to justly rate the presidents of our era....

[imeric]

Maybe I'm just showing my ignorance... again. Someone will think that.

Since we will never have an idea of what any of those former President's were truely about, what they truely accomplished and what they actually wanted or tried to do that was stopped, good or bad, we have no actual basis to judge them on. Although I probably should add that those Presidents that were written into history as incompetent or foolish, were probably the ones with the best of intent for the majority of the people, those that they felt they owed their high office to. We've witnessed in our own lifetime such blatant and ruthless coverups that nothing in Political History should be believed in our day, especially, if you lived it. In that light, My Stamp of Approval would have to go to Thomas Jefferson and my idea of who the worst would have to be, without a doubt, Abraham Lincoln. He could have refused all dialog of war. A war to save the Union was simply Not the right answer and the attrocities of that war were foreseeable, preventable and horiffic. He could easily be followed by U.S.Grant. and most definately not, by Andrew Johnson who vetoed 29 bills in which he was overruled by congress 15 times, which In my book makes him most likely one of the Better President's. Which is probably why he was impeached.

All of todays leaders are some form of industrial puppets with their hands stuffed with payments and favors of one form or another. Reagan got rid of the Soviet Union By making a lot of Arms Manufacturers and Defense Contractors Wealthy, Very Wealthy, with such cash sucking schemes as The Star Wars Defense Initiative and the at the time already obsolete before manufacturing was approved U2 Bomber Project and numerous other the bad ideas like the Bradley fighting vehicle. Not to mention Missles and Areospace. He also coined the phrase Trickle Down economics which he somehow spun in the light of Raising Taxes as a Necessary Evil. Based on the Iran Contra hearings, you have to wonder how many other coverups were wrought in his tenure...the ones that never made the news? We'll never know. Yet History has him as "The President that ended the Cold War". On those lines, what will they call George W. Bush? He'll probably be called "The Twice Elected President that held our country together through horrendous threats of National Disaster, International Terror, Epidemic, Disease, Economic Crisis and Oil Crisis...." If they just said The One Time Elected President (one they're still counting) Who brought with him all of the above, well that wouldn't be fair would it? Never mind I'm going back to the baseball threads.

But before I go, Think about this..... if 5 percent of the country holds 95 percent of the wealth. Why do we bother to tax 95 percent of the people? When if we just took away the loop holes and actually taxed that 5 percent with all the cash we'd be getting taxes on 95 percent of the money! Oh but then they'd leave wouldn't they? Aren't they leaving now? The factories sure are!

You can go ahead and trash me or my thread now.
--always taunted, never daunted--

 

[MtnBiker]

Are you one of Jay Bennish's students?

 

[007]

All of todays leaders are some form of industrial puppets with their hands stuffed with payments and favors of one form or another.

Clinton is dead last as President. He was the second President in American history to be impeached, but yet didn't have the class to step down. He's a filthy, lying, two faced, sexual predator, not to mention, a slimey liberal.

But before I go, Think about this..... if 5 percent of the country holds 95 percent of the wealth.

Why should the rich have to pay my taxes just because they're rich? Fair is fair, and I'll pay my own.

 

[MtnBiker]

..... if 5 percent of the country holds 95 percent of the wealth. Why do we bother to tax 95 percent of the people?

We don't tax wealth we tax income.


So yes, you are showing your ignorance.

 

[MtnBiker]

Actually property tax and death (estate) tax on based on wealth. Persons paying those taxes are paying a consideratable amount.

 

[CSM]

Interesting...first states there is nothing to base judgement on then makes a judgement.

Then swings right into Reagan/Bush bashing immediately followed by a shot or two at the rich.


Which of the banned trolls has returned?

 

[Mr. P]

Interesting...first states there is nothing to base judgement on then makes a judgement.

Then swings right into Reagan/Bush bashing immediately followed by a shot or two at the rich.


Which of the banned trolls has returned?

I noticed that too. DU must be boring lately.

 

[imeric]

Why all the fuss? I am new here. THAT's MY FIRST POST!
sorry if I offended anyones sesnibilites with my off handed remarks.
No Comment's on the historical perspective of the post, so I take it you just want to bash the new guy's. Like your posts don't ramble a bit in the morning!
You sure know how to make someone wanna hang around and maybe post something.

 

[MtnBiker]

I don't agree with your premiss that historical figures can not be truly known. So no sense on commenting on it.

 

[Nuc]

Why should the rich have to pay my taxes just because they're rich? Fair is fair, and I'll pay my own.

The only way to accomplish this is to go to a flat tax or a sales based tax, because the rich always find a way to avoid taxes.

 

[archangel]

Was the first President to be impeached...only because he wanted to be called General rather than President...and ran the office like a military campaign...but a least he didn't play with his pee pee in the tee pee! :scratch:

 

[imeric]

well thank you for your welcome. I presume that you intended to give one. What's the talk of Trolls while your here?

 

[MtnBiker]

well thank you for your welcome. I presume that you intended to give one. What's the talk of Trolls while your here?

Who is this directed to?

 

[imeric]

Who is this directed to?

but you probably know, that is if you don't mind answering.

 

[Bonnie]

Maybe I'm just showing my ignorance... again. Someone will think that.

Since we will never have an idea of what any of those former President's were truely about, what they truely accomplished and what they actually wanted or tried to do that was stopped, good or bad, we have no actual basis to judge them on. Although I probably should add that those Presidents that were written into history as incompetent or foolish, were probably the ones with the best of intent for the majority of the people, those that they felt they owed their high office to. We've witnessed in our own lifetime such blatant and ruthless coverups that nothing in Political History should be believed in our day, especially, if you lived it. In that light, My Stamp of Approval would have to go to Thomas Jefferson and my idea of who the worst would have to be, without a doubt, Abraham Lincoln. He could have refused all dialog of war. A war to save the Union was simply Not the right answer and the attrocities of that war were foreseeable, preventable and horiffic. He could easily be followed by U.S.Grant. and most definately not, by Andrew Johnson who vetoed 29 bills in which he was overruled by congress 15 times, which In my book makes him most likely one of the Better President's. Which is probably why he was impeached.

All of todays leaders are some form of industrial puppets with their hands stuffed with payments and favors of one form or another. Reagan got rid of the Soviet Union By making a lot of Arms Manufacturers and Defense Contractors Wealthy, Very Wealthy, with such cash sucking schemes as The Star Wars Defense Initiative and the at the time already obsolete before manufacturing was approved U2 Bomber Project and numerous other the bad ideas like the Bradley fighting vehicle. Not to mention Missles and Areospace. He also coined the phrase Trickle Down economics which he somehow spun in the light of Raising Taxes as a Necessary Evil. Based on the Iran Contra hearings, you have to wonder how many other coverups were wrought in his tenure...the ones that never made the news? We'll never know. Yet History has him as "The President that ended the Cold War". On those lines, what will they call George W. Bush? He'll probably be called "The Twice Elected President that held our country together through horrendous threats of National Disaster, International Terror, Epidemic, Disease, Economic Crisis and Oil Crisis...." If they just said The One Time Elected President (one they're still counting) Who brought with him all of the above, well that wouldn't be fair would it? Never mind I'm going back to the baseball threads.

But before I go, Think about this..... if 5 percent of the country holds 95 percent of the wealth. Why do we bother to tax 95 percent of the people? When if we just took away the loop holes and actually taxed that 5 percent with all the cash we'd be getting taxes on 95 percent of the money! Oh but then they'd leave wouldn't they? Aren't they leaving now? The factories sure are!

You can go ahead and trash me or my thread now.
--always taunted, never daunted--

Welcome to the board..

A little perspective on Reagan's legacy
Ranking Reagan
How well did he accomplish his own goals?

Where will Ronald Reagan rank among American presidents? If ranked accurately, he'll be near the very top, along with Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson.




The popularity of former presidents can be quite variable. Like Ronald Reagan, George Washington's final two years in office were not particularly successful, and his popularity declined. Yet as partisan warfare between Adams and Jefferson doomed the Founders' hope that political parties would not dominate American politics, the non-partisan Washington gained standing for his numerous accomplishments, and his shortcomings were largely forgotten.

During Harry Truman's second term, his popularity ratings set record lows not surpassed until shortly before Richard Nixon was forced to resign. Yet during the Nixon presidency, much of the American public discovered a new respect for the plain-speaking, blunt man from Missouri — a welcome contrast to the pathological mendacity of Lyndon Johnson and his successor.

Today, Reagan and John F. Kennedy rank as our two most admired former presidents. This indicates beyond any doubt that opinion polls should not be the final arbiter of a president's greatness. Kennedy's presidency was tremendously inspiring to many Americans, and his accomplishments are not insubstantial: a major tax cut, a significant build-up of conventional and nuclear forces, the beginning of the race to the moon, and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. But at least a third of American presidents have records of accomplishment far more extensive.

As we rank presidents, we should evaluate them on their own terms: An Anglophile should not downgrade James Madison because he defied the British Empire; an inflationist should not downgrade William McKinley because he preserved the gold standard; and a libertarian should not downgrade Franklin Roosevelt because he promoted affirmative government. A person may legitimately disagree with the policies of any of these presidents, but for ranking purposes the most neutral approach is to consider how successful they were in promoting their own visions.


CHANGING THE WORLD
The world of 2004 is very different from the world of 1980, and no man deserves more credit for the positive changes than Ronald Reagan. In shaping foreign affairs, domestic policy, his political party, and the American character, Reagan was among the most successful of all presidents. In none of these categories does he rank at the very top, but he was among the greatest in all of them.

When Ronald Reagan took oath in January 1980, America was a declining power. In Central America, totalitarian allies of Fidel Castro had conquered Nicaragua. Abandoning their promises to protect civil liberty, the Sandinistas were creating a Stalinist state in which the Communist party would be the living God in the "liberation theology" of a servile state church. Other Communists were fighting a war for the same goal in Central America. In 1983, a hard-line Stalinist seized power in a coup in Grenada. Today, Latin America is freer than it has been since the days before the Incas, the Aztecs, and the Spanish Empire. The region still has a long way to go, but these days Fidel Castro is generally understood as a relic of a terrible past rather than an avatar of the new Latin America.

President Truman had initiated the policy of containment to prevent the Soviet Union from expanding its evil empire, and to force Communism to collapse from its internal contradictions. Ford and Carter abandoned the policy, however, allowing nation after nation to fall to Soviet control. Nixon's policy of détente had been embraced and extended so widely that the American political élite was making policy based on the permanence of Soviet power, taking for granted a bipolar world in which many hundreds of millions of people would live indefinitely under the Soviet boot.

Ronald Reagan was among the very few visionaries who foresaw a better world. Challenging the Soviets to an arms race, halting Soviet expansionism everywhere, and reasserting the moral superiority of freedom in language evocative of Churchill and Kennedy, Reagan destroyed the evil empire, bringing Truman's vision to fruition.

In terms of expanding American power, Reagan ranks only behind Jefferson (Louisiana Purchase) and Polk (the annexation of Texas and the Southwest). He ranks equal to Franklin Roosevelt (defeating the Axis) and ahead of Madison (fighting the British to a draw).


A MIXED FOREIGN-POLICY BAG
Reagan's Mideast policies were a failure. He continued the Carter policy of attempting to negotiate with the tyrants in Iran; he emboldened Hezbollah by letting them drive America out of Lebanon as the nation was conquered by Syria; and he warmed America's already over-friendly relationships with the Wahabbi despots in Saudi Arabia. Today's war on terror must be fought in part because of the U.S. State Department's three-decade-long accommodation of Arab tyranny. In the Middle East, unlike in Europe or Latin America, Reagan continued the bipartisan consensus policies of the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations — and in retrospect, these policies failed.

Reagan also went too far in coddling anti-Communist dictators such as Marcos in the Philippines and the generals in Argentina (until the Falklands War). These policies reduced America's long-term influence and power, though not with such catastrophic results as the coddling of Mideast dictators.

Even the most successful foreign-policy presidents have notable failures. Although Truman created the policy of containment, his State Department inadvertently caused the Korean War by signaling that South Korea was outside the American sphere of defense. President George H.W. Bush gave Iraq similar signals about Kuwait. In accommodating Stalin at Yalta and allowing the government to be infiltrated at the highest levels by Soviet agents such as Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, and (probably) Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt helped create long-term perils to America much worse than Reagan created in the Mideast.

Washington, Madison, Lincoln, and FDR were the only presidents to steer America through crises in which national survival was genuinely in doubt. Accordingly, Reagan's accomplishments in foreign affairs cannot rank as high as these four. But he should rank immediately after them. Truman created containment, and his next three successors practiced it. But it was Reagan who prophetically saw that the time had come to tighten containment and finally destroy Soviet Communism. Like Roosevelt, he destroyed an evil empire whose ultimate goal was to enslave America.

Reagan's new paradigm in foreign affairs far outshines the baby steps toward imperialism begun by McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Only Wilson and Reagan attempted an audacious reformation of the international system, and Wilson's foreign policy was a disaster. Nixon and Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger tried a milder transformation of the global system, but Reagan aimed for an entirely different and more significant transformation — and he achieved it.


DOMESTIC DELIVERANCE
Domestically, Reagan's most enduring success was in tax policy. When he took office, the top federal tax rate was an abusive 70 percent — a rate sure to discourage entrepreneurship by unfairly confiscating well over half the earnings of creative risk-takers. Reagan left office having lowered the top rate to 28 percent. Although it crept back up to nearly 40 percent under the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations, America's entrepreneurs today know that the government will take no more than half the fruits of their labor.

By making sure that the top 10 percent of income earners received a fair share of the tax relief, Reagan guaranteed that the people most likely to create jobs, invent new products, and promote economic growth could look forward to enjoying the fruits of their labor rather than being discouraged by the prospect of envy-based confiscation. One of the longest economic booms in American history resulted.

In this regard, Ronald Reagan was a worthy successor to John F. Kennedy, who lowered the top rate from 90 percent to 70 percent. Moreover, the Reagan and Kennedy tax cuts made the tax system fairer by removing punitive levels of taxation based on malicious envy.

Reagan's economic vision and the success of his policies moved the entire American political and economic paradigm many large steps in the free-market direction. The Democratic party, post-Reagan, celebrates free markets; and modern Democrats are, as the Green party rightly points out, very different from the 1970s party that pushed the Humphrey-Hawkins bill through Congress, promising that government would be an employer of last resort.

Domestically, Reagan significantly reduced the size of the federal government in his first term. Unfortunately, though, he tended to cut programs rather than eliminate them, and today most of the programs he cut in his 1981 budget are larger and more intrusive than ever before. Reagan was much more timid than his hero Jefferson in terminating federal programs.

Like Jefferson, Reagan did not succeed in erecting new safeguards to constrain future government growth. Because Reagan's tax cuts did unleash tremendous economic growth, Reagan did not in the long run reduce net federal revenues available for spending. Indeed, his pro-growth economic policies raised revenues, making more money available for the appropriators and regulators.

Welfare reform under Reagan was confined to small, tepid steps, and the promise to abolish the Department of Education was abandoned for lack of Congressional support. As a result, federal interference with education today is worse than ever.

Even so, in tens of thousands of different ways, the men and women Reagan brought into federal service made the federal government less burdensome to the American people. Government control of political speech in the media in the form of the "fairness doctrine" was abolished, allowing AM radio stations to begin employing hosts who specialized in political commentary.


JUST SAY NO... TO BAD DRUG POLICY
But Reagan's domestic legacy was seriously tarnished by the massive escalation of the so-called war on drugs. Part of this war on American citizens was begun as a public-relations strategy to enhance Nancy Reagan's image. But part of the war stemmed from the genuinely authoritarian impulses of many members of the Reagan team. The consequences for Fifth Amendment property rights, Fourth Amendment privacy rights, Second Amendment arms rights, and Tenth Amendment states rights have been horrible. As with Reagan's errors in the Middle East, the awful consequences of his drug policies continue to harm America.

Jefferson imposed his oppressive Embargo; Jackson sent the Civilized Tribes on the Trail of Tears; Lincoln imprisoned and attempted to execute by court martial law-abiding Copperheads; and Roosevelt interred American citizens in concentration camps. Reagan's drug war takes its place beside these infamous abuses of civil liberties, and reminds us that even presidents with a deep affection for American traditions of freedom can be blind to their own ideals. These terrible policies underscore the importance of continuing to remind President Bush that creating a total surveillance state is the wrong way to confront Islamofascism.


COOLIDGE'S HEIR
On economic policy, there have been many presidents who shared Reagan's principles of reducing the burden of federal government. Harding dismantled much — but not enough — of the regulatory state created by Wilson and the progressives. Coolidge cut taxes, as did Kennedy. Cleveland crushed rampant inflation, as did Reagan. Jefferson eliminated a much larger fraction of unneeded federal programs than Reagan did.

Like Coolidge and Kennedy, Reagan had to fight tough political battles to pass his tax cuts. But this political effort pales in comparison to the epic struggle of Jackson and Buren to eliminate the monstrous Second Bank of the United States. The web of corruption spun by bank president Nicholas Biddle reached deep into Congress, and Biddle pushed the country into a depression in a final campaign to preserve the bank. Yet Jackson stayed the course, as did Van Buren. As a result, the central government's ability to manage the economy for political purposes was greatly reduced, a legacy that endured until the creation of the Federal Reserve in the early 20th century.

In his domestic-policy legacy, Reagan is outranked by Jefferson and by Jackson and Van Buren, as well as by Lincoln, FDR, and Johnson, who promoted gigantic increases in federal power that remain largely in place today.

Lincoln and FDR turned their political parties into majority parties for decades to come. Reagan began but did not finish such a transformation for the Republicans. That transformation is still in progress, as President Bush works to nudge a 50-50 nation into a Republican majority.


TRANSFORMING A PARTY; HEALING A NATION
What Reagan did complete was the transformation of the Republican party into a conservative party. One might compare this change to Eisenhower's turning the Republicans into internationalists rather than isolationists, or FDR's turning the Democrats into the party of vigorous federal government.

Rhetorically, Wilson aimed high, but today his "war to end all wars" is rightly regarded as a tragic delusion. FDR inspired the American people when their national morale was at its lowest; Reagan likewise led America to regain its confidence as the shining city on a hill — the beacon of freedom for all mankind. The "national malaise" of Carter was replaced by the renewed confidence of the Reagan era.

Today, America is the world's hyperpower. In many ways, not even the Roman Empire had the international standing of the American colossus. Our power has three foundations, all of which are more to the credit of Ronald Reagan than any other man of the 20th century: a vibrant, free economy, which was unshackled by Reagan's tax cuts; the elimination of our only geopolitical opponent and its transformation into a sometimes friend; and the confidence of the American people that our freedom is not just a lifestyle choice but a blessing from the Almighty meant to become a blessing for all mankind.

Reagan clearly ranks as the greatest president of the last half-century. Although he did not shape America's national destiny as much as did Washington, Lincoln, or FDR, he has earned a place with Jefferson and Jackson in the second-highest rank of American presidents.

The sun has set on Ronald Reagan, but it is still morning in America. His legacy is a new dawn of American freedom and might that continues to shine the light of liberty all over the world.

* * *

http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel200406081003.asp

 

[Nuc]

Why all the fuss? I am new here. THAT's MY FIRST POST!
sorry if I offended anyones sesnibilites with my off handed remarks.
No Comment's on the historical perspective of the post, so I take it you just want to bash the new guy's. Like your posts don't ramble a bit in the morning!
You sure know how to make someone wanna hang around and maybe post something.

Get with the program, there are a few things you must do to ingratiate yourself to the people on this board if you want to be accepted:

1. Call most people, including Joseph McCarthy, Rush Limbaugh, Attilla the Hun and Hitler, liberals. The only person who is not a liberal in this scenario is you.

2. Talk about the "fact" that gays have no redeeming social value whatsoever and should be killed. Also, gays choose their orientation, although you have not. This is because they are sinners.

3. Say that you are a biker, even if it's not true.

4. Say that you are in the military, even if it's not true.

5. Say that Jesus wants us to nuke every country in the Middle East.

6. Say that the Clintons are to blame for everything that is wrong with Western culture.

7. Say that the government is secretly being taken over by the ACLU and NAMBLA.

8. Failing all these, just keep posting, because most of the people here are nice and once they get used to you they'll treat you OK.

:halo: :hail: :alco:

 

[Bonnie]

Nuc...8. Failing all these, just keep posting, because most of the people here are nice and once they get used to you they'll treat you OK.

Geee whiz thanks for ending on that positive note

 

[imeric]

Was the first President to be impeached...only because he wanted to be called General rather than President... :scratch:

Sorry but Andrew Johnson was the first president impeached. He took office after Lincoln. And couldn't get anything accomplished with congress. Sorry to cut off the rest of your statement but I found it neither appropriate nor enlightening enough to include. Flawed info is flawed. just goes to show you can't believe everything you read either.

 

[MtnBiker]

but you probably know, that is if you don't mind answering.

No I don't know, enlighten me.

 

[Shattered]

Geee whiz thanks for ending on that positive note

Well.. he's got a <i>half</i> valid point..There are some people that are completely "out there" from both sides..