The greatest President

[Jagos]

Teddy Roosevelt:

"Death had to take him sleeping, for if Roosevelt had been awake there would have been a fight."

That guy was a badass. It's like Andrew Jackson The Sequel. Only he knew how NOT to kill his friends.

[Possum Knight]

Originally Posted by Jagos

Teddy Roosevelt:



That guy was a badass. It's like Andrew Jackson The Sequel. Only he knew how NOT to kill his friends.

i believe I heard a story about teddy that he was shot at in the chest, but a book blocked the bullet. After the shooter was captured/got away, he had to do a speech. People told him not to do with, but with blood in his hands he went on with the show.. People saw his determination and were impressed.


He was crazy as a fox though. He's got some of the best quotes from a book about political presidential candidates and the tactics and horrible names they would call each other on the campaign trail. I had to write a story for my college's newspaper(I'm a regular writer) and it was enjoyable ro hear the author talk about the funny things these presidents would call each other. You think back in the day, they;d be a bit more civil, but political correctness didn't exist.

That being said, Teddy was one of the best name callers so I guess that makes him "great" XD

If i can find the article I wrote., I'll post it on here.

[Mesden]

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

Eh, I'm not so sure. They've released pretty much all the classified government documents from the Vietnam war era now and Nixon early on made China pretty much his major goal. Included in the releases were transcripts of pretty much all the negotiations between different parties. If you look at all the three party peace negotiations the Vietnamese are pretty much ignored as Chinese interests take up the majority of the discussions.
The key achievement was really taking advantage of Chinese disillusionment with the Soviets to open up a healthy channel, combined with a stronger, muhc more open US economy. Carter may have done more of the actual work but Nixon siezed on an opportunity that many of his fellows would not have to really start a relationship.

His glorified vacation did help seize the opportunity, but I'm skeptical as to whether the opportunity would've vanished had Nixon not "acted" when he did. Getting on to your second point --

There are also suggestions that US finegling may have had a key role in causing the Sino-Soviet war. It is a highly controversial argument but in early peace talks, where the Chinese and Soviets were often dealt with seperately, there are quite clear differences in tact and are talks about the problems with other parties- such as US outlining how it can't help a China under soviet wing.

The Sino-Soviet split/confrontation/border dispute/war/whatever it is was being built up way before Nixon was President. Hell the earliest divergence of the two nations started happening back when he was vice president. US involvement under Nixon at the very earliest would've started in 1969, and his whole visit to China deal didn't happen until 3 years into his 5 year term.

I'm not saying Nixon doesn't deserve any credit for US relations to China -- at they very least his visit opened the idea to it, but he's definitely not the man responsible for weakening the USSR's ties to China, that pretty much belongs to the USSR. Nixon did, on the other hand, sneakily dismiss Communist China as a nation, and any real progress between the US and China happened under the very unappreciated presidency of Carter.



Also, to address the thread: While he was pretty much a sleaze, gonna mention JFK. The dude barely skated in to his presidency, only to nominate the most controversial civil rights bill since Lincoln. Most of LBJ's actual success can be tracked back to JFK's ideas, and he's also got an awesome song.

As for the whole republic of china thing:
People's republic of China: Actual Communist China
Republic of China: Taiwan. They are the old nationalist Kuomingtang (KMT) who lost the civil war to the Communists.
But recognising them was no big issue as they had been China's representatives on the UN even after the civil war.
It's a similar situation to the Khmer Rogue who continued to sit on the UN long after they were disposed, mostly because they were deposed by the Vietnamese.

Yeah sorry for the mix up with words. He specifically did only recognize the Taiwanese as China.

[The Wandering God]

Nixon was totally stupid, paranoid, and obstinate when it came to marijuana drug laws.

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Originally Posted by Nixon

"I see another thing in the news summary this morning about it. That's a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob, what is the matter with them? I suppose it's because most of them are psychiatrists . . ."

Originally Posted by Nixon

"You see, homosexuality, dope, immorality in general. These are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and the left-wingers are pushing the stuff, they're trying to destroy us."

Sure, Nixon did do some things right, but he was still borderline fascist.

The Wandering God

Edit: On topic, I'm going to go with Abe Lincoln. He was smart and capable, and had a good sense of humor too.

[Odjn]

Originally Posted by Eldezar

That is not a good thing at all. Because of this, we have absolutely nothing to back our money off of except faith, and faith has never been a good thing to fall back on.

Good point, of course we'd base our imaginary wealth representation on a shiny rock that happens to be really soft and useless.

Money is an illusion in the first place. The only use for money is to convince other people to give you their valuable possessions such as a loaf of bread which feeds you. Basing it on gold which is precious because we decided it looks nice is no less spurious than issuing bits of paper saying they represent something that only has a use in acquiring other things.

Also, the Great Society would've been really awesome to live in fuck you Vietnam.

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by Odjn

Also, the Great Society would've been really awesome to live in fuck you Vietnam.

Yet more things we can blame on Lee Harvey Oswald.

Then again, nothing Kennedy wanted to do had a hope of getting through Congress until he died so maybe we should thank Oswald for getting us as much as we did in the long run.

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by Nique

Ugh. I guess I could talk about this if we reverse it, cause I could sort of analyze who was the least terrible. It's like the first, what, 5 presidents, ran a country that was slowly exterminating/relocating populations of already established cultures, the first 16 Presidents ran a country where slavery was acceptable, and it's just sort of been a slow uphill battle after that.

Now there's not social injustice on that level but all our leaders play this horrible politics game that makes any clear-headed person want to through their hands up and be done with the whole thing.

This is kind of a depressing way to look at our nation's history.

Personally, I'm rather against judging 17th and 18th century human beings by 21st century societal standards. Chances are, you and I would have believed racist, sexist, intolerant thoughts if we were born back then just because it was the standard norm. Hell, I give figures like Lincoln and Jefferson a lot of credit for just being comparatively more tolerant than others in their generation -- despite their faults, they both contributed substantially to set the stage for the very Civil Rights accomplishments we've seen in past decades. The Framers of the Constitution themselves established the laws of the United States with the intent to gradually erode at the foundation of slavery.

Sure, they weren't perfect and their beliefs, by our standards, seem rather quaint (at best) and barbaric (at worst.) But by the standards humanity will reach in a few hundred more years, we'll be the ones who look terrible. Better to judge each era relativistically than merely condemn everyone in past generations as eeeevviiilll while allowing our objections to overshadow their accomplishments. (For example, the vast majority of men who fought in World War Two probably had bigoted, backwards thoughts about homosexuals, but that doesn't change the fact that they showed extraordinary bravery in fighting against the Nazis, and we still owe them due deference for their sacrifices...though perhaps the "Greatest Generation" is too laudatory a statement.)

[01d55]

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

This is kind of a depressing way to look at our nation's history.

Not coincidentally, also the most accurate.

Personally, I'm rather against judging 17th and 18th century human beings by 21st century societal standards. Chances are, you and I would have believed racist, sexist, intolerant thoughts if we were born back then just because it was the standard norm. Hell, I give figures like Lincoln and Jefferson a lot of credit for just being comparatively more tolerant than others in their generation -- despite their faults, they both contributed substantially to set the stage for the very Civil Rights accomplishments we've seen in past decades. The Framers of the Constitution themselves established the laws of the United States with the intent to gradually erode at the foundation of slavery.

Sure, they weren't perfect and their beliefs, by our standards, seem rather quaint (at best) and barbaric (at worst.) But by the standards humanity will reach in a few hundred more years, we'll be the ones who look terrible. Better to judge each era relativistically than merely condemn everyone in past generations as eeeevviiilll while allowing our objections to overshadow their accomplishments.

Frankly our standards today are pretty fucking awful. I mean you say the people who fought in WW2 hated homos? Look at the shitstorm that people kick up right now over the possibility that we might stop using the awesome power of the government to crush their hopes and dreams.

I personally have no problem saying that humanity is by and large governed by rotten bastards, and that the rotten bastards who used to govern humanity N generations ago were just N times the assholes as the assholes we have now.

You wanna judge 18th century humans by an 18th century standard? How about we take the William Lloyd Garrison standard: If they weren't at least as good a human being, morally, as WLG was, then fuck them. If you ask me that's a standard that no president, from Washington to Obama, could pass.

[TDK]

I second (or third?) the shit out of Teddy Roosevelt for the reasons mentioned.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by Mesden

His glorified vacation did help seize the opportunity, but I'm skeptical as to whether the opportunity would've vanished had Nixon not "acted" when he did. Getting on to your second point --



The Sino-Soviet split/confrontation/border dispute/war/whatever it is was being built up way before Nixon was President. Hell the earliest divergence of the two nations started happening back when he was vice president. US involvement under Nixon at the very earliest would've started in 1969, and his whole visit to China deal didn't happen until 3 years into his 5 year term.

I'm not saying Nixon doesn't deserve any credit for US relations to China -- at they very least his visit opened the idea to it, but he's definitely not the man responsible for weakening the USSR's ties to China, that pretty much belongs to the USSR. Nixon did, on the other hand, sneakily dismiss Communist China as a nation, and any real progress between the US and China happened under the very unappreciated presidency of Carter.

I did say it was controversial. I mean, yeah the first splits happened in the late 50s and the war happened months into his presidency. It just seems unlikely that the resentement and continual uneasiness and border incidents would have lasted without Nixon's split negotiating with both sides and promises of support. I don't really consider h is trip to China that improtannt, more his wartime negotiations where his negotiators in talking to China were more talking about economic deals and mutual benefits than actually ending the war in Vietnam.
It is difficult to know how much of an influence he actually had on the Chinese as it was pretty much all talk so it is perfectely reasonable to marginalise his role. It just seems important, to me, that the negotiation strategy of the Americans at this time coincided with the start of massive Chinese realignment in thier strategies.
A lot of people attribute this merely to the combined effect of the Russians being unhelpful and the cultural revolution but both of these have been blown up in retrospect as to thier long-lasting importance.

Originally Posted by The Wandering God

Nixon was totally stupid, paranoid, and obstinate when it came to marijuana drug laws.

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Sure, Nixon did do some things right, but he was still borderline fascist.

So we are going to judge Presidents on thier stance towards completely minor, not all that important issues.
And sure Nixon loved power and you could describe him as a bit of a fascist but then you could make that case for practically every American president, especially the early ones. His own personal views on power are not important, what is important is how things actually played out.