Patiotic nonsense. America's presidents are a pack of theives, liars, thugs, mass murderers and cowards, just like every other nation's leaders.

Sometimes I weep for America's education system. First of all, the only war America need to fight was the Revolution, though it did fail in the end.
Appeasing Japan would have been incredibly easy, just sell our Pacific territories. As for Germany, Russia would have ensured that the situation remained stable. You can't very well send most of your armed forces halfway 'round the world with a hostile industrial power on your doorstep.

You...you DO realise that without logistical support from America, the Russians would have collapsed? 'Caust that's all that kept them going. Logistical support from the Allies and Allied offensives that drew Germany's attention (IE: the Italian Invasion and D-Day.)

And you need not worry about America's education system, the Canadian one is just fine.

I think we should have moved to take out the Bolsheviks in Russia before they even had a chance to get their act together. Wasn't there a provisional democracy in Russia when the communists took over?
Yes, but nations should be allowed to follow their own course.
I'm also a Patriot. You just hate your country and every single action it has taken after the Revolutionary War.
I can assure you that I do not hate my country. I hate its enemies, which happen to be the military which keeps us from asserting our rights to revolution and the federal government for sticking its nose into where it doesn't belong.
-snip-
And here we have an example of the typical media and public education brain washed American Idiot.
Sometimes I weep the fact that millions of brave soldiers had to give up their lives for ungrateful wretches like you.
I never asked anybody to die for me.

If the Germans had won WWI, the world would have been a much better place. Think about it, no German anger, no Nazis; no Nazis, no WWII; no WWII, no Cold War; no Cold War, no Terrorism


We cannot know that the world would have been a better place. firstly, Germany would have demanded huge repreations and other demands of both Britain and France, which would have created much resentment in those countries. Couldnt that anger have led to another world war, just as much as German anger did?

Oh and the Cold War wasnt caused by WW2. It was mearely the resumption of normal relations with Russia from before the Second World War. They had been the enemies of America Britain and France Before the war, and they became it again after the war. They were just allies of conveniance.

You...you DO realise that without logistical support from America, the Russians would have collapsed? 'Caust that's all that kept them going. Logistical support from the Allies and Allied offensives that drew Germany's attention (IE: the Italian Invasion and D-Day.)
Yes, well we did supply nearly ALL their trucks, didn't we? And Stalin was no better than Hitler. We essentially chose one dictator and decided we would side with him. Bah.

We cannot know that the world would have been a better place. firstly, Germany would have demanded huge repreations and other demands of both Britain and France, which would have created much resentment in those countries. Couldnt that anger have led to another world war, just as much as German anger did?
Wouldn't be a problem. The Germans would have a little thing called hegemony. The only time in history that Europe was relatively peaceful, except the present day in which all of Europe has a permanent case of shell shock, was when it was united under the Romans.
Oh and the Cold War wasnt caused by WW2. It was mearely the resumption of normal relations with Russia from before the Second World War. They had been the enemies of America Britain and France Before the war, and they became it again after the war. They were just allies of conveniance.
The only difference being that before the war we didn't go to disastrous war with Russia's ideological cousins or prop up dictators to oppose them.

I never asked anybody to die for me.

It doesn't matter whether "never asked anybody to die for you", they did. And I'm willing to be atleast one of your grandfathers fought in the war if not some relative of yours did. It would be very unlikely that you don't have an ancestor that fought in that war. Whether he or she died or not I don't know. It just shows how ungrateful you are to the masses that died to give you the freedom that you exercise at this very moment.

My fav is any one of the dead ones. They're all scum, and the living can't keep their hands out of politics.

god besides washington those choices all suck

It doesn't matter whether "never asked anybody to die for you", they did. And I'm willing to be atleast one of your grandfathers fought in the war if not some relative of yours did. It would be very unlikely that you don't have an ancestor that fought in that war. Whether he or she died or not I don't know. It just shows how ungrateful you are to the masses that died to give you the freedom that you exercise at this very moment.
They didn't die for my freedom. They died for FDR's ambition and neo-imperialistic ideology.

They didn't die for my freedom. They died for FDR's ambition and neo-imperialistic ideology.

:rolleyes:

Yes, well we did supply nearly ALL their trucks, didn't we? And Stalin was no better than Hitler. We essentially chose one dictator and decided we would side with him. Bah.


I believe Germany declared war on the U.S., not the other way around.

How about none of them? Presidents are shit, and that's that.

I believe Germany declared war on the U.S., not the other way around.

That is correct.

How about none of them? Presidents are shit, and that's that.

As Winston Churchill said, "Democracy's a horrible system, but it's the best we've got."

As Winston Churchill said, "Democracy's a horrible system, but it's the best we've got."

actually it went more like "democracy is the worst form of government, except for everything else that has been tried up untill this time"

gotta love the churchill wit.

No Ronald Reagan? This poll sucks

No Ronald Reagan? This poll sucks

yeah that's been long established, but reagan wasn't that great either. he was too much of a spender.

As Winston Churchill said, "Democracy's a horrible system, but it's the best we've got."

Then he was a dumbass.

President Ronald Reagan.

President Ronald Reagan should be on that list.

Do you have a time machine? He was a brutal man who gave the full go ahead to Sherman's genocide.

You have no idea about american history, do you?


Shooting Abe Lincoln was the absolute worst thing the south could have done after the war.

You gotta be kidding right? Ever heard of WATERGATE?

He is by far the absolute worst president in U.S. history (in my opinioin, G.W. Bush is second worst). If he didn't do certaint things in his presidency, he probably would've gone down in history as one of the greatest.

you probably voted for slick willy in this poll didnt you?

First of all Watergate was a dirty underhanding thing to do but if youve ever seen/read anything about lbj's political policies you would think that the nixon scandle was timid in comparison.

Whoever said that WWII wasnt necessary is a nazi symathizer, plain and simple. 'Cause six million jews and an equally large amount of twin/gay/gypsie/polish ect,ect causalties is just how those bastards say hi to the people they conquered, right? but im sure the french could have taken care of it. Face it, Britain & Russia werent necessarily fucked then but without US involvement in the war would have cought up to them eventually.

Germany was just feeling the effects of recovering from the great depression (one which was much worse than the rest of the western world because of the reperations placed upon them due to french and british greed) because of mass military buildup they NEEDED a war to fight and they had all the fuckin tools to do it. poland and the checs were taken without much effort (due to the lack of foresight and backbone of chamberlin, thats what appeasment equals in the real world by the way) and japan was the same with the chinese.

What the war did to america is bring it out of depression. what it did for the world could only be known if the axis wasnt checked. and id much rather praise the troops that fought in it than to be worshiping the third riech (oh wait, im what they would be considered a mix blood, fuck i wouldnt be alive probably and if i was id be a slave to a master race, but hey, the war wasnt necessary)

They didn't die for my freedom. They died for FDR's ambition and neo-imperialistic ideology.

Last time I looked at my history book, the Japanese were the ones conquering Asia during WW2, not the Americans. If WW2 was imperialistic, we would have got involved in Europe militarily much sooner than we did.

Then he was a dumbass.

And what system do we need?

Last time I looked at my history book, the Japanese were the ones conquering Asia during WW2, not the Americans. If WW2 was imperialistic, we would have got involved in Europe militarily much sooner than we did.

Well?

You have to look at our presence after the war then before.

We liberated some places and never left....

Well?

You have to look at our presence after the war then before.

We liberated some places and never left....
Which by and large was not done by FDR...

My favorite president is Grover Cleveland.

Best President ever. *nod*

Oddly enough Bill Clinton is the best Pres ever!
Swingin' on the saxaphone...
Lubing up the dildo...
Getting slapped by a wet fish..

But I'm odd. I like Conservatives in UK, love Democrats in US.

What is wrong with me?

But I'm odd. I like Conservatives in UK, love Democrats in US.

What is wrong with me?
Nothing, the Democrats here are conservative compared to the rest of the world.

Where's Ronald Reagan? Was he not voted the best American of all time(or around the top spot) on the Greatest Americans?

I am voting for Ronald Reagan as well. Come on, what kind of politics book are you looking at here???

Your politics book sucks, both for pretending that you can classify political leaders in terms of greatness and for suggesting that any of those men deserves to even be mentioned in a sentance containg the word great with the exception of maybe two.
Why I hate all of them:

Lincoln: One of our nation's would be dictators, luckily Mr. Booth did this nationa great service by blowing the fuckers brains out. He didn't give a rats ass about the slaves and he instigated the civil war. He supressed the press and suspended the wirt of habeus corpus.

FDR: The last of America's would be dictatores, fortunatly polio reduced him to a pathetic cripple ande ventually killed him. Proved that by staying i office well best two terms. Got us involved in a war we had no business being in by provoking the Japanese and blatantly lying to the American people, all for neo-imperialism. A dirty racist who forced the Japanese either to fight or live in concentraion camps. Extended the power of the Federal goverment ireversably.

George Wahington- One of the better ones. A revolutionary who had the chance to be a dictator but turned it down. Established the good precedent of two terms. Unfortunalty, he wasn't above slavery, though he did release his servants upon his death.

TR: The father of neo-imperialism and big government in the US. Tries to gain more that two terms, but the people had some sense at least.

Harry Truman: Ok, what the fuck? This guy dropped the atom bombs, and while they probably caused less Japanese cassualties than an invasion, he, more than likely, just wanted to kill Japs. His goal in World War II was to kill as many non-Americans as possible, he said so himself, look it up. He was an incompant admistrator. He started the Cold War, and sent thousands of drafted Americans to their deaths in Korea. The only good thing he did was fire MacArthur, a military genius but a jackass none the less. A neo-imperialist.

Woodrow Wilson- Used misinformation, propaganda and outright lies to take the United States into a war where we didn't belong and, as most Europeans will tell you, we weren't needed. A dirty racist who segregated fedral offices. A neo-imperialist.

Thomas Jeferson:A revolutionary, who supported an uncommon number of personal rights for his time. Still, he was a slave owner, and a brutal one at that. Still, he kept us out of war.

John Kennedy: Would only be remembered as mediocre if he hadn't been good looking and assinated. A neo-imperialist and Cold War beligerant.

Dwight Eisenhower: He didn't know what the fuck was going on in his cabinet, so I can't really blame him for the neo-imperialist and Cold War intigating that went on during his two terms.

Bill Clinton: A farily good do nothing president, though definatly a neo-imperialist and an inconsistant man.


Here's the example of a quintessential American patriot.

Nobody's perfect.

I vote for Ronald Reagan. May not have been the most booksmart president ever, but he did end this thing called the COLD WAR.

Nothing, the Democrats here are conservative compared to the rest of the world.
So is it safe to fly over? Last time I went, back in August, me and my parents got flooded with support bush leaflets in our hotel room.

Bush smells a funny colour.

If there's a best would-be president, I'd say that it's William Jennings Bryan.

This is the list of the 10 greatest presidents according to my government and politics book. Except Clinton. He's like, the 25th, but I added him as #10 anyway.

If you hate the US in general, just vote for the president you hate the least.

Your book is wrong. It left out Richard Nixon who ended the Viet Nam war that Johnson could not end. It also left out Ronald Reagan who brought down the Soviet Union and bolstered the American economy with his "trickle down economics."

Bush smells a funny colour.

Now thats one of the wierdest things I have ever heard say about him.

Well if he brought down the USSR ,then Reagan should be left out.
And who gives a damn about Nixon. He's more infamous than famous. He could either have been remembered as the guy who ended the war. Or Pres.Nixon, Watergate Scandal.

Who even gives a?

It also left out Ronald Reagan who brought down the Soviet Union and bolstered the American economy with his "trickle down economics."


Erm... "trickle down economics" is bullshit. Never worked. Look at the world today. Trickle down has lifted almost no one out of poverty. It is just an excuse for the maintainace of a piss poor weelfare state, and keeping government out of economics.

And I am not so sure I would credit Reagan with the end of the Cold War either.

Now thats one of the wierdest things I have ever heard say about him.
Well have you ever smelt George Bush? He smells like an orange. And I think orange is a funny colour. Since clowns wear orange wigs.

But potatoes are Brown.

:plol:p

George Wahington- One of the better ones. A revolutionary who had the chance to be a dictator but turned it down. Established the good precedent of two terms. Unfortunalty, he wasn't above slavery, though he did release his servants upon his death.Yeah, he was a true servant of the people, filling his cabinet with the best choices even if they disagreed with him, and many other such actions. He's my favorite. :)

Erm... "trickle down economics" is bullshit. Never worked. Look at the world today. Trickle down has lifted almost no one out of poverty. It is just an excuse for the maintainace of a piss poor weelfare state, and keeping government out of economics.

And I am not so sure I would credit Reagan with the end of the Cold War either.

Ok, if you say so it must be true.

Well have you ever smelt George Bush? He smells like an orange. And I think orange is a funny colour. Since clowns wear orange wigs.

But potatoes are Brown.

:plol:p

I just love Bush Bashers. Here have a cookie...laced with something...:eek:

Yeah, he was a true servant of the people, filling his cabinet with the best choices even if they disagreed with him, and many other such actions. He's my favorite. :)

Yes. He was so great. Splitting from an empire because he wanted to be a dictator, but then decided to make his people happy.

Oh. And during the 'War of Let's separate from the British Empire because we don't know what we want!' The only reason americans died in protests is because they swore blind at every british soldier they could find.

And now George Bush has lived up Washington's dream, and Is turningthe US into a democrat Empire.

France is better than the US. And I can say that in the comfort of the Atlantic ocean.

I just love Bush Bashers. Here have a cookie...laced with something...:eek:

Do you mean supporters or haters of bush. I'll have cookie laced with opium too if you don't mind.

Mmmm... Bin Laden.

My favorite president is Grover Cleveland.

Best President ever. *nod*

Nobody can be Taft! If you didn't like it; he would sit on you!

How the hell could anyone vote Clinton over FDR? Roosevelt led America in its most righteous hour.

How the hell could anyone vote Clinton over FDR? Roosevelt led America in its most righteous hour.
Okay.
Me and Clinty play the Sax.
He looks the most handsome.
He's got a cool voice.
He's reboosted the US economy after Reagan and Bush sr's deecline.
He's just a likeable guy.

And I can safely say I'm still sane.

Yes. He was so great. Splitting from an empire because he wanted to be a dictator, but then decided to make his people happy.

Oh. And during the 'War of Let's separate from the British Empire because we don't know what we want!' The only reason americans died in protests is because they swore blind at every british soldier they could find.

And now George Bush has lived up Washington's dream, and Is turningthe US into a democrat Empire.

France is better than the US. And I can say that in the comfort of the Atlantic ocean.

The American Revolution began because the Brits were unfairly taxing the American colonies. The Brits wanted the colonies to be a source of cheap raw materials, but the colonies wanted to develop their own industry and livelihood. Bush is doing the opposite of Washington's dream. Washington is turning over in his grave right now. Washington was a staunch isolationist, he wanted "entangling alliances with none"

j.f.k. did more for america then any other u.s. president in my lifetime. jimi carter, on the other hand, was the only one in my life time not to make me ashaimed to live in it.

(and i certainly never expected he would be when he was running for office)

and if raygun and khomani hadn't conspired to undermine his presidency we'd have had rational energy and environmental policies still in place today and he would have gotten to serve out a second term. but fighting dirty is a thing that happens, and the very virtues that made him what we needed made it a myrical that he even got in let alone stayed in as long as he did.

that jimi carter wasn't even on that list, and the relative fewness of votes so far for kennidy, tells me primarily that the age demographic of nation states is a preponderance of persons born since the end of the 70s who never witnessed personaly the eras of either of them.

=^^=
.../\...

How the hell could anyone vote Clinton over FDR? Roosevelt led America in its most righteous hour.

Because Clinton is Slick Willy. But yeah, FDR reigns supreme in the historical sense.

He's reboosted the US economy after Reagan and Bush sr's deecline..

Actually, Reagan presided over the third-longest economic expansion since WWII...his economic record was quite solid. Bush Sr. was an incompetent dumbass.

I vote for Kennedy; he's like Clinton but way more badass...

The American Revolution began because the Brits were unfairly taxing the American colonies. The Brits wanted the colonies to be a source of cheap raw materials, but the colonies wanted to develop their own industry and livelihood. Bush is doing the opposite of Washington's dream. Washington is turning over in his grave right now. Washington was a staunch isolationist, he wanted "entangling alliances with none"

Meh. Whatever.
America wanted one MP per 'county (In the good old fashioned british way. Not that yucky american way)' But counties in britain weren't being represented like the Yankees wanted too. So they become a bit mardy and have a war.

We were not unfairly taxing them. They were paying something like half the normal rate. How they see low taxes as a reason for war is just crazy.

Boston tea party. The americans not only waste precious tea, but kill some fish. At the parades british soldiers are unfairly treated. Those who die were mainly british. The odd american died. And for when the americans died in big numbers. They shouldn't been egging on the guards and blaspheming in their faces.

The USA deserves George W.Bush.

God F**K America!

Oh, I believe that most of the civil rights legeslation was passed by Johnson, not by JFK. JFK largely gave the whole issue a public interest but did little about it.

Will need to check up my facts on that one though.

Well, the 1964 act was signed by Johnson, certainly.

Though, now I see Kennedy did initially introduce the bill.

Actually, Reagan presided over the third-longest economic expansion since WWII...his economic record was quite solid. Bush Sr. was an incompetent dumbass.

I vote for Kennedy; he's like Clinton but way more badass...
But clinton seriously sorted out the US. And then the spawn of evil had to wipe his bum with america's hopes of survival. Eeeeew!

This again? Ok, he's not in the poll, by my vote is for James Polk.

Although Lincoln and FDR are sometimes considered among the greatest presidents, I rank them as two of the worst. Here's an article if you want to know why.
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/silveira49.html

But clinton seriously sorted out the US. And then the spawn of evil had to wipe his bum with america's hopes of survival. Eeeeew!

Clinton had good ideas, and was pretty competent in all aspects of his presidency.

He failed, however, during his second term when gas prices were incredibly low and SUVs became popular...had he taken measures to considerably increase fuel efficency on those vehicles gas prices might be a good deal lower than they are currently. Energy policy was the one area I feel he performed poorly in.

Meh. Whatever.
America wanted one MP per 'county (In the good old fashioned british way. Not that yucky american way)' But counties in britain weren't being represented like the Yankees wanted too. So they become a bit mardy and have a war.

We were not unfairly taxing them. They were paying something like half the normal rate. How they see low taxes as a reason for war is just crazy.

Boston tea party. The americans not only waste precious tea, but kill some fish. At the parades british soldiers are unfairly treated. Those who die were mainly british. The odd american died. And for when the americans died in big numbers. They shouldn't been egging on the guards and blaspheming in their faces.

The USA deserves George W.Bush.

God F**K America!

Low taxes compared to what? Sweden? The taxes were being raised in exponential numbers, and furthermore, it was the things they taxed that made it worse. You had the Stamp tax, which raised the price of printed material, for example.

You're just angry because you don't have an empire anymore, well, get over it, you're pathetic.

Why are people so bothered about Franklin? HE only repeated what happened in WW1. When the Europeans are winning it, send troops in. Claim all the credit. BLame everything else onto europe. Have a shit. Leave. Come back at the next world war.

And we win because 'God's on the americans side'. Though that dosn't explain why America hasn't conquered the world yet.

You amricans owe us a lot.

I am firmly against any strengthining of America's standing army.

Alright, but nowadays, conscript armies tend not to work very well.

As for anti-trust laws, there wer far better ways on dealing with that that wouldn't have stregnthed the feds.

Perhaps you could enlighten me as to what these alternative methods were?

Income taxes and "Selctive Service" are both ways in which the federal government has enslaved the American People.

That's an interesting way to look at it.

That embargo kept us out of war.

I think the War of 1812 proves that this notion is false.

Low taxes compared to what? Sweden? The taxes were being raised in exponential numbers, and furthermore, it was the things they taxed that made it worse. You had the Stamp tax, which raised the price of printed material, for example.

You're just angry because you don't have an empire anymore, well, get over it, you're pathetic.

Empire or no empire. That dosn't change my views. I'm not pathetic just because I see things a different way. If it wasn't for us you'd probably not be alive. If it wasn't for Britain then the modern world wouldn't be here.

You owe us a lot.

George Washington.

Main reason being he recongnized duty, and wouldn't turn down the presidency if it meant that the U.S. would likely fall into Monarchy.

Another would be that he was cunning, knowing how to appeal to peoples natural inclination to a strong and showy leader, himself using carriages and speaking in the third person.

Where's Dubya? :O Your book is clearly outdated.

(joke. <.< >.>)

Low taxes compared to what? Sweden? The taxes were being raised in exponential numbers, and furthermore, it was the things they taxed that made it worse. You had the Stamp tax, which raised the price of printed material, for example.

You're just angry because you don't have an empire anymore, well, get over it, you're pathetic.
The American colonists were taxed at 1/4th the rate of englishmen.

Yes. He was so great. Splitting from an empire because he wanted to be a dictator, but then decided to make his people happy.If he wanted to be a dictator he could have been. His actions showed he did not. I call BS.

Oh. And during the 'War of Let's separate from the British Empire because we don't know what we want!' The only reason americans died in protests is because they swore blind at every british soldier they could find.

We were not unfairly taxing them. They were paying something like half the normal rate. How they see low taxes as a reason for war is just crazy.He knew what he wanted - the british had been extremely lax in their control for a hundred years, especially economically. What happens when you suddenly crack down on everything (destroying the existing economy and throwing a lot of people out of business)? You get people angry. The people have every right to change their government if it is no longer representing them. The only person being represented at the time of the revolution was some crazy king with the god-given right to imperialism.

Meh. Whatever.So when you're found to be flat out lying, it's no biggie? Yeah.

Boston tea party. The americans not only waste precious tea, but kill some fish. The tea's price had been artificially raised by state-given monopoly. What would happen if the government now put a $15 tax on a cup of coffee and made it where there was only one legitimate company to buy from? I think some people might get angry.

At the parades british soldiers are unfairly treated. Those who die were mainly british. Unfairly how? They forced the people to lodge the very soldiers sent to supress their freedom of protest. How is that fair to the americans? Check the US constitution - it now absolutely forbids actions like that SOLEY BECAUSE THE BRITISH DID IT FIRST. And we hated it. Yes, the 'legitimate' government stealing people's physical property without their consent. It's hard to imagine that would make anyone angry.

The odd american died. And for when the americans died in big numbers. They shouldn't been egging on the guards and blaspheming in their faces.And when the british soldiers started dying because they didn't know crap about fighting guerillas? Oh, they shouldn't have been wearing their silly suits and making pretty formations.

Empire or no empire. That dosn't change my views. I'm not pathetic just because I see things a different way. If it wasn't for us you'd probably not be alive. If it wasn't for Britain then the modern world wouldn't be here.

You owe us a lot.We owe you, right now, only what is in our treaties with you. You're not pathetic because you see something differently. You're pathetic because you misrepresent or ignore the truth to make your argument seem better. In other words, you are pathetic because you lie, not because someone's out to get you.

This again? Ok, he's not in the poll, by my vote is for James Polk.

Although Lincoln and FDR are sometimes considered among the greatest presidents, I rank them as two of the worst. Here's an article if you want to know why.
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/silveira49.html

Meh! He doesn't mention his references if any.

Problem with opinions is that they are like assholes. Everybody has one. ;)

We shouldn't have even been in that war in the first place.



If WW2 wasn't worth fighting, than nothing is worth fighting for at all

And when the british soldiers started dying because they didn't know crap about fighting guerillas?

Hmm... add another country to this alongside Britain and this statement seems to apply today as well.

Hmm... add another country to this alongside Britain and this statement seems to apply today as well.He said it was unfair. It is not. They knew what they were doing. If any other country chooses to do something similar, they'd better be prepared for it or they can suffer the consequences, the US included.

The American colonists were taxed at 1/4th the rate of englishmen.And with the American economy adjusted to that tax rate, would suddenly imposing 3 times that much hurt anything? Change anything? Force people out of business? Force people into poverty? I think it just might be a reason for the revolution. Certainly you wouldn't find many people too happy about it.

Empire or no empire. That dosn't change my views. I'm not pathetic just because I see things a different way. If it wasn't for us you'd probably not be alive. If it wasn't for Britain then the modern world wouldn't be here.

You owe us a lot.

If it wasn't for us you would be Hitler's bitches.

The British don't have a monopoly on the "modern world". The French made many, if not more, achievements, and America's Founding Fathers wrote many brilliant political articles, including the Constitution. Don't even get me started about Rome and Greece...

Well if he brought down the USSR ,then Reagan should be left out.
And who gives a damn about Nixon. He's more infamous than famous. He could either have been remembered as the guy who ended the war. Or Pres.Nixon, Watergate Scandal.

Who even gives a?

Apperently you didn't hear about all those people that Stalin and Lenin had killed.

They were no different than Hitler.

You really ought to do some research into what you take a stand for before you make a post.

If the Germans had won WWI, the world would have been a much better place. Think about it, no German anger, no Nazis; no Nazis, no WWII; no WWII, no Cold War; no Cold War, no Terrorism

You sir, are a delusionary fool. I usually do not resort to ad hom attacks, but in absence of any sort of logic in your argument, I feel I am forced to just insult the man making it.

Nicodemus Larynger,
-Protectorate of Kiften-

They didn't die for my freedom. They died for FDR's ambition and neo-imperialistic ideology.

I love how you think 9 of those 10 presidents or so were 'neo-imperialistic'. Arguments seem so much better when you attribute some buzzword to every single person in the article.

Tell me Undelia, what would you do without the military? How would a country defend itself?

Do you think there's maybe a reason why so many nations have armies? Think hard about it.

Nicodemus Larynger,
-Protectorate of Kiften-

And with the American economy adjusted to that tax rate, would suddenly imposing 3 times that much hurt anything? Change anything? Force people out of business? Force people into poverty? I think it just might be a reason for the revolution. Certainly you wouldn't find many people too happy about it.

Rofl. You know how much keeping the colonies protected cost?

people will never comprehend or understand the damage clinton did to this country. and no im not talking about recieving a blow job.

people will never comprehend or understand the damage clinton did to this country. and no im not talking about recieving a blow job.

Ok then why don't you educate us?

I believe Germany declared war on the U.S., not the other way around.
Only after we declared war on its ally. What was it suposed to do?

Only after we declared war on its ally. What was it suposed to do?
And we declared war on them after they attacked us. What were we supposed to do, say "Jolly Good" and go about our way?

And we declared war on them after they attacked us. What were we supposed to do, say "Jolly Good" and go about our way?
The Japanese attacked us, not the Germans, and they only did so becasue FDR made it abundantly clear that he wasn't going to deal fairly with them.

Washington, hands down.

The only other good Presidents were Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson (except for the Trail of Tears and a few other things), Tyler, Cleveland, and Coolidge.

Ok then why don't you educate us?

Chinagate, for starters.

You sir, are a delusionary fool. I usually do not resort to ad hom attacks, but in absence of any sort of logic in your argument, I feel I am forced to just insult the man making it.
Actually, I'd like to see your argument for how the world could have been so bad if Germany had won the First World War.

Rofl. You know how much keeping the colonies protected cost?Rofl. You know how much that mattered to their economy? :p

I love Teddy Roosevelt! He's an outdoorsman, and a man's man! He's also tought as shit! I mean he was giving a speech, got shot, and he kept on talking! Teddy Roosevelt PWNZED ALL!

Low taxes compared to what? Sweden? The taxes were being raised in exponential numbers, and furthermore, it was the things they taxed that made it worse. You had the Stamp tax, which raised the price of printed material, for example.

You're just angry because you don't have an empire anymore, well, get over it, you're pathetic.

America, before the revolutionary war, had lower taxes than any nation in europe except for poland.

The Japanese attacked us, not the Germans, and they only did so becasue FDR made it abundantly clear that he wasn't going to deal fairly with them.

Ohh, I forgot, refusing to trade with someone is grounds for war. So can I shoot you if you refuse to sell me your car?

Honestly, you are just looking for any reason to hate some of these presidents. World war two was very, very beneficial to america. It revitalized the economy. It made us one of the two superpowers in the world. It started, in my belief, the chain of reactions to civil rights, as blacks fighting in ww2 led to desegregation in the army in 1948, which led into other things.

America came out very well from the war. The civil war started earlier, sure, but if anything, safer. Nuclear weapons meant the superpowers wouldn't go to war. It pushed the space race through. Etc, etc.

For the majority of americans, ww2 was beneficial, very beneficial. So to get into reasoning is stupid. Why argue why it was done? War was declared on us, and we won the war, strengthening our country in the process.

Harry Truman is my favorite president. Out of all presidents, he had just about no fuck ups(In hindsight, there are other options for japan, but thats nothing decent to fault him so far in the future). On the other hand, he kept south korea free, he desegregated the army, headed the berlin airlift, and set up the cold war pretty well(caused is BS).

I have yet to find one president who could say they did as little wrong as truman. While some presidents may have done greater things, I believe none of them are balanced toward good more than him.

That poll was crap.

1 Ronald Reagan
2 Abraham Lincoln
3 Martin Luther King
4 George Washington
5 Benjamin Franklin
6 George W Bush
7 Bill Clinton
8 Elvis Presley
9 Oprah Winfrey
10 Franklin D Roosevelt

Oprah Winfrey????????????????

That would be like declaring Celine Deion one of the greatest Canadians of all time.

It's a popularity contest, nothing more.

I would put Madison and Jefferson before Ronnie.

LAFF!


That list is worse than the Greatest Canadian list!

I voted Clinton, cuz I love the guy!
And I avoided American History like the plague, so I know little to nothing about the historical ones. :P

Yes. He was so great. Splitting from an empire because he wanted to be a dictator, but then decided to make his people happy.

Oh. And during the 'War of Let's separate from the British Empire because we don't know what we want!' The only reason americans died in protests is because they swore blind at every british soldier they could find.

And now George Bush has lived up Washington's dream, and Is turningthe US into a democrat Empire.

France is better than the US. And I can say that in the comfort of the Atlantic ocean.

Your definition of 'better' is certainly an interesting one.

Tell me Imperiux, were they shouting, "No taxation without representation?" or were the Revolutionaries shouting, "We want our own Empire!" You tell me.

Okay.
Me and Clinty play the Sax.
He looks the most handsome.
He's got a cool voice.
He's reboosted the US economy after Reagan and Bush sr's deecline.
He's just a likeable guy.

And I can safely say I'm still sane.

Wow. So your criteria for picking a president goes as follows:

What instrument they play (Bonus Pts if it's one you can play!)
How they look
How they sound
Economic Policies
How much charisma he has

Certainly those are the most important things to regard when picking a president.

Meh. Whatever.

We were not unfairly taxing them. They were paying something like half the normal rate. How they see low taxes as a reason for war is just crazy.

God F**K America!

Obviously you don't understand some of the principles of America. Stuff like, oh I don't know, fair representation and whatnot. Having a say in your own government. It wasn't the price of the tea that angered them, it was the taxation on that tea.

It's nice to see how unbiased you are though.

Empire or no empire. That dosn't change my views. I'm not pathetic just because I see things a different way. If it wasn't for us you'd probably not be alive. If it wasn't for Britain then the modern world wouldn't be here.

You owe us a lot.

Yes and if it wasn't for America you'd be speaking German. What's your point?

America owes France as much as it owes Britain.

Actually, I'd like to see your argument for how the world could have been so bad if Germany had won the First World War.

Uhm...thousands upon thousands of Jewish people killed during the War....

What do you think would have happened afterwards?

Do you REALLY think the mass slaughter of Jews (and likely, the slaughter and/or enslavement of blacks) is ok? Just fine?

good call. My man Billy Clinton is by far my favorite Pres.

How can you like a man that let the U.S. be attacked by Al-Qaeda four times during his presidency

-Somalia (The Somalian rebels were being supported by Al-Qaeda)
-U.S.S. Cole
-Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia
-Bombing of U.S. embassies in East Africa

Uhm...thousands upon thousands of Jewish people killed during the War....

What do you think would have happened afterwards?

Do you REALLY think the mass slaughter of Jews (and likely, the slaughter and/or enslavement of blacks) is ok? Just fine?

Hey, guess what? Hitler would have never taken power if Germany had won WWI, and the holocaust would have never happened. *rolls eyes* Why don't you think things through next time.

My favorite president is Grover Cleveland.I always liked ole' "Silent" Cal...

Yes and if it wasn't for America you'd be speaking German. What's your point?

America owes France as much as it owes Britain.

Right. So the fact that America only interupts wars as soon as we're winning it means America is the hero?

WW1: The americans butt in, in the last year of the war. America takes all the credit.

WW2: America butts in again near the end of the war. God's on their side.

I doubt we'd be speaking German. Predictions for WW3: America against the world. Then it changes sides. Then it alters all history books so that America wins every war. Maybe if the Confederates won America would be better.

This is the flag America should have. (http://mariesgiftshop.com/images/afghans/Miscellaneous/Stars%20and%20Bars%20Afghan.jpg)

Hey, guess what? Hitler would have never taken power if Germany had won WWI, and the holocaust would have never happened. *rolls eyes* Why don't you think things through next time.

Vashutze,

Excuse me, I misread and thought you said WWII, not WWI. I'd have to do more research to see the current state of things in WWI and our reasoning to enter or not enter before I could comment more.

Mea culpa!

After rereading your comment...I really dont' see how I even confused the two. :) Brain wasn't working fully I assume.

Right. So the fact that America only interupts wars as soon as we're winning it means America is the hero?

WW1: The americans butt in, in the last year of the war. America takes all the credit.

WW2: America butts in again near the end of the war. God's on their side.

I doubt we'd be speaking German. Predictions for WW3: America against the world. Then it changes sides. Then it alters all history books so that America wins every war. Maybe if the Confederates won America would be better.

This is the flag America should have. (http://mariesgiftshop.com/images/afghans/Miscellaneous/Stars%20and%20Bars%20Afghan.jpg)

The whole 'god's on our side' thing won't really fly with me, since ya know, I'm an atheist.

If the Confederates won we might have less government, but then again, we might also have slaves. Do you think that's good?

I'm sorry, but your vision of a 1984 future is not very believable.

Yea I'm kinda surprised Bill's on this list considering he only came in second to Hitler in a poll of most evil people in history and his name wasn't even on the list. (write in votes)

The whole 'god's on our side' thing won't really fly with me, since ya know, I'm an atheist.

If the Confederates won we might have less government, but then again, we might also have slaves. Do you think that's good?

I'm sorry, but your vision of a 1984 future is not very believable.

Yes, but maybe the confedarates would have emancipated them later. Who knows?

And besides, aren't you sick that every state has the right to enforce laws that no other state will.

Constitution. Bah! Who needs one?

Right. So the fact that America only interupts wars as soon as we're winning it means America is the hero?

WW1: The americans butt in, in the last year of the war. America takes all the credit.

WW2: America butts in again near the end of the war. God's on their side.

I doubt we'd be speaking German. Predictions for WW3: America against the world. Then it changes sides. Then it alters all history books so that America wins every war. Maybe if the Confederates won America would be better.

This is the flag America should have. (http://mariesgiftshop.com/images/afghans/Miscellaneous/Stars%20and%20Bars%20Afghan.jpg)

Uh, the Confederates didn't want to win America, just their independence.

What you're saying about that is the equivalent of saying that the Revolutionary War was about controlling the entire British empire.

Yes, but maybe the confedarates would have emancipated them later. Who knows?

And besides, aren't you sick that every state has the right to enforce laws that no other state will.

Constitution. Bah! Who needs one?

Yes, maybe the Confedarates would have emancipated them later, and maybe if the South won the war we would've developed a Time Machine. Who knows? :p

And considering that the south was FOR state rights over national rights...I don't see why you think a Confedarate-led nation would be better.

Personally, I have no problem with states making rules that no other state has. I only have a problem with states trying to go against federal law.

Yes, maybe the Confedarates would have emancipated them later, and maybe if the South won the war we would've developed a Time Machine. Who knows? :p

And considering that the south was FOR state rights over national rights...I don't see why you think a Confedarate-led nation would be better.

Personally, I have no problem with states making rules that no other state has. I only have a problem with states trying to go against federal law.

I thought the confederates wanted a system where national law applied to every state, and no other laws could be mde by seperate states?

That would've been better in my mind.

I thought the confederates wanted a system where national law applied to every state, and no other laws could be mde by seperate states?

That would've been better in my mind.

You have it backwards. the Confederates wanted a stronger state and local government.

Haven't you ever heard of the Articles of Confederation? The constitution before the Constitution?

Who here has even taken a class in US History and doesn't just listen to conservative or liberal talking points.

You have it backwards. the Confederates wanted a stronger state and local government.

Haven't you ever heard of the Articles of Confederation? The constitution before the Constitution?

Who here has even taken a class in US History and doesn't just listen to conservative or liberal talking points.

Fortunately I've only ever done US history about the Indian Plains and the Massacres.

So since I'm in england enlighten me with your grand wisdom.

Right. So the fact that America only interupts wars as soon as we're winning it means America is the hero?

WW1: The americans butt in, in the last year of the war. America takes all the credit.


Sureeeeee. Let's see the Americans get invovled. Germany freaks and tries the last great push which breaks their back. How long would the war have gone on if we sat out? Especially when Russia bowed out?



WW2: America butts in again near the end of the war. God's on their side.


I do love the revisionism.

Do you even understand the American situation in 41? We had nothing. The airforce had crap. The Navy was small and we had next to nothing in combat ready troops. We sent what we could in the early part and trained up the army. Guess how long it take train and equip and army for war?


I doubt we'd be speaking German. Predictions for WW3: America against the world. Then it changes sides. Then it alters all history books so that America wins every war. Maybe if the Confederates won America would be better.

This is the flag America should have. (http://mariesgiftshop.com/images/afghans/Miscellaneous/Stars%20and%20Bars%20Afghan.jpg)

Well many would argue that the Cold War was WW3.

If the confederates won then most likely the US would be next to nothing. Makes for a nice spin.

What would have happened to the Soviets without the supplies of trucks and what not in the early part of the war?

For the rest of your dribble. You can take of the tin foil hat if you think the US is changing history books.

Right. So the fact that America only interupts wars as soon as we're winning it means America is the hero?

WW1: The americans butt in, in the last year of the war. America takes all the credit.

<snip for brevity>


Um... without the US, the Allies would very likely have crumbled in 1918. Indeed, France's entire 1917 strategy was to wait for the Americans. The 50+ DIVISIONS that were freed up by Russia making a seperate peace would have steamrolled to Paris, as the Spring Offensive almost *DID*.

All of the Allies needed each other in the World Wars. QED.

Um... without the US, the Allies would very likely have crumbled in 1918. Indeed, France's entire 1917 strategy was to wait for the Americans...
That's bullshit and you know it is.

That's bullshit and you know it is.

Um... no, it's true. I refer you to Correlli Barnett's "The Swordbearers : Supreme Command in the First World War" (c) 1963.

I can also point you towards several other books if you prefer, but this one is an easy read and has a lovely little blurb of "Thumbs up!" from B.H.Lidell Hart.

Or, can you please enlighten us all as to what Petain was up to in 1917??

Or, can you please enlighten us all as to what Petain was up to in 1917??
Trying to get his troops back in line, after the French went on a huge offensive that broke down. Meanwhile, the Brits were doing a lot of attacking.

I think you shouldn't overestimate the actual impact of the US Forces. They were good for morale, but they still weren't there in numbers and equipment by the time the German offensives began. Ultimately those were lost because of German failures.

But I'll give you that the French probably knew that the Americans could provide the counterweight to the freed up German divisions.

If it wasn't for us you would be Hitler's bitches.

The British don't have a monopoly on the "modern world". The French made many, if not more, achievements, and America's Founding Fathers wrote many brilliant political articles, including the Constitution. Don't even get me started about Rome and Greece...

:mp5:

Trying to get his troops back in line, after the French went on a huge offensive that broke down. Meanwhile, the Brits were doing a lot of attacking.

All of 1917 was spent by Petain fighting mutinies and waiting for help. The Nivelle Offensive was what put Petain in command!

What British offensives? Aside for Lawrence against the Ottomans? :)
Passchendaele wasn't a huge battle by WW1 standards. And Arras was even smaller...

I think you shouldn't overestimate the actual impact of the US Forces. They were good for morale, but they still weren't there in numbers and equipment by the time the German offensives began. Ultimately those were lost because of German failures..

Yes, German communications were awful and their supplies were meager. Some troops halted to raid French and British supplies.

But at the time, the US had made contributions against Operations MICHAEL and BLUCHER-YORCK. The US 1st Division and some other units arrived in 1917; by the end of the Spring Offensive (July 1918) the US had 1,000,000 troops in France. These were in 19 divisions, each roughly double the size of traditional European divisions.

But I'll give you that the French probably knew that the Americans could provide the counterweight to the freed up German divisions.

Thanks. I really feel that if the Germans had had a solid signal corps and had built more U-Boats that they probably could have sued for peace, if not outright victory in 1918.

How did this turn into a World War 1 debate?

How did this turn into a World War 1 debate?

I have that effect on threads... I rarely get to use any of my grad work working on Madison Avenue... :(

What British offensives? Aside for Lawrence against the Ottomans? :)
Passchendaele wasn't a huge battle by WW1 standards. And Arras was even smaller...
Well, Messines Ridge, Paeschendale, Cambrai, Arras, they all come together. They were offensives nonetheless.

Well, Messines Ridge, Paeschendale, Cambrai, Arras, they all come together. They were offensives nonetheless.

As was Bellau Wood...

As was Bellau Wood...
Oorah

As was Bellau Wood...
Touché. :D

I have that effect on threads... I rarely get to use any of my grad work working on Madison Avenue... :(

Oh, that explains it. Umm...excuse my ignorance, but what exactly goes on in Madison Avenue and where is it?

Oh, that explains it. Umm...excuse my ignorance, but what exactly goes on in Madison Avenue and where is it?

Madison Avenue is a major road in Manhattan, one of the five boroughs of New York City (aka: Capital, Planet Earth).

Madison is a major area of commerce and financial activity. I actually don't work on Madison anymore (we've relocated to the Chrysler Building), but the point is that while working for a hedge fund company I don't get a chance to spout off about history very much.

you poll misses Ronald Reagan, the greatest President.

you poll misses Ronald Reagan, the greatest President.

My book put him as number 12. Was he the greatest president? Well, in terms of toppling the commies, he did a decent job, but he could have done much more at home. much, much more.

My book put him as number 12. Was he the greatest president? Well, in terms of toppling the commies, he did a decent job, but he could have done much more at home. much, much more.

He broke the air traffic controller's union. Thank goodness.

He broke the air traffic controller's union. Thank goodness.

What was so bad about that union? (This is coming from a democrat)

At least we stopped talking about World War 1

'K, so who was #10 in your book?
And, uhh, it's impossible to maintain safe airspace without, uhhh, air-traffic controllers. Their strike was a blatant and defiant violation of federal law.

Well... I think you should have added George W. Bush. I know most people don't care for him and hate the descions he has so "wrongly" made, but he is a great president. He, like Lincoln and F. Roosevelt, dealt with one of the greatest tragedies in American history. If we had Gore instead of Bush, the country would have literally fallen apart. He may seem like a war-addict but he is fighting for the right reasons. If you see a neighbor in a life-threatening situation(gun to head, being beaten, etc.) the right thing would be to help, no matter what. That is what Bush did. It is a very honorable thing. He didn't help with African-American rights or when we were breaking away from Britian, he did something better. He helped another naiton in need when no one else would. I believe Bush is a great president and that he should be on that list.

He helped another naiton in need when no one else would.
That's certainly a novel interpretation. Care to expand on what you're talking about?

easily Ronald Reagan.
1) Reagan
2) LBJ (I dislike his policies, but he deserves credit for the Civil Rights Act and the Voters' Rights Act)
3) Lincoln
4) Teddy Roosevelt
5) Harry Truman

agreed

Also, Ronald was, indeed, the Man. In fact, he was more The Man than Mikhail Gorbachov, hailed as "Fixer of Everything," by the Democratic Left who simply hated Reagan and all of his great works. Silly Liberals, Communism is Bad!

On a serious note now (and please, all who took offense to that last comment, I was clearly and only joking, my apologies if you hate me for it), Clinton was a sorry excuse for a national leader. I hate him.

Not only did this man's personal life get in the way of his duties as the Executive Branch of the United States' Government, but he severely compromised national security on several instances. To consider him great, or, God forbid, one of our better presidents, is to mock the idea of the American Leader.

Under the Clinton administration, our soldiers were in more combat zones than they had been in about the past decade all at the same time, and were fighting wars that had no clear objectives, goals, or even enemies. Result? Americans die for absolutely nothing. Even American soldiers began to criticize just what Bill was thinking when he deployed the American military to several different hotspots around the world right after cutting the military's budget and number of soldiers and equipment. Our naval forces went from about 500 ships to nearly half that amount. That is a significant decrease that threatened American power in the world, and yet, Clinton still used this decreased force on several different occasions for no reason.

Clinton also did not take his role as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces seriously either. While he was deploying soldiers to every single skirmish point the world had to offer, he put other, personal matters above his duty to see our soldiers home safely.

True story: In Iraq when Clinton was in office, there was a fighter/bomber strike set to take place upon a weapons storage facility that Saddam had been hiding for some time. If this was attacked and destroyed, it would be a decent blow to the Dictator's military power. The logistics of this strike were set: all personnel were briefed and awaiting a mission go-ahead, targets were locked on and checked, our pilots were in their F-117 Nighthawks, ready to take-off, and all that was needed was Mr. Clinton's permission to conduct the strike.

The strike never happened. Why? Because Bill Clinton was watching the Presidential Golf Tournament, and couldn't be bothered to even clear a mission for launch. All the man had to say was " Clearance Granted." Two words. Four syllables. Very, very simple. He was in contact with the crew that was coordinating the attack at all times. He was notified many times that the operational window for the attack was closing, and that the pilots needed a go or no-go order. Clinton sat and watched golf while our soldiers sat and waited for hours on a mission that would never happened. What happened due to Clinton's unresponsible actions in dealing with a matter of war? The mission was scrubbed, and Saddam was able to relocate some of the weapons in the facility, which were most likely deployed against our soldiers in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The President let a key military target go so he could watch golf. This man was the Commander in Chief of the American Armed Forces. That didnt sound like a very tactical decision a General would have made, right?

I could go on and on about how Clinton blatantly disregarded national security and the importance of the military, and how critical it was to keeping America a world superpower, not to mention safe from attacks from abroad, but I'll ease up. One last point I'd like to make however, was that Clinton also sold United States Missile Technology to the People's Repbulic of China.

Meditate on that for a minute, but not for too long, because it makes absolutely no sense and will make your head explode as you think about the thoughtlessness that was running through Bill's mind at the moment he agreed to that "diplomatic move."

William Clinton, President of the Democratic Republic of the United States of America, a society that cherishes freedom and prosperity, sold Missile Technology, in other words, top-notch weapon's systems from our R&D Departments that could give us the cutting-edge above the rest of the world, to the People's Republic of China, a Communist-ruled nation where freedom is squelched into non-existance.

Remember Tiannamen (bad spelling I know) Square? Military tanks running over peaceful protestors who wanted only minor democratic rights and liberties?

You do? Good. Now, picture that same nation that attacked its own people for a peaceful democratic protest. Think long and hard on those images. China is a country that can't stand Western Civilization: it hates us, but must tolerate us, because how else can a nation become a super power in today's world without accepting Western Economic Policies?

Still got that picture? Ok, now picture those same militant Communist leaders that issued the suppression of the protestors in the Square and who hate the United States, Democracy, and Western Culture, and give them US Weapon Technology. It makes no sense at all. Why, in God's name, would anyone do something like that?! Do you give your enemies your weapons?! No! You keep those secrets for yourself in case you need to pull something out of your sleeve if your in a rough spot during a conflict!

Clinton gave China the ability to attack US Satellites and American Soil. If China were to put that to use, we'd be screwed; Think about it: our military depends upon satellite information so that we are constantly updated by live footage around the world of troop movements and positions, missile silos, and the like. What if China attacks those same satellites with US-made missiles? If they succeed in knocking out every one of our military information satellites, we are, in effect, dead. We will be unable to monitior anything else China has planned, and be unable to launch a counter-attack without proper information on targets. Then, China uses that same missile technology, and attacks American silos, defensive systems, Naval and Air Force Bases, military forts, any other strategical assets, and what's left?

Because of Clinton's deal with China, the United States could effectively become non-existant within half-an-hour. Of course, this scenario would never happen (hopefully), and we're all quite safe in the USA right now. But what if tomorrow China decides it's just going to take Taiwan outright? The US declares war to defend an ally, and China has a perfect reason to retaliate. Bam. Bye Bye America.

Therefore, in conclusion, Clinton = Bad. Thank you.

(Please feel free to disagree with me on any point I made, I appreciate hearing other peoples' views on recent and current politics, it's not something I get to do often.)

China is a country that can't stand Western Civilization: it hates us, but must tolerate us, because how else can a nation become a super power in today's world without accepting Western Economic Policies?
You overestimate yourself.

China couldn't give a shit about you or your civilisation. They do what is right for China, no more, no less.

Clinton had good ideas, and was pretty competent in all aspects of his presidency.

He failed, however, during his second term when gas prices were incredibly low and SUVs became popular...had he taken measures to considerably increase fuel efficency on those vehicles gas prices might be a good deal lower than they are currently. Energy policy was the one area I feel he performed poorly in.

Clinton is an asshole because he reopened the festering wound that is globalization. but all we fuckin worry about now-a-days is how much some shit costs us, not the poor bastards that make it.

Fortunately I've only ever done US history about the Indian Plains and the Massacres.

So since I'm in england enlighten me with your grand wisdom.

First of all, it isn't wisdom so much as knowledge, but that's just a side note.

Try to ask me anything about American history and I'll give you some information about the history of this nation.

Oh, didn't the English try to force their rule on Scotland? The only history of the Britains I've taken is that in American history and the movie Braveheart.

Mind you that if the British had never colonized America we wouldn't have even had the opportunity to interact with the Indians.

I admit that our treatment of the Indians wasn't our finest hour. But saying that's all there is to American history is like saying the Holocaust is all there is to German history.

I realize that this may not have been your main point, but oh well

You overestimate yourself.

China couldn't give a shit about you or your civilisation. They do what is right for China, no more, no less.

No, my friend: you overestimate yourself. Western Civilization is the dominant force in the world today, and other cultures must learn to tolerate or accept it. To turn away Western Economic Policies is to damn your nation and/or people to an economic policy that over half of the world will not recognize or try to accept. Think of it: the economy was, until recently based upon the USD, and now it is based upon the Euro from Europe. Both of these currencies are part of Western Economics, which goes to show that Western Policies do indeed affect other nations and their political and economical agendas.


Also, it is not just my civilization. It's the civilization of a good portion of the people on the planet. To say that Western Culture is my civilization alone would be to miss the point entirely of what that culture represents.

Lastly, China's leaders don't necessarily always work towards the common good of China, just as any world leader doesn't neecessarily work towards the common good of their nation. You can't understand what other people are thinking, especially world leaders, when they make decisions. You can rationalize as to why they made such a decision, and who did it benefit and who did it hurt, but to say that China's leaders work only for China is ludicrous. Communist leaders don't work for their people: they work for themselves. Take a look at Soviet Russia: The poor get even poorer and the Party Leaders are the richest people in the country. Pretty backwards from a society that promises equal income and wealth to all, no?

As a non-American, Bill Clinton's my favourite.

To turn away Western Economic Policies is to damn your nation and/or people to an economic policy that over half of the world will not recognize or try to accept.
Some would think that the free market is not a Western invention at all.

The point is that the Chinese leadership sees the world as it is, and sees how it can do best out of it. At the same time, it holds on to the notion of China being older, and better, than any other civilisation. But that doesn't mean that they hate America. They just don't think that America matters to the way they run their country.

Also, it is not just my civilization.[/QUOTE]
It's mine as well.

You can rationalize as to why they made such a decision, and who did it benefit and who did it hurt...
Which is what I'm doing. Have a read of this article, I think it does a good job.
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,398844,00.html

...but to say that China's leaders work only for China is ludicrous. Communist leaders don't work for their people: they work for themselves. Take a look at Soviet Russia: The poor get even poorer and the Party Leaders are the richest people in the country. Pretty backwards from a society that promises equal income and wealth to all, no?
Don't get me started on Socialist governments. And besides, it's not the topic at hand.

I don't consider China socialist anymore though. It's returning to its pre-Kai-Chek ways, back to equilibrium.

Agreed, we did get off topic. Though I must say I enjoyed the discussion. Most people where I live can't back up political views or the like. It gets a bit upsetting at times to see the youth of America not be able to pick sides on an issue and defend it.

Also agreed that China is abandoning most of its radical socialist policies. Scares me though to think that they could un-seat the USA as a Global Leader.

But, the future will worry about itself.

I officially declare this thread back on topic.

"If you looked up to either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush then you probably looked up to your high school principal" - Lewis Black

Who's the favourite president that's a sex machine to all the chicks?

TAFT!

Canyadiggit?
And the sweet thing, he's STILL got it!
Zounds!!!

Yea I'm kinda surprised Bill's on this list considering he only came in second to Hitler in a poll of most evil people in history and his name wasn't even on the list. (write in votes)

Thats a lot of weirdo write in voters..... or just one angry guy with a whole lot of time.

How could someone even think Reagan was the best president?
He was what Stalin was to the USSR: the worst leader they could ever have and what has/will ultimely destroy his country. The corrupt bureaucracy Stalin installed was one of the greatest factor that destroyed the USSR, as Reagan horrible and inhuman policies will destroy America. DId you ever heard about something called a debt and a deficit? Even exponents aren't enough to show how much he made them heavier. Those who think Reagan brought down USSR are clearly ignorant of USSR's history, or just saw too much US biased medias and their propaganda. That bastard actually lowered taxes for the most rich people from 70% to 28%, while cutting in essential social programs that were created since the New Deal. Even more horrible is his foreign policy. He financed about every not communist dictatorship around the world, from Saddam to Pinochet, selling a lot of weapons. During the 80s, several revolutions and rebellions from communists were going on around the world, and all of them were defeated by atrocious ways, from complete slaughters of native population, to illegal imprisonement with use of disgusting torture. Now that he's dead, there's one less bastard on Earth.

This is the list of the 10 greatest presidents according to my government and politics book. Except Clinton. He's like, the 25th, but I added him as #10 anyway.

If you hate the US in general, just vote for the president you hate the least.

Any of them die really soon after taking office?

As a non-American, Bill Clinton's my favourite.

Perspective question: What's the earliest President you remember?

The reason I ask is because I somewhat remember Ford, but grew up with Carter and later Reagan... so ones age certainly effects one's perspective!
(My father's list is radically different, but he goes back to Johnson. (Who was in the WH when he emigrated.)

Given that, they go down like this in my book:
Reagan
Bush (41)
Clinton
Bush (43) - so far
Carter
Ford

What was so bad about that union? (This is coming from a democrat)

At least we stopped talking about World War 1

It was a bad one. Over 10,000 workers on strike in one industry that controls movement around the country. It made the recent NYC Transit Strike look like a playground scuffle. It also broke the back of the Unions, which was something that desperately needed doing.

Not talking about WW1? That's not a good thing. :D

Any of them die really soon after taking office?

Yeah, one got sick while swearing in, then died one month later. Can't remember his name though

Clinton is an asshole because he reopened the festering wound that is globalization. but all we fuckin worry about now-a-days is how much some shit costs us, not the poor bastards that make it.

Globalization is the future...the world is not going back to isolationism or protectionism, and we are slowly creating a world in which ideas, people, and wealth can move anywhere unimpeded. It's a long way to go, but in the places where it has been fully implemented it is highly successful.

Which is exactly what made him one of the greatest. Politicians are scum, presidents are some of the worst, and Nixon knew it. He knew what he was about, and the people know what he was about, which gives him higher marks than anyone else will manage.

And I'll throw my support with Undelia, with three exceptions:
Clinton was a worthless fuck. His method of dealing with the world managed to be both limp wristed and ham-handed simultaneously, his sackless approach to the world set up a lot of the terror crap that's given Bush his start, and he has a personality cult built around him.
FDR was terrible, but WWII was ultimately neccessary. However, I don't like the way he went about getting into it. We should have moved earlier, rather then first piddle around with selective embargoes and arms smuggling.
Truman dropping the bomb is a Good thing, but the fact that he proceeded to let the Cold War begin is unforgiveable. After WWII, America was the top shit, much of Europe was in ruins, and Russia was setting up the contruction of its war machine. If there had been a move to quash USSR ambitions then, we might have been successful in saving the massive amount of money and life that was poured into fighting the "ruskies", we definitely wouldn't have nukes all over the place, and the current "War on Terror" would never have happened (no USSR would mean no sponsoring Saddam, the Taliban, the Contras, etc). Even if the Russians had to be left alone, they sure as Hell shouldn't have been handed so much territory as repiritions.


Crack is now being served "Right over there. No not there, THERE. A little to the right. Yes, there!"

Nixon and Bush the Dumber can battle it out for worst president ever. Nixon, btw, helped commence and escalate the ill-fated "war on drugs". I bet you think the war in Iraq is a great idea too, huh? Why not sign up and go fight?

And to make myself feel even more knowledgable, I'll point out to you that Germany, the USSR and the USA were ALL racing to get the nuclear bomb. The USSR even had spies in the Manhattan Project. Why do you suppose the Nazis spent all that time on those V2 missles? They were designed to eventually deliver a nuclear payload, not a conventional one.

And as for the USSR sponsoring Saddam, I seem to recall one DONALD RUMSFELD (you know, the "Secretary of DEFENSE") helping Saddam get chemical weapons to fight Iran in the Iran-Iraq War from about 1980-1988.

AND if one wanted to prevent the "War on Terror" from even happening, one might not have had their CIA go and train some young rebel named Osama bin Laden to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan during the same period as the Iran-Iraq War.

When you step in dog shit, it stays on your shoes.

How old are you? You might want to read a few more books before spouting off the latest Faux News misinformation.

FDR is my favorite with Andrew Jackson a close second (of course he didn't make the list...*grumbles to self*...)

Yeah, one got sick while swearing in, then died one month later. Can't remember his name though

William Henry Harrison -- this death was attributed to Tecumseh's Revenge. Harrison killed Tecumseh in an Indiana "Indian" War, and the curse uttered by Tecumseh was that every 20 years, a president would die (which happened until Reagan came along; he was shot at but lived).

Ol' Harrison went to his inaugural wearing short sleeves on the coldest day in Washington's history. Call it Tecumseh or call it pneumonia, but 30 days later, he was dead.

I voted for Theodore Roosevelt because he helped make national parks. Like the Badlands in North Dakota and a lot more.

Crack is now being served "Right over there. No not there, THERE. A little to the right. Yes, there!"

Nixon and Bush the Dumber can battle it out for worst president ever. Nixon, btw, helped commence and escalate the ill-fated "war on drugs". I bet you think the war in Iraq is a great idea too, huh? Why not sign up and go fight?

And to make myself feel even more knowledgable, I'll point out to you that Germany, the USSR and the USA were ALL racing to get the nuclear bomb. The USSR even had spies in the Manhattan Project. Why do you suppose the Nazis spent all that time on those V2 missles? They were designed to eventually deliver a nuclear payload, not a conventional one.

And as for the USSR sponsoring Saddam, I seem to recall one DONALD RUMSFELD (you know, the "Secretary of DEFENSE") helping Saddam get chemical weapons to fight Iran in the Iran-Iraq War from about 1980-1988.

AND if one wanted to prevent the "War on Terror" from even happening, one might not have had their CIA go and train some young rebel named Osama bin Laden to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan during the same period as the Iran-Iraq War.

When you step in dog shit, it stays on your shoes.

How old are you? You might want to read a few more books before spouting off the latest Faux News misinformation.


You aren't exactly knowledgeable if
(a) you think spouting a few facts about the other countries trying to get nukes is in any way relevant to Fiddlebottoms saying "dropping the bomb was a good thing"
(b) you don't understand - given the list of organisations he quoted as being sponsored, he was actually talking about the USA sponsoring said organisations (or did the USSR arm the Contras in your world?)

To be honest, i can't see the relevance of your post to his.

William Henry Harrison -- this death was attributed to Tecumseh's Revenge. Harrison killed Tecumseh in an Indiana "Indian" War, and the curse uttered by Tecumseh was that every 20 years, a president would die (which happened until Reagan came along; he was shot at but lived).

Ol' Harrison went to his inaugural wearing short sleeves on the coldest day in Washington's history. Call it Tecumseh or call it pneumonia, but 30 days later, he was dead.

Then he's my favourite, he wasn't there long enough to screw much up...

I want McCain. He'll be my favorite.

Clinton's votes show the overall bias of these forums (just a statement, not a barb).

I voted for Lincoln. Lincoln saved the Union, with the help of Grant, Sheridan and Sherman (et al.)

Clinton gathered cult status by getting action with an overweight intern half his age.

Roosevelt was really (in application) the father of American socialism.... which appeals to many here (obviously), but not to me.

I want McCain. He'll be my favorite.

if McCain runs as a republican, he'll probably win.

if McCain runs with Condi Rice as VP, it's almost a slam dunk.

This is the list of the 10 greatest presidents according to my government and politics book. Except Clinton. He's like, the 25th, but I added him as #10 anyway.

If you hate the US in general, just vote for the president you hate the least.

I voted for Abe Lincoln, but he's actually my second-favorite. Number one, by a mile: Ronald Reagan.

I worked on his second campaign, and was lucky enough to get into the victory party at the Century Plaza Hotel (although only on the upper level--the party VIP's were in the lower level). Afterwards I spent a few hours across the street at the old LA Playboy Club--now THERE'S a place to have a victory party! I also used to see him after his retirement, at his office in Century City (the Diehard Building, btw, for those of you who've seen the movie). And I was able to pay my respects at the Reagan Library when he was called to glory in '04. Took eight hours in line, and worth it.

IMNSHO, the '80's with President Reagan were the best times for America. The rest of the world did pretty well too.

I must say that having Clinton on the list and not the Gipper is rather incredible. On the day he died, Ronald Reagan was a better President than that pantload from Little Rock could ever dream of being.

Ronald Reagan should take his place on Mount Rushmore along with the four greats who are there now.

I voted for Abe Lincoln, but he's actually my second-favorite. Number one, by a mile: Ronald Reagan.

I worked on his second campaign, and was lucky enough to get into the victory party at the Century Plaza Hotel (although only on the upper level--the party VIP's were in the lower level). Afterwards I spent a few hours across the street at the old LA Playboy Club--now THERE'S a place to have a victory party! I also used to see him after his retirement, at his office in Century City (the Diehard Building, btw, for those of you who've seen the movie). And I was able to pay my respects at the Reagan Library when he was called to glory in '04. Took eight hours in line, and worth it.

IMNSHO, the '80's with President Reagan were the best times for America. The rest of the world did pretty well too.

I must say that having Clinton on the list and not the Gipper is rather incredible. On the day he died, Ronald Reagan was a better President than that pantload from Little Rock could ever dream of being.

Ronald Reagan should take his place on Mount Rushmore along with the four greats who are there now.

Ronald Reagan was an absolute monster. If it wasn't for the antics of his Republican predecessor, Tricky Dicky (ok, not direct predecessor, but Ford wasn't elected) and the antics of his inheritors son, i'd vote him as the worst American President of the post-war years by a country mile. As it is, other members of his political party have put him a distant third.

Harry Truman? Isn't that some old codger who refused to move from Mount St Helens when it was gonna erupt?

Ronald Reagan was an absolute monster. If it wasn't for the antics of his Republican predecessor, Tricky Dicky (ok, not direct predecessor, but Ford wasn't elected) and the antics of his inheritors son, i'd vote him as the worst American President of the post-war years by a country mile. As it is, other members of his political party have put him a distant third.

Keep telling yourself that, Panty. I just love hearing libs bloviate :)

Keep telling yourself that, Panty. I just love hearing libs bloviate :)

(1) I'm not a liberal
(2) The suffering that Reagan brought large swathes of his own country was exceeded only by the suffering he brought large swathes of the globe
(3) he wasn't even that good an actor...until he entered politics.

hey where's george bush

Ronald Reagan was an absolute monster. If it wasn't for the antics of his Republican predecessor, Tricky Dicky (ok, not direct predecessor, but Ford wasn't elected) and the antics of his inheritors son, i'd vote him as the worst American President of the post-war years by a country mile. As it is, other members of his political party have put him a distant third.

He ended the Cold War. Enough said.

He ended the Cold War. Enough said.

I retort with the following:-

Rating Reagan: A Bogus Legacy

By Robert Parry
June 7, 2004

The U.S. news media’s reaction to Ronald Reagan’s death is putting on display what has happened to American public debate in the years since Reagan’s political rise in the late 1970s: a near-total collapse of serious analytical thinking at the national level.

Click here for print version

Across the U.S. television dial and in major American newspapers, the commentary is fawning almost in a Pravda-like way, far beyond the normal reticence against speaking ill of the dead. Left-of-center commentators compete with conservatives to hail Reagan’s supposedly genial style and his alleged role in “winning the Cold War.” The Washington Post’s front-page headline – “Ronald Reagan Dies” – was in giant type more fitting the Moon Landing.

Yet absent from the media commentary was the one fundamental debate that must be held before any reasonable assessment can be made of Ronald Reagan and his Presidency: How, why and when was the Cold War “won”? If, for instance, the United States was already on the verge of victory over a foundering Soviet Union in the early-to-mid-1970s, as some analysts believe, then Reagan’s true historic role may not have been “winning” the Cold War, but helping to extend it.

If the Soviet Union was already in rapid decline, rather than in the ascendancy that Reagan believed, then the massive U.S. military build-up in the 1980s was not decisive; it was excessive. The terrible bloodshed in Central America and Africa, including death squad activities by U.S. clients, was not some necessary evil; it was a war crime aided and abetted by the Reagan administration.

One-Sided Debate

That debate, however, has never been engaged, except by Reagan acolytes who chose to glorify Reagan’s role in “winning the Cold War” rather than examining the assumptions that guided his policies in the 1970s and 1980s. Although it’s largely forgotten now, Reagan’s rise within the Republican Party was as a challenge to the “détente” strategies pursued by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger – before the Watergate scandal forced Nixon from office – and later by Gerald Ford. Détente was, in effect, an effort to ease the Cold War to an end, much as finally occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Cold Warriors Nixon and Kissinger – along with much of the U.S. intelligence community – had recognized the systemic weaknesses of the Soviet system, which was falling desperately behind the West in technology and in the ability to produce consumer goods desired by the peoples of Eastern Europe. One only needed to look at night-time satellite photos to see the disparity between the glittering city lights of North America, Western Europe and parts of Asia compared to the darkness across the Soviet bloc.

Under this analysis of Soviet weakness, the 1970s was the time for the West to accept victory and begin transitioning the Soviet Union out of its failed economic model. Not only could that approach have hastened the emergence of a new generation of Russian reformers, it would have allowed world leaders to pull back from the edge of nuclear confrontation. Third World civil wars also could have been addressed as local conflicts, not East-West tests of strength.

But American conservatives – and a new group of neoconservatives who would become the ideological backbone of the Reagan administration – saw the situation differently. They insisted that the Soviet Union was on the rise militarily with plans to surround the United States and eventually conquer it by attacking through the “soft underbelly” of Central America.

In 1976, then-CIA Director George H.W. Bush gave an important boost to this apocalyptic vision by allowing a group of conservative analysts, including a young Paul Wolfowitz, inside the CIA’s analytical division. The group, known as “Team B,” was permitted to review highly classified U.S. intelligence on the Soviet Union. Not surprisingly, Team B came up with conclusions matching its members’ preconceptions, that the CIA had underestimated the Soviet military ascendancy and its plans to gain world domination.

Along with the Team B analysis came the theories of academic Jeane Kirkpatrick, who made a name for herself with an analysis that differentiated between “authoritarian” and “totalitarian” governments. In Kirkpatrick’s theory, right-wing “authoritarian” governments were preferable to left-wing “communist” governments because authoritarian governments could evolve toward democracy while communist governments couldn’t.

Dark Vision

These two factors – the Team B take on the military rise of the Soviet bloc and the Kirkpatrick Doctrine’s view of immutable communist regimes – guided Reagan’s foreign policy. Reagan relied on these analyses to justify both his massive U.S. military build-up in the 1980s (which put the U.S. government deeply into debt) and his support for right-wing regimes that engaged in blood baths against their opponents (especially across Latin America).

As far back as the late 1970s, for instance, Reagan defended the Argentine military junta while it was engaged in the use of state terror and was “disappearing” tens of thousands of dissidents. Those tactics included barbaric acts such as cutting babies out of pregnant women so the mothers could then be executed while the babies were given to the murderers. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Argentina's Dapper State Terrorist."]

In the 1980s in Guatemala, Reagan aided military regimes that waged scorched-earth campaigns against rural peasants, including genocide against Indian populations. Reagan personally attacked the human rights reports describing atrocities inflicted on hundreds of Mayan villages. On Dec. 4, 1982, after meeting with Guatemalan dictator Gen. Efrain Rios Montt, Reagan hailed the general as "totally dedicated to democracy" and asserted that Rios Montt's government was "getting a bum rap." [For details, see Consortiumnews.com's "Reagan & Guatemala's Death Files."]

Tens of thousands more people died at the hands of right-wing security forces in El Salvador and Honduras, while in Nicaragua, Reagan funneled support to the contras, who behaved like a kind of death-squad-in-waiting, committing widespread atrocities against Nicaraguan civilians while funding some operations with cocaine trafficking to the United States. [For details, see Robert Parry's Lost History.]

It followed, after all, that if the Soviet Union were on the verge of world conquest and if that would mean permanent slavery, then desperate measures were required. But the problem with the Team B analysis and the Kirkpatrick Doctrine was that both were wrong.

The evidence is now clear that by the 1970s, the Soviet Union was in sharp decline both economically and militarily. Rather than some grandiose strategy for world conquest, Moscow was in a largely defensive posture, trying to hold in line countries near its borders, such as Eastern Europe and Afghanistan. The Helsinki Accords for human rights also were putting the Soviet Union under greater pressure as dissident movements, such as Poland’s Solidarity, took shape within Moscow’s sphere of influence. [For more on the doctored intelligence of the Reagan-Bush era, see Consortiumnews.com's "Lost in the Politicization Swamp."]

Besides greater personal freedoms, Soviet bloc residents wanted the higher-quality consumer goods available in the West. Even a bigger threat to Moscow's power was the growing chasm between Western technological advances and Soviet backwardness. By the late 1970s and 1980s, the reletively modest assistance that Moscow handed out to friendly Third World regimes, such as Cuba and Nicaragua, was more show than substance.

The Soviet Union had become a national Potemkin village, a hollowed-out economy and bankrupt political system with nuclear weapons. Along with the miscalculations of Team B's strategic analysis, the Kirkpatrick Doctrine failed to stand the test of time. Democratic governments sprouted across Eastern Europe and the Sandinistas conceded defeat in Nicaragua – not as contras marched into Managua – but following a lost election.

Indeed, if the Soviet Union had been what the American conservatives claimed – a nation marching toward world supremacy in the early 1980s – how would one explain its rapid collapse only a few years later? After all, the Soviet Union wasn’t invaded or conquered. Its troops did suffer losses in Afghanistan, but that would no more have brought down a true superpower than the Vietnam defeat could have caused the United States to collapse.

Bogus History

Despite these facts, the right wing’s historical take on how the Cold War was “won” has been broadly accepted within the elite opinion circles of the United States: Reagan’s hard-line stance toward the Soviet Union caused the communists to crumble. Given how powerful the right-wing media machine had gotten by the early 1990s, liberals largely chose to cede the Cold War debate to the conservatives and tried to shift the public’s focus to future U.S. domestic needs.

So, instead of a soul-searching examination of the unnecessary loss of blood and treasure, the nation got a feel-good history. Gone was any reassessment of the alarmist views associated with Ronald Reagan and his ideological cohorts. Gone were any questions about whether the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars on new weapons systems was justified or whether the U.S. government should be held accountable for the brutal excesses of counter-insurgency wars in Central America.

The unpleasant history was shunted aside or covered up. When declassified U.S. government documents led to a judgment by a Guatemalan truth commission that the Reagan administration had aided and abetted genocide, it was a one-day story. When a CIA inspector general confirmed that many contra units had engaged in drug trafficking and were protected by the Reagan administration, the mainstream press only grudgingly acknowledged the story. [For details, see Robert Parry’s Lost History.]

Another little-noticed part of Reagan’s legacy was his credentialing of a generation of neoconservative operatives who learned the importance of manipulating intelligence from Team B and about managing the perceptions of the American people from the Nicaraguan contra war. As Walter Raymond, Reagan’s chief of public diplomacy, was fond of saying about how to sell the Nicaraguan conflict to the American people: the goal was to “glue black hats” on the leftist Sandinistas and “white hats” on the contras.

George W. Bush’s strategy for rallying the American public behind the War in Iraq – with hyped intelligence about military threats and extreme rhetoric about the evil of U.S. adversaries – follows the game plan drawn up by Ronald Reagan’s national security team in the 1980s. [For more details on the decline of the CIA's analytical division, see Consortiumnews.com "Why U.S. Intelligence Failed."]

Arguably, too, another troubling part of Ronald Reagan’s legacy is the press corps’s stultifying version of recent American history, a superficiality richly on display in the media paeans to Reagan following his death.

In the 1980s, while with the Associated Press and Newsweek, Robert Parry broke many of the stories now known as the Iran-Contra Affair. He is currently working on a book about the secret political history of the two George Bushes.

You really expect me to read all that liberal crap?

You really expect me to read all that liberal crap?

I do love the way you americans throw the word "liberal" around, when it is nothing to do with my ideology.

Ok, perhaps this one is simple enough for your poor benighted mind:-

http://www.kirktoons.com/june_2004/images/06_01_04_Remembering_Reagan.jpg

I do love the way you americans throw the word "liberal" around, when it is nothing to do with my ideology.

Ok, perhaps this one is simple enough for your poor benighted mind:-

http://www.kirktoons.com/june_2004/images/06_01_04_Remembering_Reagan.jpg

So now Im supposed to listen to someone preach to me about American politics who isn't even a member of the country? I do think we Americans know more about our own country than you.

Oh and here is some literature for you:

Above all, his supporters credit him for restoring psychological optimism to an America that seemed in deep malaise in 1980. In foreign policy his administration is noted for the vast buildup of the military and change from containment of the Soviet Union to confrontation. Reagan was committed to the ideologies of capitalism and anti-communism, and is considered the decisive figure in orchestrating the collapse of Soviet Communism in 1991, as well as the emergence of the American conservative movement. He was reelected in a landslide in the 1984 presidential election, and left office even more popular than when he began.

So now Im supposed to listen to someone preach to me about American politics who isn't even a member of the country? I do think we Americans know more about our own country than you.

Heh, right, with your spoon-fed media, your complicit educational system and your large numbers of citizens with complete lack of self knowledge or indeed knowledge of the world?

Pull the other one.

Heh, right, with your spoon-fed media, your complicit educational system and your large numbers of citizens with complete lack of self knowledge or indeed knowledge of the world?

Pull the other one.

Thats cause our media is full of liberal bullshit, if they got around to reporting the news fairly then some progress would get done. BTW, what country are you from?

Thats cause our media is full of liberal bullshit, if they got around to reporting the news fairly then some progress would get done. BTW, what country are you from?

HAHAHAH. YOUR MEDIA IS FULL OF LIBERAL BULLSHIT?

Jesus man, you just proved my point completely.

I love the fact that you completely ignored my question...

So now Im supposed to listen to someone preach to me about American politics who isn't even a member of the country? I do think we Americans know more about our own country than you.

Oh and here is some literature for you:

Above all, his supporters credit him for restoring psychological optimism to an America that seemed in deep malaise in 1980. In foreign policy his administration is noted for the vast buildup of the military and change from containment of the Soviet Union to confrontation. Reagan was committed to the ideologies of capitalism and anti-communism, and is considered the decisive figure in orchestrating the collapse of Soviet Communism in 1991, as well as the emergence of the American conservative movement. He was reelected in a landslide in the 1984 presidential election, and left office even more popular than when he began.

And i respond from the article you ignored:-

If the Soviet Union was already in rapid decline, rather than in the ascendancy that Reagan believed, then the massive U.S. military build-up in the 1980s was not decisive; it was excessive. The terrible bloodshed in Central America and Africa, including death squad activities by U.S. clients, was not some necessary evil; it was a war crime aided and abetted by the Reagan administration.

That debate, however, has never been engaged, except by Reagan acolytes who chose to glorify Reagan’s role in “winning the Cold War” rather than examining the assumptions that guided his policies in the 1970s and 1980s. Although it’s largely forgotten now, Reagan’s rise within the Republican Party was as a challenge to the “détente” strategies pursued by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger – before the Watergate scandal forced Nixon from office – and later by Gerald Ford. Détente was, in effect, an effort to ease the Cold War to an end, much as finally occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Cold Warriors Nixon and Kissinger – along with much of the U.S. intelligence community – had recognized the systemic weaknesses of the Soviet system, which was falling desperately behind the West in technology and in the ability to produce consumer goods desired by the peoples of Eastern Europe. One only needed to look at night-time satellite photos to see the disparity between the glittering city lights of North America, Western Europe and parts of Asia compared to the darkness across the Soviet bloc.

Under this analysis of Soviet weakness, the 1970s was the time for the West to accept victory and begin transitioning the Soviet Union out of its failed economic model. Not only could that approach have hastened the emergence of a new generation of Russian reformers, it would have allowed world leaders to pull back from the edge of nuclear confrontation. Third World civil wars also could have been addressed as local conflicts, not East-West tests of strength.

I love the fact that you completely ignored my question...

I'm from the UK, where we have a mildly complicit media (complicit with whoever is the political elite, basically) and i have access to the internet and an open mind about where to look, which makes me able to see how one sided your media is, and how it's conservative bias is so extreme it makes the British media (which can be slavish in their dedication to "percieved wisdom") look the voice of truth and reason.

I'm from the UK, where we have a mildly complicit media (complicit with whoever is the political elite, basically) and i have access to the internet and an open mind about where to look, which makes me able to see how one sided your media is, and how it's conservative bias is so extreme it makes the British media (which can be slavish in their dedication to "percieved wisdom") look the voice of truth and reason.

Did I just hear you say that the U.S. news is conservative?

Most reporters aren't liberal or biased - right?
Let's see....
- 9 white house correspondents survey voted for Clinton in 1992, while 2 voted for Bush
- 12 voted for Dukakis in 1988 - one for Bush
- 10 voted for Mondale in 1984 - zero for Reagan
- 8 voted for Jimmy Carter in 1980 - 2 for Reagan
Of course, none of these reporters could be biased at all in their reporting.......

Of the 1400 members of the national media who were surveyed:

44% considered themselves Democrats
16% Repubs
34% independents
89% voted for Clinton in 1992
7% voted for Bush in 1992

If that isn't liberal bias, then I don't know what is.

We won the cold war, because capitalism is better than socialism. It's as simple as that. To the extent that Reagan embraced this, I think he was a good president. Unfortnately, he and his successors embrace the notions of ramming their ideology down other people's throats. I find neo-liberalism to be so good, that I don't need to ram it down other people's throats, or using taxpayer dollars to prop up corrupt scumbags just because they aren't Hugo Chavez, or Hamas. Just by our government getting out of the way, and letting our people deal with government's directly, time and the invisible hand will show itself out. Governments will be brought into line with our ideals of liberty, simply because they will be marginalized if they don't (and if not, hey, that's fine with me. It's their government, and they have the right to do whatever they want.)

By the way, I voted for Lincoln, just because in terms of Presidents, he led America through our darkest hour. I like Jefferson's politics better, but Lincoln did a overall better job against worse odds.

Ronald reagen aint up there:headbang: :headbang: :mad: :mp5: :sniper: :gundge: :eek: :( :confused:

This is the list of the 10 greatest presidents according to my government and politics book. Except Clinton. He's like, the 25th, but I added him as #10 anyway.

If you hate the US in general, just vote for the president you hate the least.


you left out my favorite...ron (raygun) reagan..that dude had a sense of humor!

Did I just hear you say that the U.S. news is conservative?

Most reporters aren't liberal or biased - right?
Let's see....
- 9 white house correspondents survey voted for Clinton in 1992, while 2 voted for Bush
- 12 voted for Dukakis in 1988 - one for Bush
- 10 voted for Mondale in 1984 - zero for Reagan
- 8 voted for Jimmy Carter in 1980 - 2 for Reagan
Of course, none of these reporters could be biased at all in their reporting.......

Of the 1400 members of the national media who were surveyed:

44% considered themselves Democrats
16% Repubs
34% independents
89% voted for Clinton in 1992
7% voted for Bush in 1992

If that isn't liberal bias, then I don't know what is.


And how many of the owners of national media corporations, who hire and fire those who report, are Democrats?

Crack is now being served "Right over there. No not there, THERE. A little to the right. Yes, there!"
Now, now, now. There is no reason to be rude you stupid son of a bitch.
Nixon and Bush the Dumber can battle it out for worst president ever. Nixon, btw, helped commence and escalate the ill-fated "war on drugs". I bet you think the war in Iraq is a great idea too, huh? Why not sign up and go fight?
I'll give you 10 points for inserting a needless (and wrong, Iraq is doubleplusnogood, I have never pretended otherwise) pop culture reference in the form of the Iraq War. I will then deduct 17 points for failing to note that the War on Drugs has been about since the Federal government decided that it had the right to protect the people from themselves by banning certain substances. Nixon may have coined the phrase, but the meaning was there all along.
And to make myself feel even more knowledgable, I'll point out to you that Germany, the USSR and the USA were ALL racing to get the nuclear bomb. The USSR even had spies in the Manhattan Project. Why do you suppose the Nazis spent all that time on those V2 missles? They were designed to eventually deliver a nuclear payload, not a conventional one.
Er, congratulations? I'm in favour of the US building the atomic bomb, which is probably why I said I was in favour of Truman dropping it, so I don't know what point you're trying to prove here.
And as for the USSR sponsoring Saddam, I seem to recall one DONALD RUMSFELD (you know, the "Secretary of DEFENSE") helping Saddam get chemical weapons to fight Iran in the Iran-Iraq War from about 1980-1988.
I never said the USSR sponsored Saddam, the US sponsored Saddam because of the USSR and because Truman didn't have the balls to keep going. The US at the end of WWII was on top, we had never and probably never will be greater in relation to the rest of the world. We were industrialized, we were mobilized, and, unlike Europe, we hadn't just had half the world's armies charging around our country tearing shit up.
At that point, if the USSR had been assaulted, there would have been an end to the conflict. Instead, forgetting the lesson Hitler had just taught them on the nature of appeasement, the West decided that it was better to have a demon in the backyard then continue the war. That was a stupid disicion, and it was that desicion that caused the Cold War (which made the US have to buddy up to countless dictators and crazies to hold the Soviets at bay).
AND if one wanted to prevent the "War on Terror" from even happening, one might not have had their CIA go and train some young rebel named Osama bin Laden to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan during the same period as the Iran-Iraq War.
And, dear Jonezy, my child, why exactly was the CIA interested in the Middle East? Was it just because they were the big mean great Satan who didn't want Muslims to have any fun?
Or maybe it has something to do with another major power. Goddammit, what was the name of that power. The Trade Unionists? No, no, maybe it was . . . the United Way, no that isn't it . . . maybe the United Soviet States Home for Retired English Gentlemen? No, that doesn't make any sense.
Wait, I got it! the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR! Which I just suggested should have been destroyed before then, which would have made training Osama irrelevant, which would have prevented the War on Terror, like you just said! How clever of us to figure out what I already clearly said a few days ago.
When you step in dog shit, it stays on your shoes.
Yes, and we're still trying to clean off the pile of it that Truman stepped in when he didn't put a stop to Stalin's nonsense immediatly.
How old are you? You might want to read a few more books before spouting off the latest Faux News misinformation.
Fox doesn't cover the Cold War, they're focused on much more important current events. Like the latest guy to get shot in the face by the Vice President.

We won the cold war, because capitalism is better than socialism. It's as simple as that.

Not at all.

America outlasted Russia in the coldwar because of conditions, not economic systems.

Russia, in 1917, was a weary country just gone through war. From just recently being surfs, the people had a revolution.

By 1921, the west attempted to forcefully take out the russian bolsheviks, and failed.

In the time between 1917 and 1941, Russia jumped from an agrarian economy to an industrialized one, the quickest move in history to industrialization.

Then it endured another war, which killed tens of millions of its people, and destroyed a good portion of its economy.

Right after world war two, Russia was forced to start competing with the strongest industrial power in the world, in military goods. A nation that had been in massivly destructive war two times in a row, had to compete with the strongest nation in the world, who was untouched by the wars. This same nation had an economic system which had been mostly left alone by other nations, and was allowed to flourish for two to four centuries. Russia's had been going less than thirty years.

Russia then had to compete with america all over the world. America attacked russian interests all over, preventing communism whenever possible, and installing leaders hostile to the soviets in many nations around russia.

Russia then competed with america for 45 years, keeping up with america militarially. Such a new nation, isolated from the other rich nations in the world, using a very new system of economy, had to keep up with the US militarially. It did so, but doing this meant it could not devote enough capital to maintain its new economy as well.

The russian system collapsed because it was forcefully isolated by the west, who was hostile to it since its creation, because it was forced to attempt to keep up with the US in military power, and to some extent, because it had bad leadership. However, there is little to no evidence that the economic system didn't work; all the common arguments, like lazy people not working, etc, were not apparent. If anything, communism is a testament to economic strength, seeing how fast they industrialized, and how much they were able to keep up with america.

Not at all.

America outlasted Russia in the coldwar because of conditions, not economic systems.

Russia, in 1917, was a weary country just gone through war. From just recently being surfs, the people had a revolution.

By 1921, the west attempted to forcefully take out the russian bolsheviks, and failed.

In the time between 1917 and 1941, Russia jumped from an agrarian economy to an industrialized one, the quickest move in history to industrialization.

Then it endured another war, which killed tens of millions of its people, and destroyed a good portion of its economy.

Right after world war two, Russia was forced to start competing with the strongest industrial power in the world, in military goods. A nation that had been in massivly destructive war two times in a row, had to compete with the strongest nation in the world, who was untouched by the wars. This same nation had an economic system which had been mostly left alone by other nations, and was allowed to flourish for two to four centuries. Russia's had been going less than thirty years.

Russia then had to compete with america all over the world. America attacked russian interests all over, preventing communism whenever possible, and installing leaders hostile to the soviets in many nations around russia.

Russia then competed with america for 45 years, keeping up with america militarially. Such a new nation, isolated from the other rich nations in the world, using a very new system of economy, had to keep up with the US militarially. It did so, but doing this meant it could not devote enough capital to maintain its new economy as well.

The russian system collapsed because it was forcefully isolated by the west, who was hostile to it since its creation, because it was forced to attempt to keep up with the US in military power, and to some extent, because it had bad leadership. However, there is little to no evidence that the economic system didn't work; all the common arguments, like lazy people not working, etc, were not apparent. If anything, communism is a testament to economic strength, seeing how fast they industrialized, and how much they were able to keep up with america.

Nice arguement, with the "minor omission" of how the factories beyond the Urals and indeed much of the Soviet WW2 economy was built upon American handouts and that much of their 50s-60s wealth came from the subjegation of the Warsaw Pact Nations.

Nice arguement, with the "minor omission" of how the factories beyond the Urals and indeed much of the Soviet WW2 economy was built upon American handouts and that much of their 50s-60s wealth came from the subjegation of the Warsaw Pact Nations.

Yes, but this was during/after world war two. Before, they still improved incredibly.

And how many of the owners of national media corporations, who hire and fire those who report, are Democrats?

You probably will get a non-answer if nothing. Those that use liberal like a dirty word like to overlook things like that.

Yes, but this was during/after world war two. Before, they still improved incredibly.

Roughly 1925-1935 was miserable for just about every country on Earth.
The "incredible improvements" -- here I assume you mean in heavy industry -- were often done by exploited minority groups and slave labor from the Gulags.

Had the Revolution never occurred, (or, had the Mensheviks risen to power) there is a high probability that Stalin would never have taken power. And Stalin's purges and policies are in no way indicitive of Communism being a strong economic model. ALL of the USSR's five year plans were failures.

You probably will get a non-answer if nothing. Those that use liberal like a dirty word like to overlook things like that.

Let alone the inescapable fact, as Bill Hicks pointed out over 10 years ago, that politically the Democrats and Republicans are virtually indistinguishable. Certainly indistinguishable to anyone not in the USA, they both look like variants on a centre to extreme right wing theme.

(1) I'm not a liberal
(2) The suffering that Reagan brought large swathes of his own country was exceeded only by the suffering he brought large swathes of the globe
(3) he wasn't even that good an actor...until he entered politics.

Excuse me, I meant to say LEFTIST :p

The only people who "suffered" under President Reagan were the extreme left of the Assocrat Party, who suffered LOSS OF POWER, and the extreme left worldwide, who suffered LOSS OF INFLUENCE and LOSS OF CONTROL in places like Grenada, Afghanistan and Western Europe where they couldn't stop our missile deployments or force their infantile "nuclear freeze". The nation as a whole was FAR better off under President Reagan, as was the world.

Excuse me, I meant to say LEFTIST :p

The only people who "suffered" under President Reagan were the extreme left of the Assocrat Party, who suffered LOSS OF POWER, and the extreme left worldwide, who suffered LOSS OF INFLUENCE and LOSS OF CONTROL in places like Grenada, Afghanistan and Western Europe where they couldn't stop our missile deployments or force their infantile "nuclear freeze". The nation as a whole was FAR better off under President Reagan, as was the world.

Tell that to the dead in Nicaragua and Libya, bombed and shot to shit for his imperial posturing. Tell that to the victims of the right wing military juntas across the world, the victims of Saddam Hussein, who he backed. Tell that to the mental patients his shutting down of state hospitals caused to be thrown out onto the streets, whom he then described as homeless through choice. Tell that to the sufferers of AIDS whom he blocked funding to (and only softened when his personal friend Rock Hudson died of the disease). Tell that to the millions of ordinary Americans who found themselves worse off after his reign, as the gap between rich and poor widened, and the employment market ceased to be a place you could get a full time job, but you could get 20 hours at Wal-Mart.

And please, the Democrats? Pale imitations of the Republicans, indistinguishable to a foreign observer.

So you wouldn't mind living in ignorance and poverty? Your arrogance is astounding. Here you are telling us we don't know our history, and then you go on telling us that appeasment would have worked. Oh, sure sell, Hawaii to the Japs, then Alaska, who needs that barren wasteland, right? Might just as well give away California, there's thousands of people of Japanese descent there anyway. Appeasment is like feeding a cannibal a finger to save an arm.

Sometimes I weep the fact that millions of brave soldiers had to give up their lives for ungrateful wretches like you.


your too right...i wouldnt trade one brave,selfless soldier in ww2 for 10'000 people as stupid as someone who clearly know's ziltch about international politics and the "real world"..even if they were my slaves!


Originally Posted by Undelia
Sounds good to me.

What Patiotic nonsense. America's presidents are a pack of theives, liars, thugs, mass murderers and cowards, just like every other nation's leaders.

Sometimes I weep for America's education system. First of all, the only war America need to fight was the Revolution, though it did fail in the end.
Appeasing Japan would have been incredibly easy, just sell our Pacific territories. As for Germany, Russia would have ensured that the situation remained stable. You can't very well send most of your armed forces halfway 'round the world with a hostile industrial power on your doorstep

your..i hate to say...blathering your bullshit because people like my grandfather died horribly to protect your wretched existance..and pathetic..attempt to sound elite and above the rest of us animals...go play footsies with your proffessor so you get an "a" in snottiness and self importance.

damn..i thought people like you were made up by the right to scare us ...apparently they do exist..twits that have no comprehension of the sacrifices made so they can spout there nonsense...again..you sicken me...2x in a row..wow.

talk about a pathetic outlook so patently biased and foolish it is almost comical.

Tell that to the dead in Nicaragua and Libya, bombed and shot to shit for his imperial posturing. Tell that to the victims of the right wing military juntas across the world, the victims of Saddam Hussein, who he backed. Tell that to the mental patients his shutting down of state hospitals caused to be thrown out onto the streets, whom he then described as homeless through choice. Tell that to the sufferers of AIDS whom he blocked funding to (and only softened when his personal friend Rock Hudson died of the disease). Tell that to the millions of ordinary Americans who found themselves worse off after his reign, as the gap between rich and poor widened, and the employment market ceased to be a place you could get a full time job, but you could get 20 hours at Wal-Mart.

And please, the Democrats? Pale imitations of the Republicans, indistinguishable to a foreign observer.
Excellent post, you just forget to mention he also supported Pinochet. the Apartheid, and about every right wing dictatorships in the world....

You probably will get a non-answer if nothing. Those that use liberal like a dirty word like to overlook things like that.


Hmmm...

no

poll the news media and ask them whom they vote for. It's overwhelmingly Democrat. An easier way to figure out a media outlet's bias is to find out whom they endorse. The Tennessean endorsed Kerry. That solidified my suspicion that The Tennessean is left-leaning.

Excuse me, I meant to say LEFTIST :p

The only people who "suffered" under President Reagan were the extreme left of the Assocrat Party, who suffered LOSS OF POWER, and the extreme left worldwide, who suffered LOSS OF INFLUENCE and LOSS OF CONTROL in places like Grenada, Afghanistan and Western Europe where they couldn't stop our missile deployments or force their infantile "nuclear freeze". The nation as a whole was FAR better off under President Reagan, as was the world.

...or at least people with the will to work.

Republicans are generally not as nice for hand-out seekers.

hehe

This confirms media bias.... it's not all to the left, but the vast majority leans left.

(yes, business and editorial/news departments at media outlets are kept separate)

(our media research methods class at UW-Madison found generally the same things... back in 1996 or so)

http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664

Jimmy Carter was the greatest American Prez.

Jimmy Carter was the greatest American Prez.
Iran didnt think so.

Teddy Roosevelt, followed by Kennedy.

Tell that to the dead in Nicaragua and Libya, bombed and shot to shit for his imperial posturing. Tell that to the victims of the right wing military juntas across the world, the victims of Saddam Hussein, who he backed. Tell that to the mental patients his shutting down of state hospitals caused to be thrown out onto the streets, whom he then described as homeless through choice. Tell that to the sufferers of AIDS whom he blocked funding to (and only softened when his personal friend Rock Hudson died of the disease). Tell that to the millions of ordinary Americans who found themselves worse off after his reign, as the gap between rich and poor widened, and the employment market ceased to be a place you could get a full time job, but you could get 20 hours at Wal-Mart.

And please, the Democrats? Pale imitations of the Republicans, indistinguishable to a foreign observer.

I'm sorry, but I can't talk to dead people. Plus, even if I did take the time to dig up their decayed corpses from the earth, I doubt they would listen to me.

Eisenhower was one of my favourites (with a very strong mention for Truman)

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/dwight_d_eisenhower.html

Ask yourself if Bush Jr would be caught saying anything like these quotes from Eisenhower.

If you are argueing about the list of the ten presidents just leave. That isn't what this thread was for.

I voted for Clinton. Clinton was more of an ordinary guy than a president. That and he screwed up far less than other people.

Eisenhower was one of my favourites (with a very strong mention for Truman)

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/dwight_d_eisenhower.html

Ask yourself if Bush Jr would be caught saying anything like these quotes from Eisenhower.

Bush's mental capacity cannot handle those qotes. Especially:

Controlled, universal disarmament is the imperative of our time. The demand for it by the hundreds of millions whose chief concern is the long future of themselves and their children will, I hope, become so universal and so insistent that no man, no government anywhere, can withstand it.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Do not needlessly endanger your lives until I give you the signal.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

George W. Bush. Why? Because it's funny as heck watching people attack him for doing the exact thing they usually spent years saying should be done or would be except for (insert name of anyone Ted Kennedy's ever had a pissing match with in here) supposedly halting it all.