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PittTheElder posted:I imagine a big part of it is also that politics is not exactly a game for nice people. I tend to forgive them their personal failures, and see who seriously attempted to improve the lot of the poor and disenfranchised. Which I guess makes it a contest between Lincoln and either FDR or LBJ? Perhaps someone who worked to extend the franchise or fix all the corruption in government? I think if we're dinging TR on his foreign policy than LBJ is out on how badly he hosed up Vietnam.
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Mar 19, 2014 09:16
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the JJ posted:I think if we're dinging TR on his foreign policy than LBJ is out on how badly he hosed up Vietnam. Eh, ultimately LBJ made far more positive domestic changes than Teddy did. Basically, not even to mention civil rights, but the great society was the last honest push for social change at a economic level the the US has seen (or will see). LBJ's sins (which are a few don't get me wrong) are balanced by maybe being the last American president that made a real positive difference in the lives of common people. That may sound hyperbole until you start running through the guys that followed him and their total accomplishments.
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Mar 19, 2014 09:24
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caberham posted:Is there actually a "decent" US president besides Abraham Lincoln? At least someone who was relatively a decent person? From reading this thread, it really is "Finding new things to be ashamed about" Not an American so I may have some blind spots, but I thought Carter was pretty good (the economic problems not really being his fault?), as was LBJ even if only on domestic issues and FDR on social and economic issues. On an unrelated note, reading about the last years of Woodrow Wilson's life was really sad - he worked himself near to death and there was hardly any payoff. PittTheElder posted:I imagine a big part of it is also that politics is not exactly a game for nice people. Indeed, there's really only a certain kind of person who'll ever be a good politician and actually win office, which is why the image of a Cincinnatus is so revered yet so fleeting.
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Mar 19, 2014 10:55
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Granted, the world was not and still is not a nice place 
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Negative Entropy posted:Every US President is problematic in one way or another. Even Abraham Lincoln wiped his rear end with habeas corpus and had a problematic relationship with Native Americans. FDR vacillated on civil rights.
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Mar 19, 2014 11:37
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PittTheElder posted:Flip side question; worst President of the United States: James Buchanan or Franklin Pierce? Hayes.
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Mar 19, 2014 12:05
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PittTheElder posted:
Current rulers actually have both.
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Mar 19, 2014 12:05
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gradenko_2000 posted:Not an American so I may have some blind spots, but I thought Carter was pretty good Carter was an unlucky president.
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Mar 19, 2014 12:31
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Arglebargle III posted:Carter was an unlucky president. He was unlucky in some respects but he also did some dumb stuff politically, even if it helped in the long run (e.g., the recognition of the PRC).
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Mar 19, 2014 12:50
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Couldn't you really say this stuff about almost any leader in any country at literally any time? Moral purity is a pipe dream in everyday life, let alone as the leader of a major nation, and it's not hard to find decisions any leader made that you could use to paint them as bad as Hitler. It doesn't even necessarily mean that they wanted to make the choice they did. Look at FDR: beyond a few smaller initiatives like a CCC bureau for native americans, he generally let the racist policies of the USA at that time continue unabated. He was essentially for racial equality, but he needed the support of Southern Democrats. Would moral purity have been worth it if it split the democrats 20 years early and plunged the USA back into isolationism and depression?
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Mar 19, 2014 14:11
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:Half-seriously though I think at least part of it is the "badass" mythos around TR, including "yeah he actually up and volunteered to go fight a war!" and "dude took a bullet and just kept on speaking" and what-not. I guarantee most of the American talking heads on TV that sneer at Putin would loving cheer for him if he had been an American president. This is pretty much the entire basis of Cracked's (I know I know it's Cracked but they are funny some times. ) love for TR, this macho man tough guy view. Thank God Jackson hasn't gained that suet of appeal, yet at least.
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Mar 19, 2014 14:36
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Ofaloaf posted:I recall hearing a talk which casually stated that among Indians, Abraham Lincoln is considered one of the worst US Presidents and Richard Nixon is actually one of the best. I have little to no knowledge of various presidents' Indian policies, so I'm curious if that's true or not. I'm not sure if modern presidents can really be used as a judge against 19th century presidents when it comes down to US-Indian relations. Saying "Lincoln was worst president ever for native Americans" sounds hyperbolic, I'm not even aware he had anything like a detailed Indian policy just because of the civil war. Even then, he'd have to compete with the likes of Jackson who I am sure is considered the worst.
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Mar 19, 2014 15:38
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Berke Negri posted:Saying "Lincoln was worst president ever for native Americans" sounds hyperbolic, I'm not even aware he had anything like a detailed Indian policy just because of the civil war. Even then, he'd have to compete with the likes of Jackson who I am sure is considered the worst. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Walk_of_the_Navajo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_War_of_1862
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Mar 19, 2014 16:04
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caberham posted:Is there actually a "decent" US president besides Abraham Lincoln? At least someone who was relatively a decent person? From reading this thread, it really is "Finding new things to be ashamed about" Ulysses Grant was a decent person who wasn't that great as a president, mostly because he trusted the wrong people. He's also the only president to die in abject poverty.
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Mar 19, 2014 16:08
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MonsieurChoc posted:Ulysses Grant was a decent person who wasn't that great as a president, mostly because he trusted the wrong people. He's also the only president to die in abject poverty. Nah there was another one before Lincoln who also died a broke alcoholic. E; Pierce I think? Amused to Death fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Mar 19, 2014 |
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Mar 19, 2014 16:09
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cheerfullydrab posted:Educate yourself a little: Wouldn't Andrew Jackson still take the cake if you counted his pre-presidential actions against Native Americans?
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Mar 19, 2014 16:44
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caberham posted:Is there actually a "decent" US president besides Abraham Lincoln? At least someone who was relatively a decent person? From reading this thread, it really is "Finding new things to be ashamed about" This depends on whether you apply any historical relativism or whether you judge everyone in power to be bad for making the types of decisions people in power invariably have to make.
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Mar 19, 2014 16:47
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The better question regarding decent Presidents is whether there has ever been a good leader of any country. No matter what your intentions, you're going to hurt somebody. It can even be a demographic that everyone wants to hurt. You'll be judged negatively at some point in history by somebody.MonsieurChoc posted:Ulysses Grant was a decent person who wasn't that great as a president, mostly because he trusted the wrong people. He's also the only president to die in abject poverty. That might be a stretch. It's not like he was living on the street or anything. His pension was restored by Congress and he lived long enough to write his memoirs, which guaranteed his wife's prosperity at least. Now Jefferson. There was a broke President.
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Mar 19, 2014 17:10
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Krispy Kareem posted:Now Jefferson. There was a broke President. And he's a Libertarian hero, there's probably a metaphor in that.*bans trade with foreign nations*
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Mar 19, 2014 17:14
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Well yes Grant wasn't homeless, but I'm not sure if I would describe a desperate race between dying of cancer and finishing his memoirs as being well off.
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Mar 19, 2014 17:15
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Raskolnikov38 posted:Well yes Grant wasn't homeless, but I'm not sure if I would describe a desperate race between dying of cancer and finishing his memoirs as being well off. Of all the people who could die that way its only fair that Grant die by attrition.
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Mar 19, 2014 17:16
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Barudak posted:Of all the people who could die that way its only fair that Grant die by attrition. His memoirs are a great read, though, if you like reading battle notes and stuff.
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Mar 19, 2014 18:14
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Captain Oblivious posted:Wouldn't Andrew Jackson still take the cake if you counted his pre-presidential actions against Native Americans? By far. Removing the Navajo 250 miles away from their homeland to an unsustainable reservation during the Civil War to try and put an end to raiding (much of which was due to the US army's own actions) was a pretty lovely and awful plan, but forcing 5 of the country's largest tribes, who had lived in complete peace with the US for decades, to move halfway across the continent for no other reason than being Native Americans, resulting in the deaths of 5,000+ people, was on a whole different level. Also the Dakota War of 1862 was a pretty terrible event, but the part of it Lincoln would have been most indirectly responsible for would be the delay in to supplying the Dakota with the annuities they were owed by the US government (likely due both to the war and possible embezzlement by Indian Agents), which combined with crop failure drove the Dakota to desperate straits. Lincoln actually risked losing Minnesota's electoral votes by demanding only the 38 Dakota men most clearly guilty of murder and rape be executed, the Minnesotans had wanted to execute hundreds.
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Mar 19, 2014 18:56
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the JJ posted:I think if we're dinging TR on his foreign policy than LBJ is out on how badly he hosed up Vietnam. Yeah, I have really mixed feelings on LBJ in particular. He's a guy that had taught some of the poorest kids in America, experienced their poverty first hand, and actually did something about it after ascending to the height of power with the Great Society programs. He also managed to use the tragedy of Kennedy's assassination to ram civil rights bills through. I would figure that alone should earn him the title of Best 20th Century President; my next pick would be FDR, who I also have divided feelings about. But then there is Vietnam. Holy poo poo Vietnam. Especially now that it's beginning to become public how on board he was with the war. I rationalize it to myself with the knowledge that he wasn't the only one who thought this was a good idea - just about everybody in power at the time seems to have been pretty gung-ho about stopping the reds in Vietnam. If I'm wrong about that, somebody please correct me.
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Mar 19, 2014 19:14
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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D&D has a bad habit of dismissing positive things about historical figures because some of their views and behaviors would be abhorrent in the modern world. If TR were president now, most people would probably agree he is a bad president because in the modern era we have a more expansive understanding of the ethics involved in foreign relations, treatment of native peoples, et cetera. In the early 20th century, TR was operating within the moral framework of the time. He absolutely did a lot to help the common man in the US, while simultaneously doing a lot of things that we now see as bad, but back then would have also been done by anybody else who could conceivably be president at the time. It's fine to point out a guy's flaws and to have nuance in our discussions of them, but don't take it to the extreme of "George Washington was a bad president because he had slaves and slaves are bad." That's has un-nuanced and overbroad as the overglorification side of the coin. TR was a cool president who acted like a badass and did a lot to help the common man of his time, even if he did so within the racist and unethical moral framework of the time. A president with similar qualities as TR operating within our modern moral framework might actually be a good president, much better than the sort of thing that passes for a progressive these days. Turning every discussion about figures from the past into a race for the modern moral high ground doesn't do anything to help anyone contextualize and learn about them.
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Mar 19, 2014 19:22
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PittTheElder posted:Yeah, I have really mixed feelings on LBJ in particular. He's a guy that had taught some of the poorest kids in America, experienced their poverty first hand, and actually did something about it after ascending to the height of power with the Great Society programs. He also managed to use the tragedy of Kennedy's assassination to ram civil rights bills through. I would figure that alone should earn him the title of Best 20th Century President; my next pick would be FDR, who I also have divided feelings about. Not to make excuses for any individual's Vietnam problem but it was a multidecadal failure to just stop loving around in that country specifically. Anti-Japanese action during WWII, anti-Soviet poo poo afterwards, hanging it largely on Johnson is still appropriate for his escalation but blame goes as far back as Roosevelt for getting the US embroiled in that mess. It was a convenient location to springboard US interests in the area since Korea wasn't working out as planned. Vietnam and the rest of that peninsula was a good second-line opportunity for containment strategy, but hey it turns out anti-colonialism makes fertile ground for joining the Soviet sphere if your colonial/wartime oppressors were France and longtime Russian enemy Japan.
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Mar 19, 2014 19:30
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FAUXTON posted:Not to make excuses for any individual's Vietnam problem but it was a multidecadal failure to just stop loving around in that country specifically. Anti-Japanese action during WWII, anti-Soviet poo poo afterwards, hanging it largely on Johnson is still appropriate for his escalation but blame goes as far back as Roosevelt for getting the US embroiled in that mess. If we want to be pedantic, and this being D&D of course we do, we can push the blame even farther back to Wilson for telling Ho Chi Minh to gently caress off in 1919.
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Mar 19, 2014 19:38
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Also keep in mind making massive gently caress-ups or even following flawed ideologies does not make someone a fundamentally bad person. The problem is, when you give someone power, their fuckups, biases, and miscalculations kill people.
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Mar 19, 2014 19:38
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cheerfullydrab posted:Educate yourself a little: If you hadn't noticed we were talking about worst president.
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Mar 19, 2014 19:50
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computer parts posted:Making conversions for the end user is fairly painless and what 99% of people care about. Honestly, obsessing over conversions is what messes up metric adoption in the first place. The American populace has no problem with two-liter bottles as long as they don't have to know or care how many gallons they're equivalent to. Ofaloaf posted:I recall hearing a talk which casually stated that among Indians, Abraham Lincoln is considered one of the worst US Presidents and Richard Nixon is actually one of the best. I have little to no knowledge of various presidents' Indian policies, so I'm curious if that's true or not. "Worst" is a bit excessive. Lincoln treated the natives badly, but so did other presidents of the era, and some were worse. I think it's just intended to contrast with his hero status. If you look at the most highly regarded US presidents, Washington, Lincoln, and FDR were all war presidents who presided over such massive disasters that they could pretty much do whatever they wanted and everyone would forgive them. Lincoln is so famous for the Civil War, emancipation, and his postwar intentions toward the South that people overlook his stomping all over civil liberties and forgive his mediocre domestic policy.
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Mar 19, 2014 19:54
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Main Paineframe posted:Honestly, obsessing over conversions is what messes up metric adoption in the first place. The American populace has no problem with two-liter bottles as long as they don't have to know or care how many gallons they're equivalent to. this, all you need to know is basically 2l = 8 glasses.
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Mar 19, 2014 20:04
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gradenko_2000 posted:Okay, I think I get it. I just thought there was a particular system (the states or something) in the US government that made it more resistant to such arrangements compared to other democracies. This is from last page, but unlike parliamentary democracies the head of state and head of foreign relations (the president) in the US doesn't actually have the power to ratify treaties, whereas the prime minister in a parliamentary system does barring exceptional circumstances in parliament. Wilson supported the League of Nations and Versailles but the legislature told him to get hosed, and he had a crippling stroke right as he was starting to drum up support for it. Regarding TR chat, I think you can call TR a decent president under the circumstances but Wilson is basically indefensible. icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Mar 19, 2014 |
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Mar 19, 2014 20:06
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/\ Yeah, you might get away with some of that "White Man's Burden" poo poo defending other presidents but Wilson was straight up public-speaking-uses-of-racial-slurs racist.Raskolnikov38 posted:If we want to be pedantic, and this being D&D of course we do, we can push the blame even farther back to Wilson for telling Ho Chi Minh to gently caress off in 1919. Fourteen shades of racism.
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Mar 19, 2014 20:11
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icantfindaname posted:This is from last page, but unlike parliamentary democracies the head of state and head of foreign relations (the president) in the US doesn't actually have the power to ratify treaties, whereas the prime minister in a parliamentary system does barring exceptional circumstances in parliament. Wilson supported the League of Nations and Versailles but the legislature told him to get hosed, and he had a crippling stroke right as he was starting to drum up support for it. Wilson's wife was a pretty middling president too as you mention.
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Mar 19, 2014 20:12
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Wilson is probably the most overrated president ever. Even Reagan can't win out in comparison. At least JFK had great hair.
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Mar 19, 2014 20:16
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MonsieurChoc posted:Ulysses Grant was a decent person who wasn't that great as a president, mostly because he trusted the wrong people. He's also the only president to die in abject poverty. The only reason a presidential pension system currently exists is that Harry Truman was flat out broke. There's a reason why he got the first Medicare card.
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Mar 19, 2014 20:23
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Barudak posted:Wilson's wife was a pretty middling president too as you mention. To be honest throughout that whole section on post-stroke Wilson I was just waiting for the conspiracy theories to come out regarding some kind of shadow government.
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Mar 19, 2014 20:49
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gradenko_2000 posted:To be honest throughout that whole section on post-stroke Wilson I was just waiting for the conspiracy theories to come out regarding some kind of shadow government. Well thats due to a weak American Shadow Educational system.
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Mar 19, 2014 20:55
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Ofaloaf posted:I recall hearing a talk which casually stated that among Indians, Abraham Lincoln is considered one of the worst US Presidents and Richard Nixon is actually one of the best. I have little to no knowledge of various presidents' Indian policies, so I'm curious if that's true or not.
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Mar 19, 2014 21:42
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LeftistMuslimObama posted:D&D has a bad habit of dismissing positive things about historical figures because some of their views and behaviors would be abhorrent in the modern world. If TR were president now, most people would probably agree he is a bad president because in the modern era we have a more expansive understanding of the ethics involved in foreign relations, treatment of native peoples, et cetera. Grover Cleveland posted:Believing, therefore, that the United States could not, under the circumstances disclosed, annex the islands without justly incurring the imputation of acquiring them by unjustifiable methods, I shall not again submit the treaty of annexation to the Senate for its consideration, and in the instructions to Minister Willis, a copy of which accompanies this message, I have directed him to so inform the provisional government.
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Mar 20, 2014 01:44
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cheerfullydrab posted:There were people who knew how not to be imperialist shitbags back then, it wasn't in the water. A good example is Grover Cleveland trying very hard to stand for justice for Hawaii. Railroad workers though? gently caress 'em.
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Mar 20, 2014 01:51
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