rocketpig said:
Again, it's impossible to take your list seriously when you include the man who wrote the Emancipation Proclomation and the man who signed into law the Civil Rights Act. I don't worship Lincoln like many others do and he did a lot wrong but he was also put into a terrible situation and the country emerged as a better nation after his term. I'm also not fond of LBJ at all but he did more for equality in this country than any President since Lincoln. The ball was rolling in that direction anyway but he's still the guy who signed the bill. That in itself is enough to keep him off any "worst President" list, just as Nixon opening trade agreements with China and ending the Vietnam War is enough to keep his disaster of a Presidency off the list. Did LBJ promote equality, or was it his congress? Outside of the Civil Rights Act, LBJ's presidency was atrocious. He created the welfare state that is burdening our country with insane debts. He exacerbated Vietnam, and absolutely failed at managing the war. One positive doesn't make a good president. Social Security and Medicare are hurting everyone's pocketbook. Social Security is an absolute scam, and Johnson created the current iteration of the system. One that takes money from hard working people, taking it out of the economy, and puts it into a government treasure chest. Both you and Samuel are taking an incredibly narrow view of what makes a President "good" (economics and executive power, mainly) while completely ignoring the situations in which these Presidents were placed. This kind of thing cannot be viewed in a vacuum. You have to factor in all the elements that made each President do the things he did. Did Lincoln overstep his powers? Oh, most certainly. Was there another option? I'm not so sure of that. The sheer amount of turmoil during that time almost mandated a strong hand to right the ship. It's an ugly reality of a war President. A real war President, not a "fake war" President like LBJ or Bush who used their executive power unnecessarily to advance their agenda during a manufactured war we shouldn't have been fighting in the first place. On top of that, you're dismissing that those two men, despite their faults, advanced actual "freedom for all" more than anyone else in our history. You can't ignore that. It's kind of respulsive, actually, and very dishonest with who we are as a nation and the tragedies we've caused in the name of slavery, racism, and intolerance. I'm just about the biggest Jefferson fan there is but if I was to take the antithetic, yet just as narrow, view as you're using, I could place him at the top of the worst list for sheer hypocrisy. His belief in slavery was questionable at best. He wrote the Declaration of Independence. Yet, he didn't do a damned thing about inequality during his Presidency and just "let it ride". But I take a larger view of his Presidency than that and realize that, yes, the Louisiana Purchase was beyond his scope of power. But he saw an opportunity, one of the largest and best ever offered this nation, and grabbed hold before it disappeared. We emerged a much better and stronger nation because of it. Were blacks free in the south once the Jim Crowe laws came into being? The blacks were subjugated for another 100 years before things began to turn in their favor. Yes, Lincon abolished slavery. But he didn't make them free. Alternatively, I believe Lincoln exacerbated the situation with the Civil War at Fort Sumter. It may have been possible to reach other solutions with similar results. You say you view presidents' advanced freedom for all. I counter that with the fact that it was freedom for some. Economic freedom is a freedom, too. And when Johnson doubled the taxes on the poor and middle class via Social Security and Medicare, I would say that hurt blacks and whites alike. Additionally, who called for the Civil Rights Act of 1964? It wasn't Johnson. It was JFK. Kennedy was the one that championed the act, and promoted it. Johnson had absolutely nothing to do with it, other than signing the bill. Go look it up. Would any vice president done ANY differently than Johnson in that situation? No. That is why I look at Johnson's body of work - things he did influence - and determine he was a pretty bad president. And before you start, yes, I realize that the duality between Lincoln freeing the slaves and bringing the hammer down on Native Americans is a little hypocritical. But, as I said, he did a lot wrong but I'm not going to ignore the right he did because of it, much like Jefferson. |
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
