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Originally Posted by RidinHighSpeeds Quote: |
Originally Posted by Dylan Quote: |
Originally Posted by tadpole256 Quote: |
Originally Posted by Dylan My vote goes to Eisenhower, even though he was a Republican. He did a lot to expand welfare and critical infrastructure during the 50's, and he pulled us out of the Korean War.
I would have voted for FDR, but that whole internment camps for Japanese people thing is a little hard to ignore. | The expansion of welfare is precisely why I did not vote for Eisenhower. He was a great general, and a great man, but I'd only describe him as a decent president. Regan was the best president this country has ever had, at least in modern times. | I think he is one of the worst presidents we have ever had. There are so many fucked up things about the Reagan Administration, I'm going to have to put this in list form. Maybe I'll try to reduce it to the top ten, or something.
1. Ignoring AIDS. Seriously, that was just plain awful.
2. Trickle down economics: the only economic plan to favor the rich which actually sounds like pissing on the less fortunate.
3. The Iran-Contra Scandal. I don't think I even need to say more about that.
4. Wasting money on Star Wars, which every mainstream, respectable physisyst in America said wouldn't work.
5. he got rid of a federal program that gave employment and training to over 300,000 people in poverty, 'trimmed' medicaid rolls, cut a lot of children off of welfare, while cutting taxes for rich people.
6. His Agriculture Department wanted to count ketchup as a vegetable when providing school lunches for poor children. For a lot of disadvantaged children, their federally provided school meal is the only hot, complete meal they get.
7. He eliminated 300,000 people from Social Security disability payments.
8. He suggested that most homeless people are homeless by choice. Because obviously, a lot of people enjoy sleeping outside in the winter, and not bathing. Obviously.
9. Reagan was the father of a gigantic deficit.
10. Reagan stepped up tensions against the Soviet Union when the USSR was already in decline, from lack of well... basically everything. The USSR would have collapsed whether Reagan was president or not.
11. He supported blacklisting, and was an informant during the freaky McCarthy era.
12. Bombing Libya was a quagmire, and really didn't improve the Middle East's impression of America. It's only one tiny part of a number of things which have come back to bite us in the ass. Also see Iran-Contra.
I'm going to stop here, because I already have ten, and two for good luck. I could easily go on though. | Would you say that Jimmy Carter was a better president than Ronald Reagan? |
Hmmm... that's a toughie. Jimmy Carter screwed a lot of things up too. The Iran Hostage Crisis didn't go well, for example, although it was mostly the result of giving the Shah asylum and medical treatment. His heart was in the right place. If he had tried to attack Iran, things would have been much, much, much worse. Inflation and unemployment were at an all time high since the 1930's during his term, which was pretty bad.
The Carter Doctrine paved the way for modern terrorism by instilling a strong sense of nationalism in Middle Eastern countries. His plan of funding Pakistani and Afganistani rebels did contribute greatly to the fall of the USSR, but they also helped cause the surge of Islamic findamentalism and the Taliban we see today. Reinstating the draft kind of sucked, as did banning us from attending the Olympics in Moscow.
Saying we didn't need to apoligize for the Vietnam war because "The destruction was mutual" was downright stupid.
Supporting the Indonesian government's genocide against East Timor was horrific.
Attempting to cover up Three Mile Island was bad.
On the other hand, Carter did good things, which Reagan's administration is curiously devoid of. For example, Carter attempted to encourage Americans to save energy, and actually pitched in by getting solar panels for the White House. Reagan tore them up after coming into office. Carter helped make a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, the only such peace treaty to ever be accomplished between Israel and any other Middle Eastern country. Carter enacted strong environmental legislation. Carter strongly opposed apartheid. After Carter left the White House, he worked with Habitat for Humanity, and won a Nobel Peace Prize.
So, while Carter did a lot of ass-backward things, at least he did some good things, even after leaving office. He was rather bad for the economy, but at least he didn't intentionally screw over poor people.