POLITICS SCHMALITICS

[buddha]

7 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

JFK caused the Cuban missile crisis by installing missiles in Turkey in 1961; Khruschev's counter move of installing missiles in Cuba in 1962 made Kennedy back down and remove them .  And, he couldn't keep his pants zipped up.  So just leaning over your back fence, I'd say that he does not belong in your top 15.

kennedy in the top 10 is ridiculous.

once the baby boomer historians die off, he'll fall.

[pfife]

37 minutes ago, buddha said:

every president "lacked courage" on civil rights because they wanted to get elected.  

you judge presidents by what they did in their time, not by 2022 morality.

this seems like the reasoning for increasing LBJ.   I think his civil rights stuff was not what was popular when he did it.

[buddha]

Just now, pfife said:

this seems like the reasoning for increasing LBJ.   I think his civil rights stuff was not what was popular when he did it.

lbj's failing is vietnam.  that's why he is lowered on the scale.  

the civil rights stuff is why he is ranked as high as he is.  he was a very successful president in passing meaningful legislation.

but vietnam was a really big deal.  and a really huge failing.  without it, lbj is probably top 7, maybe higher.

[CMRivdogs]

LBJ's Civil Rights Act began the exodus of Dixiecrats to the GOP, sewing the seeds of what the party has become. McGovern's nomination in '72 pretty much sealed the deal.

[pfife]

3 minutes ago, buddha said:

lbj's failing is vietnam.  that's why he is lowered on the scale.  

the civil rights stuff is why he is ranked as high as he is.  he was a very successful president in passing meaningful legislation.

but vietnam was a really big deal.  and a really huge failing.  without it, lbj is probably top 7, maybe higher.

OK, I think we're on the same page.   I've read a couple of Caros books about LBJ but haven't gotten to the vietnam ones yet.  I agree that's what takes him down I'm just not informed enough to know how low it should pull him but I agree that it's fair that it does.

[CMRivdogs]

3 minutes ago, buddha said:

lbj's failing is vietnam.  that's why he is lowered on the scale.  

the civil rights stuff is why he is ranked as high as he is.  he was a very successful president in passing meaningful legislation.

but vietnam was a really big deal.  and a really huge failing.  without it, lbj is probably top 7, maybe higher.

I mentioned somewhere yesterday that I've begun reading the latest book on Watergate. The Pentagon Papers were probably the opening salvo for Nixon's downfall even though there was no mention of him in the report.

[Mr.TaterSalad]

52 minutes ago, buddha said:

every president "lacked courage" on civil rights because they wanted to get elected.  

you judge presidents by what they did in their time, not by 2022 morality.

Not civil rights, but slavery, is a different argument with different consequences. Both Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams opposed slavery. Quincy Adams was a critic of it while elected to Congress as well. As did Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Ben Franklin, and Marquis De Lafayette. If they did, so too could have Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. So the standards of the time were that many opposed slavery, including founding members of this nation.

 

Edited February 22, 2022 by Mr.TaterSalad

[buddha]

1 minute ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

Not civil rights, but slavery, is a different argument with different consequences. Both Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams opposed slavery. Quincy Adams was a critic of it whole elected to Congress as well. As did Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Ben Franklin, and Marquis De Lafayette. If they did, so too could have Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. So the standards of the time were that many opposed slavery, including founding members of this nation.

 

what did adams do to end slavery?

how about the alien & sedition acts?  you a big fan of those?

[oblong]

7 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

I mentioned somewhere yesterday that I've begun reading the latest book on Watergate. The Pentagon Papers were probably the opening salvo for Nixon's downfall even though there was no mention of him in the report.

Yep.  That can be directly led to watergate.  He was worried about them finding out he had a back channel to Saigon, as a candidate so they created their plumbers to go after Ellsburg.  He also knew that LBJ bugged his campaign plane, and LBJ knew he knew so they had to dance around that.  Mutually assured destruction.

 

[oblong]

3 minutes ago, buddha said:

what did adams do to end slavery?

how about the alien & sedition acts?  you a big fan of those?

Abigail wrote John some terse letters about women being able to vote too.

 

[Mr.TaterSalad]

1 minute ago, buddha said:

what did adams do to end slavery?

how about the alien & sedition acts?  you a big fan of those?

Both the Adams, John and Samuel, at least opposed Slavery at the founding of the nation. That's more than you can say for Washington and Jefferson. Neither owned slaves as both Washington and Jefferson did. Quincy Adams was a critic of slavery during his tenure in Congress and worked to get rid of a gag rule that prevented anti-slavery legislation from moving forward.

[buddha]

3 minutes ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

Both the Adams, John and Samuel, at least opposed Slavery at the founding of the nation. That's more than you can say for Washington and Jefferson. Neither owned slaves as both Washington and Jefferson did. Quincy Adams was a critic of slavery during his tenure in Congress and worked to get rid of a gag rule that prevented anti-slavery legislation from moving forward.

what did adams do to end slavery?

nothing.

[buddha]

a lot of the "founding fathers" opposed slavery.  however, if they wanted to form a unified country made up of all the states (which they would need to defeat the british) they would need to compromise.  so they did.  adams did.  hamilton did.  lafayette didnt because he was french and was more worried about not getting his head chopped off at that time.

if you criticize them for that  compromise, then you need to realize that the country does not form in the way it did.  now, you may say "good, anything is better than a nation that sanctioned slavery", which is a perfectly acceptable opinion to hold.  

but its with 20/20 hindsight.  at the time, the goal was to create a nation.  and that nation doesnt get created without a compromise on slavery.

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, buddha said:

as i said to g2 before, what matters isnt what you did for the country as a whole or how your actions moved the country in one direction or another, or how your actions influenced society. all that matter is how you thought about black people.

Call it historical recency bias. We look at the past through the lens of what is important to us now, which may or not have been important (relatively) to the options that a leader had at the time. The real test is what did a leader choose to do out of the universe of options that were actually open to him, not the universe of what we would have a leader do today. Now it is fair to say Wilson fails the test because he resegregated the Federal Government as an active choice. Even in its own historical context I don't see any reason to forgive that. 

It's sort of like when they do 'period' piece movies or television. They almost always fail any honest evaluation of their historical accuracy because nobody today would care about what the characters in that day actually cared about. It would make little sense to the present audience (for an example read Pride and Prejudice - it's takes a very active sense of imagination to believe anyone cared about what were matters of life and death to those characters!). Even Mad Men, which started out being about the 60's was really about today within a couple of seasons.

Edited February 22, 2022 by gehringer_2

[Tigeraholic1]

Washington, in his will freed all of his slaves when Martha died:

https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/slavery/washingtons-1799-will/

In accordance with state law, George Washington stipulated in his will that elderly slaves or those who were too sick to work were to be supported throughout their lives by his estate. Children without parents, or those whose families were unable to see to their education were to be bound out to masters and mistresses who would teach them reading, writing, and a useful trade, until they were ultimately freed at the age of twenty-five. Washington’s will stated that he took these charges to his executors very seriously: "And I do moreover most pointedly, and most solemnly enjoin it upon my Executors...to see that this clause respecting Slaves, and every part thereof be religiously fulfilled at the Epoch at which it is directed to take place; without evasion, neglect or delay, after the Crops which may then be on the ground are harvested, particularly as it respects the aged and infirm."

[mtutiger]

And yet he'll still win reelection.

[CMRivdogs]

There are no words to describe this ad. Definitely Not Safe For Work or the squeamish

 

 

[Tigeraholic1]

LOL what the Hell was that? SNL?

[Archie]

On 2/22/2022 at 11:13 AM, Mr.TaterSalad said:

Yes, absolutely. Other than Adams' John and John Quincy, because they opposed slavery, I don't look at the founding fathers or early Presidents with much fondness. Jefferson was himself a slave owner and a skank who slept around with his servants. And I never buy the argument of "well times were different" because you had President's like John Adams and JQA who opposed slavery. Albeit, they weren't abolitionists, but at least they knew it was morally wrong and voiced some opposition to it.

All the slave-supporting Presidents belong at the bottom of the list IMO because outside of killing, mass murder and genocide, there isn't much that is more morally repugnant and a greater stain on our nation than slavery.

Presidential lists are tough because all these men have flaws. The fact that not one woman is on the list is a flaw. Beyond Lincoln at #1, it's tough to rank who, where. My gut reaction is to say FDR at #2, but it can't be him due to what he did to Japanese Americans during WWII. It can't be Johnson due to Vietnam. It's can't be Truman due to him dropping the bomb. It's can't be Teddy due to his staunch opposition to Civil Rights laws and support for Jim Crow. I guess I'd say Lincoln at #1, Eisenhower at #2, Obama at #3, FDR at #4, JFK at #5.

I don't know how anyone can fault Truman for dropping two nuclear bombs on Japan.  Dropping those bombs saved countless American lives and ended WWII.

[gehringer_2]

how racist is it to just deny 'anyoneness' to over 200,000 souls? Asking for a friend.

[oblong]

It's been said that by the time Truman became President there was no way to stop the bomb.... the train was already at high speed.

He also had no idea the research was going on until he became President.

 

[gehringer_2]

21 minutes ago, oblong said:

It's been said that by the time Truman became President there was no way to stop the bomb.... the train was already at high speed.

He also had no idea the research was going on until he became President.

 

Skeptical on that. He isn't going to stop the *program*, and shouldn't have wanted to, but the order to go still had to be given and he was CIC. He may have felt he was not up to the task of making a different decision, but that doesn't mean he didn't have the power to. That said I'm not arguing the much bigger question of whether he should or shouldn't have, only that I don't agree it wasn't in his power to have made a different decision. If you can order MacArthur relieved, you can change a weapons deployment.

Edited February 24, 2022 by gehringer_2

[oblong]

Either way I'm of the opinion that he made the best decision of two or three horrible options.   

The emperor and generals could have prevented it by doing what they did shortly after.  It was their "code" that killed all those people.

 

[gehringer_2]

9 minutes ago, oblong said:

Either way I'm of the opinion that he made the best decision of two or three horrible options.   

The emperor and generals could have prevented it by doing what they did shortly after.  It was their "code" that killed all those people.

 

oddly enough, recently my sister and I came across some material my father had brought home at the end of WWII. There were a bunch of single sheet 'flimsies' (what the Brits used to call them, I don't know what we used to call them here, but they are copies made on something that is almost tissue paper) of some kind of news digest that the guys aboard the ships in the Pacific must have gotten - apparently daily or weekly. In any case he had saved a bunch and one was from about a week after the surrender and according to the story the Allies were right PO'd about the post surrender speech Hirohito gave. Really interesting to read a direct contemporaneous news story when it was still today's news and not history.

Edited February 24, 2022 by gehringer_2

[shabba4detroit]

On 2/1/2022 at 3:12 PM, oblong said:

Just because there's two sides to a point doesn't make one of them valid.  People think the earth is flat.  They're nuts.  

70% of the Earth's surface is ocean water.  Ocean water is uncarbonated.  Ergo, the Earth is flat.