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Forums - Politics - Best/Worst Presidents

Mr Khan on 30 May 2012
Kasz216 said:
Mr Khan said:


4- Theodore Roosevelt: certain racist tendencies, though not overt support for the KKK (which hadn't been revived yet). However, he helped lead the cause of progressivism in the early 20th century for pushing America into modernity.

I'm confused by this.  Roosevelets biggest political challenge throught pretty much his whole presidency was that racists hated him because he was generally way ahead of the curve and more progressive racially then any president before... and many after.  To the point of where he coordinated extremely close with Booker T Washington to do as much as could be done without causing a negative backlash.  In general his opinion on african americans mirrored that of Booker T Washington's.

As a president and person, Roosevelt was decades ahead on the race front.

But i had heard he was in favor of Eugenics? Unless that was just about not letting the differently abled breed, and he wasn't in to the more specifically racial components of Eugenics.



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Kasz216 on 31 May 2012

Anyway, my list

Best

1) Theodore Roosevelt - Was someone who was able to compromise while still getting shit done.  Only president widely considered one of the greatest who DIDN'T have a giant ass war to bail us out of.  Put in just about the right level of government controls into most areas. 

2)  George Washington - The reason so few revolutions actually seem to result in true monoarchs is because of the lack of leaders like George Washinton who stand up and say "I don't want to be King/Dictator." 

3)  Thomas Jefferson - Lousiana Purchase.  He had native american issues, but at least was for assimilation above all else.  Unlike a guy in the bottom of the list.

4)  Lincoln - Why so low on the list?  Well, because honsetly I think Lincoln was partly a product of his time.  I think the presidents above would of done just as well during the Civil War if not beter.  Did a lot of awful things as well...  Nowhere near FDR or Woodrow Wilson level though.

5)  Really any number of presidents work here.... no one else stands out head and above the next 6-10 i can think of.

Worst

1)  James Buchanon - Basically caused the Civil war.

2) Andrew Jackson - Jacksonian Democracy is great and all but it doesn't make up for fucking genocide.  It just doesn't.

3) FDR - Sure, we won WW2... great if your an "Ends justify the means" type person, however the list of his crimes makes George W Bush look like a saint.  

The guy imprisoned completely innocent citizens because they found out he was plotting to get us into WW2, while running a campaign that directly said he would keep us out of WW2 because that's what most of the people wanted.  He tried to destroy the supreme court by passing  a measure that would let presidents nominate as many justices as they wanted until they got the ruling they wanted.  The list of shit he did and shit he wanted to do is too long for this.

 

4) Franklin Pierce - Same as Buchanon but to a lesser degree

5) Hebert Hoover - Ironically considered the posterchild of not acting during times of economic disaster.  In reality he was the very first President who advocated cyclical spending, and did so.  He actually greatly increased government spending by a level that was pretty unprecedented at the time.  This is frogtten only by how much FDR raised it.



Kasz216 on 31 May 2012
rocketpig said:
Mr Khan said:
rocketpig said:
bouzane said:
2. This may be true but it doesn't change the fact that the Axis was crushed almost entirely by the Soviets with comparatively little being accomplished by the British.

I find it a little difficult to swallow that the Soviets singled-handedly crushed the entirety of the Axis powers when they fought neither Italy nor Japan in force. Italy was almost a laughing stock, for sure... Japan, not so much.

Threat of the Soviet Union (despite their nonagression pact) did hurt the Japanese war effort, as they had significant resources invested in Manchuria awaiting the invasion, which could have been used to build control over the Aleutians or make the difference on Guadalcanal.

They distracted the Japanese, yes. But distraction without major conflict is not the same thing as actually defeating the enemy.

You'd be surprised.

Some historians now suggest the reason Japan surrendered is because they thought Russia was going to invade.

It generally gets lost in common conversiation but in reality it was found that when Japan was trying to send the US a surrender message through Russia before the second nuclear bomb dropped... the reality was. 

Japan wasn't trying to surrender.  They were trying to put off a Russian invasion by convincing the Russians the war was over so they would stop there preperations. 

The Japanese gameplan was to force the US to invade... while keeping russia unprepaired... deal heavy casualties and force the US to break it's treaty with the British, French and Russians to seek nothing but unconditional surrender.  Allowing Japan to keep the emepror and it's government, and possibly some of it's outside conquest.

 

This is something generally ignored because people either want to use that fake surrender as a claim that the second nuclear bomb was worthless or that the second nuclear bomb is what forced the surrender.   (It really did help, but that combined with the russian invasion were what did it.)



Kasz216 on 31 May 2012

Oh, and for USSR contribution to WW2.

One thing that's vastly overlooked is where they got their war supplies from.

Sure the USSR army did a lot of heavy lifting... however they got most of their war supplies from the other allies, especially the United States.

There was a LOT more then lend lease.



Mr Khan on 31 May 2012

My understanding of Franklin Pierce was that he was trying to find a compromise solution, and was actively working towards it, whereas Buchanan was more for just letting the chips fall where they may (allowing stuff like Bleeding Kansas to go down on his watch). I tend to give Pierce a bit of credit for trying.



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richardhutnik on 31 May 2012

I find questions like these close to useless, because you plug in best or worse, based upon your political agenda, which is a bad way to evaluate who does the best or worst job as president. Another biases is that recent presidents will be rated far higher or lower than they should be, due to recent exposure bias.



Kasz216 on 31 May 2012
Mr Khan said:
Kasz216 said:
Mr Khan said:


4- Theodore Roosevelt: certain racist tendencies, though not overt support for the KKK (which hadn't been revived yet). However, he helped lead the cause of progressivism in the early 20th century for pushing America into modernity.

I'm confused by this.  Roosevelets biggest political challenge throught pretty much his whole presidency was that racists hated him because he was generally way ahead of the curve and more progressive racially then any president before... and many after.  To the point of where he coordinated extremely close with Booker T Washington to do as much as could be done without causing a negative backlash.  In general his opinion on african americans mirrored that of Booker T Washington's.

As a president and person, Roosevelt was decades ahead on the race front.

But i had heard he was in favor of Eugenics? Unless that was just about not letting the differently abled breed, and he wasn't in to the more specifically racial components of Eugenics.

Roosevelt's belief on race was that every man deserved to be treated as an individual, and promoted or demoted based soley on his own personal abilties.  He did think Blacks were behind on average, but that's because at the time they were, due to all the slavery.  Even Booker T Washington thought this was the case, which is why he cared more about Education then he did integration.

Though yeah.  Roosevelt's exact quote on Eugenics was "I wish very much that the wrong people could be prevented entirely from breeding; and when the evil nature of these people is sufficiently flagrant, this should be done. Criminals should be sterilized and feebleminded persons forbidden to leave offspring behind them... The emphasis should be laid on getting desirable people to breed..."

 

Not sure how you don't give Roosevelt a pass on that, yet give Jackson a pass on outright genocide.



Kasz216 on 31 May 2012
Mr Khan said:
My understanding of Franklin Pierce was that he was trying to find a compromise solution, and was actively working towards it, whereas Buchanan was more for just letting the chips fall where they may (allowing stuff like Bleeding Kansas to go down on his watch). I tend to give Pierce a bit of credit for trying.

Bleeding Kasnas happened on Pierce's watch.  It carried over to Buchanon, but started under Pierces watch when Pierce passed the Kansas-Nebraksa act which invalidated the Missouri compromise and allowed slavery to be decided in Nebraksa and Kansas by popular vote.  Free State and Slave State people both flooded in and started fighting.  This intesnfied later, but it started under Pierece like 1 year into his presidency. and was promptly ignored.



Kasz216 on 31 May 2012
ASStronaut said:

Another thread by an American that thinks the world revolves around The USA.

Other countries have Presidents too, you know.

Thread should be called "Best/Worst US presidents"

Big headed, arrogant yanks.

I always hate this arguement.  Mostly because people don't seem to pay attention to abbreivations.

USA = United States of America.

The official base name of the USA is in fact... America.

Deal with it.  Note there is in fact no other place called America.  There is North America, South America... and if your being generous Central America. (Though geographically, doesn't really exist.)  Or all together it's the "Americas."



Kasz216 on 31 May 2012
rocketpig said:
mrstickball said:
rocketpig said:
mrstickball said:

#3. LBJ. Created the 'great society', which has ruined our country financially. Took the social safety net and turned it into a pension system that is unsustainable, resulting in trillions of dollars being taken out of the economy and put into government debt. Vietnam.

#4. Abraham Lincon. Suspension of Habeus Corpus. Got us into the Civil War thanks to Fort Sumter. Repaid war veterans by giving them land (Homestead Act) resulting in kicking or killing many, many Indians.

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.




You read my post, right? I said I'm not an LBJ fan. I think most of his decisions were terrible. But signing that one document (the Civil Rights Act) is enough to keep him off any Worst President List, even if he wasn't the guy who sent that ball in motion.

Does that make him one of the best presidents... or just one of the luckiest ones?

It seems foolish to judge a preisdnet largely based ons something he probably couldn't of got out of the way if he tried.  I mean, how many presidents WOULDN'T of signed that bill in his place?