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My dear friend Senator H,
It must be nice to live in a world where you get to define your terms (and thus your enemies) willy-nilly without regard to standards or rationality. Most of us are constrained by the real world, and are thus at a disadvantage. I suppose, though, that gives everyone the equal right to describe your views as they like, too.
You have, I understand, voted Republican. That means that the list of horribles Greger previously supplied are now verified as applicable. I appreciate that concession. It clarifies so much. I'm sure this discussion will be so much simpler in the future. If, because I have voted for Republicans, I am guilty by association of everything Republican elected officials have done, then you and Greger are guilty by association of everything the Democrats have done. The list of sins committed by the Democrats is much longer than the sins committed by the Republicans. Thanks for admitting that you and Greger have and do wallow in the pig sty of the Democratic Party. I'll gladly take that mantle, as the list of accomplishments so outstrips the "horribles" that they become almost irrelevant. Let's compare notes, shall we? Starting at the top, and sticking with the last century: Warren G. Harding: Known for - Tepot Dome. 'nuff said. Calvin Coolidge: The Great Depression. Along with Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, Coolidge won the passage of three major tax cuts. Using powers delegated to him by the 1922 Fordney–McCumber Tariff, Coolidge kept tariff rates high in order to protect American manufacturing. He blocked passage of the McNary–Haugen Farm Relief Bill, which would have involved the federal government in the persistent farm crisis that affected many rural communities. The strong economy combined with restrained government spending to produce consistent government surpluses, and total federal debt shrank by one quarter during Coolidge's presidency. Coolidge also signed the Immigration Act of 1924, which greatly restricted immigration into the United States. In foreign policy, Coolidge continued to keep the United States out of the League of Nations, but he engaged with foreign leaders and sponsored the Kellogg–Briand Pact of 1928.
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Coolidge has often been criticized for his actions during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the worst natural disaster to hit the Gulf Coast until Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (Wikipedia) (Sound familiar?) Hoover: Smoot-Hawley; Hoovervilles. On the plus side, Glass-Steagall Act of 1932 (predecessor to the Glass-Steagall we know); and the socialist programs of Reconstruction Finance Corporation; Federal Home Loan Bank Act; Emergency Relief and Construction Act. Franklin Roosevelt... Well, too many to list, New Deal (SSA, among others). Harry Truman: Finished WWII, brought US into UN; The Marshall Plan, Berlin Airlift. The president set forth an ambitious social reform agenda, known as the Fair Deal, which included national medical insurance, federal housing programs, a higher minimum wage, assistance for farmers, repeal of the Taft-Hartley labor act, increases in Social Security and civil rights reforms. Truman’s proposals were largely blocked by conservatives in Congress; however, he had some legislative successes, such as the Housing Act of 1949, and also issued executive orders (at the end of his first term) to end segregation in the U.S. armed forces and to prohibit discrimination in federal government jobs. Eisenhower: NASA, Interstate Highway System; Throughout his presidency, Eisenhower adhered to a political philosophy of dynamic conservatism.[129] He described himself as a "progressive conservative"[130] and used terms such as "progressive moderate" and "dynamic conservatism" to describe his approach.[131] He continued all the major New Deal programs still in operation, especially Social Security. He expanded its programs and rolled them into the new cabinet-level agency of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, while extending benefits to an additional ten million workers. He implemented racial integration in the Armed Services in two years, which had not been completed under Truman. Richard Nixon (whom he tried to jettison), the Vietnam War, Bay of Pigs. Kennedy: Space program; Cuban Missle Crisis; Green Berets; proposed tax reductions; Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Johnson: Great Society programs (Medicare, Medicaid); Civil Rights Act. Department of Transportation.[32] The department was authorized by Congress on October 15, 1966 and began operations on April 1, 1967. Congress passed a variety of legislation to support improvements in transportation including The Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 which provided $375 million for large-scale urban public or private rail projects in the form of matching funds to cities and states and created the Urban Mass Transit Administration (now the Federal Transit Administration), High Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965 which resulted in the creation of high-speed rail between New York and Washington, and the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 ( Wikipedia) Nixon: Spiro Agnew; Watergate; Clean air, Clean Water Acts, EPA; Bombing of Laos; Cambodia; Vietnam escalation; SALT treaties; stagflation; end of the gold standard; and a mixed bag of other legislation and vetoes. Oh, and Watergate. Ford:? Carter: ?? Reagan: Iran-Contra. Recession. Bush: Iraq I. Recession. Clinton: little blue dress; a lotta nuttin. Bush: Iraq II; Great Recession. Obama: Recession recovery; ACA Trump: the Scandal a Day Program.
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I shall reply to your list later. There are a lot of errors in the list. Which is not surprising.
The state can never straighten the crooked timber of humanity.
I'm a conservative because I question authority.
Conservative Revolutionary
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Moderator Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Moderator Carpal Tunnel
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I shall reply to your list later. There are a lot of errors in the list. Good luck with that. I actually have references, I don't make **** up (unlike some I know).
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I'll gladly take that mantle, as the list of accomplishments so outstrips the "horribles" that they become almost irrelevant. Let's compare notes, shall we? Starting at the top, and sticking with the last century:
Warren G. Harding: Known for -Teapot Dome. 'nuff said. Yes, the Harding administration is known for the Teapot Dome scandal. However, it was the people in his administration who are responsible for the scandal not Harding. Being inept and an overly trusting person was Harding's crime, not the Teapot Dome scandal. Calvin Coolidge: The Great Depression. You are trying to blame Coolidge for the Great Depression? You are blaming Coolidge for something that did not start until he had been out of office for almost two years? If he is then the ALL of the economic recovery we are currently enjoying is due to Trump and Obama had nothing to do with it! Hoover: Smoot-Hawley; Hoovervilles. On the plus side, Glass-Steagall Act of 1932 (predecessor to the Glass-Steagall we know); and the socialist programs of Reconstruction Finance Corporation; Federal Home Loan Bank Act; Emergency Relief and Construction Act. You will get no debate from me on Hoover, Smoot, and Hawley for being primarily responsible for the Great Depression. Your “plus” side is only a plus if you believe that government intervention solves economic problems. Since you call the other programs socialist I imagine that there probably isn’t a government intervention in our economy you would oppose. Franklin Roosevelt... Well, too many to list, New Deal (SSA, among others). The New Deal? Without the help of viruently racist southern Democrats the New Deal programs would not have passed. In order to get some of the New Deal programs passed FDR convinced Democrats from other states to allow the southern Democrats to prevent anti-lynching laws from being passed. Also the conditions of southern blacks were made much worse due many of the New Deal programs, such as the AAA, the WPA, the NIRA (AKA the NRA), and Social Security. Then there is FDR’s appointment of a member of the KKK, Hugo Black, to the Supreme Court. And you have the gall to call Republicans racist? The programs you cherish would not have been created without the help of the racist Southern Democrats! Harry Truman: Finished WWII, brought US into UN; The Marshall Plan, Berlin Airlift. In July of 1945 a Swedish diplomat, Allen Dulles, and the Japanese Army legation, headed by Lt. Gen. Seigo Okamoto, in Basle, Switzerland created a peace treaty that would have ended WWII that month and without dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Swedish diplomat was my grandfather, Per Jacobsson. (He missed my parents wedding to work on the peace treaty.) There would not have been a UN for the US to join if FDR did not pick former Governor Harold Stassen (R-MN) to be on the Founding Conference. Stassen was a primary author of the UN’s Charter. He was also a friend of my family and me. The UN has become a corrupt club run by third world dictators. It is not the organization that Stassen helped create. Eisenhower: NASA, Interstate Highway System; No argument there. Kennedy: Space program; Cuban Missle Crisis; Green Berets; proposed tax reductions; Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Richard Nixon (whom he tried to jettison), the Vietnam War, Bay of Pigs. The Cuban Missile Crisis would probably not have happened if Kennedy, NOT Nixon, had not launched the Bay of Pigs invasion! Giving Kennedy credit for pulling his ass out of crisis he created is hardly something to brag about. Johnson: Great Society programs (Medicare, Medicaid); Civil Rights Act. The Great Society is a complete failure! Our government spent over $17 trillion to eliminate poverty and poverty is still as bad today as it was before the Great Society started is not a successful program. Medicare is a success? That program is a $70 to $100 trillion unfunded liability for our government. It was LBJ’s Gulf of Tonkin resolution is what escalated the Vietnam War. The ONLY reason LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act into law was because Senate Republicans led by Everett Dirksen broke the filibuster of the southern Democrats!
The state can never straighten the crooked timber of humanity.
I'm a conservative because I question authority.
Conservative Revolutionary
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Moderator Carpal Tunnel
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I suspected I would get virulently partisan and historically dubious responses, and you did not disappoint, my friend. Thanks for that. 1) Harding gets a pass because he only appointed the crooks to his cabinet. That's unique. I suppose it's because he didn't personally profit, like Trump does. 2) Your ignorance of Coolidge and his policies does not surprise me. March 1929 (left office)-October 1929 (stock market crash) does not 2 years make, even using "conservative" math. Even Coolidge admitted he bore partial responsibility for the crash. Although Coolidge had received a great deal of credit for the prosperity of the 1920s, he recognized that he bore some responsibility for the severe economic downturn. He admitted to friends that he had spent his presidency “avoiding the big problems,” as William Allen White quoted him as saying in his biography, “A Puritan in Babylon.” Coolidge died of a heart attack at the age of 60 at his Northampton home on January 5, 1933. Had he not died during the depth of the Depression, he might have taken more blame. But, it was his laissez faire policies from 1923-1929, love of tariffs, and cheerleading for reckless stock speculation that created the conditions that led to the failures. Hoover actually saw it coming and tried to warn him. (It seems funny/typical to excuse Republican presidents who serve multiple terms from responsibility for their policies, but blame Democrats for conditions before they even assume office...) 3) I actually give Hoover credit for trying to do something, if way too late. But all three, Harding, Coolidge and Hoover, had a marked disdain for the downtrodden and an overweening belief in the goodness of business. 4) Then, deflect, defame, obfuscate and misrepresent (why am I not surprised?) to avoid the reality of FDR's success, despite Republican intransigence and interference. (And you have the temerity to make accusations about claims of racism you know I never made. Dishonest, much?) 5) Eisenhower (not Nixon) created both the Vietnam crisis and the Bay of Pigs plan (in March 1960 he allocated $13.1 million to the CIA to plan Castro's overthrow. The CIA proceeded to organize the operation with the aid of various Cuban counter-revolutionary forces, training Brigade 2506 in Guatemala. Eisenhower's successor), or did you forget that part of history for convenience sake? It's true that John F. Kennedy approved the final invasion plan on 4 April 1961, only 2 1/2 months after taking office. He was snowed by the CIA about its likelihood of success, and was badly hurt by its failure. "And the rest," as they say, "is fantasy..." You do make it hard to catalog all your mischaracterizations, but it keeps me occupied.
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Pooh-Bah
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I suspected I would get virulently partisan and historically dubious responses, and you did not disappoint, my friend. That is The Way of the Tarbaby. "And the rest," as they say, "is fantasy..." You do make it hard to catalog all your mischaracterizations, but it keeps me occupied. I can give you some far more productive ways to keep occupied...
You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.
R. Buckminster Fuller
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journeyman
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journeyman
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5) Eisenhower (not Nixon) created both the Vietnam crisis... With everything else you have written in your above post. I have little issue or doubt. However, with Vietnam being one of my wars, I feel the need to point out the Vietnam War was caused by the failings of Woodrow Wilson at Versailles France at the end of WW I. Watch the first episode of Ken Burn's "The Vietnam War" documentary, available through Netflix. Yes Eisenhower, did expand or begin American involvement, by assisting the French at Dien Bien Phu, and Kennedy sent in the Advisors, and Johnson sent in the troops, and Nixon negotiated our out. Despite this, I still dislike Nixon; He was a Crook.
Vote 2022!
Life is like a PB&J sandwich. The older you get, the moldery and crustier you get.
Now, get off my grass!
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Moderator Carpal Tunnel
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5) Eisenhower (not Nixon) created both the Vietnam crisis... With everything else you have written in your above post. I have little issue or doubt. However, with Vietnam being one of my wars, I feel the need to point out the Vietnam War was caused by the failings of Woodrow Wilson at Versailles France at the end of WW I. Watch the first episode of Ken Burn's "The Vietnam War" documentary, available through Netflix. Yes Eisenhower, did expand or begin American involvement, by assisting the French at Dien Bien Phu, and Kennedy sent in the Advisors, and Johnson sent in the troops, and Nixon negotiated our out. Despite this, I still dislike Nixon; He was a Crook. I don't object to your chronology, and Eisenhower is one of my favorite Presidents, but his failure, in my book, was interceding to prevent an election in South Vietnam. That, rather than Dien Bien Phu, is why I blame him for Vietnam. He sided with the colonialists.
A well reasoned argument is like a diamond: impervious to corruption and crystal clear - and infinitely rarer.
Here, as elsewhere, people are outraged at what feels like a rigged game -- an economy that won't respond, a democracy that won't listen, and a financial sector that holds all the cards. - Robert Reich
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Moderator Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Moderator Carpal Tunnel
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I suspected I would get virulently partisan and historically dubious responses, and you did not disappoint, my friend. That is The Way of the Tarbaby. "And the rest," as they say, "is fantasy..." You do make it hard to catalog all your mischaracterizations, but it keeps me occupied. I can give you some far more productive ways to keep occupied... Of this I have no doubt. 
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I suspected I would get virulently partisan and historically dubious responses, and you did not disappoint, my friend. Thanks for that. Your responses are as virulently partisan as mine are. However I don't hide my partisanship by claiming to be an "unbiased educated voice of reason" as you do. Your pretense of being an "unbiased educated voice of reason" is extremely obnoxious! 1) Harding gets a pass because he only appointed the crooks to his cabinet. That's unique. I suppose it's because he didn't personally profit, like Trump does. I wasn't giving Harding a pass just saying why the scandal happened. He did pay a price for for the scandal, he died of heart attack. The 29th U.S. president, Warren Harding (1865-1923) served in office from 1921 to 1923 before dying of an apparent heart attack. Harding’s presidency was overshadowed by the criminal activities of some of his cabinet members and other government officials, although he himself was not involved in any wrongdoing. 2) Your ignorance of Coolidge and his policies does not surprise me. March 1929 (left office)-October 1929 (stock market crash) does not 2 years make, even using "conservative" math. Even Coolidge admitted he bore partial responsibility for the crash. Although Coolidge had received a great deal of credit for the prosperity of the 1920s, he recognized that he bore some responsibility for the severe economic downturn. He admitted to friends that he had spent his presidency “avoiding the big problems,” as William Allen White quoted him as saying in his biography, “A Puritan in Babylon.” Coolidge died of a heart attack at the age of 60 at his Northampton home on January 5, 1933. Had he not died during the depth of the Depression, he might have taken more blame. But, it was his laissez faire policies from 1923-1929, love of tariffs, and cheerleading for reckless stock speculation that created the conditions that led to the failures. Hoover actually saw it coming and tried to warn him. (It seems funny/typical to excuse Republican presidents who serve multiple terms from responsibility for their policies, but blame Democrats for conditions before they even assume office...) While the crash of 1929 was the start of Great Depression at that time it was still believed to be a recession. Coolidge did avoid problems. He did so because he realized and accepted the fact that there were many he could not solve and it is best to let those who can do so. He knew that our country's economy was not something he could fix. No, President can fix the economic problems our country will have. Did some of things he did and did not do help create the Great Depression? Yes, they did. But it is only with hindsight that that knowledge is obtained. Coolidge did what he thought was best at the time. But like everyone else he made mistakes. Trying to pin all, or even most, of the blame for the Great Depression on Coolidge is a biased partisan view, not an educated one. 3) I actually give Hoover credit for trying to do something, if way too late. But all three, Harding, Coolidge and Hoover, had a marked disdain for the downtrodden and an overweening belief in the goodness of business. What Hoover tried, and FDR continued to do, only made the Great Depression worse. Hoover's and FDR's policies also extended the length of the Great Depression. (Just in case you don't notice it I am blaming both a Republican and a Democrat for the Great Depression.) If you think Coolidge had a "marked disdain" for the downtrodden you don't know much about his life. That you think so makes your quote from William Allen White's biography of Coolidge, “A Puritan in Babylon" dubious. 4) Then, deflect, defame, obfuscate and misrepresent (why am I not surprised?) to avoid the reality of FDR's success, despite Republican intransigence and interference. (And you have the temerity to make accusations about claims of racism you know I never made. Dishonest, much?) FDR's success? His policies made the Great Depression worse! Deflect? To say how the New Deal was created is an important part of the history of it. To ignore how it was created is partisan. An educated person looks at all of the contributing factors to a historical event. A partisan person ignores the factors that make his or her side look bad. The New Deal was a success in extended the depth and lengthening duration of the Great Depression. What FDR was doing was bad for our country and Republican opposition to it was the right thing to do. 5) Eisenhower (not Nixon) created both the Vietnam crisis and the Bay of Pigs plan (in March 1960 he allocated $13.1 million to the CIA to plan Castro's overthrow. The CIA proceeded to organize the operation with the aid of various Cuban counter-revolutionary forces, training Brigade 2506 in Guatemala. Eisenhower's successor), or did you forget that part of history for convenience sake? It's true that John F. Kennedy approved the final invasion plan on 4 April 1961, only 2 1/2 months after taking office. He was snowed by the CIA about its likelihood of success, and was badly hurt by its failure. Eisenhower ordered the creation of the plans for the Bay of Pigs invasion. As a general and President he ordered the creation of plans for a lot of things. He was wise enough to know which plans to implement and which ones should sit on the shelf. Eisenhower knew that the invasion would not be successful, he was great military strategist knew a bad plan when he saw one. The failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion is Kennedy's fault not Eisenhower's. It is because Kennedy put Eisenhower's plan into action. Kennedy was hurt because he foolishly believed the CIA. He also did not completely follow Eisenhower's plan which was why the invasion failed. "And the rest," as they say, "is fantasy..." You do make it hard to catalog all your mischaracterizations, but it keeps me occupied. Only according to your virulently partisan biased opinions.
The state can never straighten the crooked timber of humanity.
I'm a conservative because I question authority.
Conservative Revolutionary
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