Jimmy Carter’s Human Rights Legacy

The Dispatch ^ | 3/21/2026 | Takeyh

[Phoenix8]

Jimmy Carter, who is in hospice care, has many virtues. He was an honorable man who held the country together during the post-Watergate period when many Americans had lost confidence in their national institutions. He was fiscally conservative, a prudent environmentalist, and a populist in his own right.

But the notion that human rights were the defining aspect of his foreign policy is simply wrong. Carter was sincere about his ideals, but the mandates of the Cold War caused him to shelve human rights concerns for the sake of power politics.

---

TOPICS: History; Society
KEYWORDS: carter; communism; genocide

[kawhill]

“Jimmy Carter’s Human Rights Legacy”. But did he grow a good peanut crop?

[MtnClimber]

Was he stupid or evil?

[faithhopecharity]

a clear bigot who did a lot of bad things for USA....
but just to show how complex people can be, he did a good thing volunteering with “habitat for humanity” (helping people build houses)

[awelliott]

My post 13 applies to you. Was Jimmy Carter also complicit in the murder of a US president? My God. The number of people who are so ignorant of history in which they probably lived through. It’s amazing.

I don't consider him the worst, but he is most definitely on my short list of worst presidents.

[Falconspeed]

Who wrote this? The article is advertising puffery and has nothing to do with real life. Mr. Carter was president 1978-1981. He created the Department of Energy in 1977. Reagan won the 1980 election 486-49 electoral votes. Carter supported legal abortion.

[fruser1]

I thought this DVD was pretty good. Interviews with "Brother Number 2".

https://enemiesofthepeoplemovie.com

[UnwashedPeasant]

Jimmy Carter led the overthrow of the US-friendly government in Iran and the installation the Islamic Republic, making Carter the father of modern worldwide terrorism.

He started the Department of Education, which dumbed down the public and converted schools to indoctrination caps.

The world is still suffering from the evil of Jimmy Carter. He was not simply a smiling idiot.

[ealgeone]

Born 1962.

[Ronald77]

That’s not going deep enough.

[Fungi]

You’re right, but a few others on this thread did a fine job with that. The problem was his party and since then nothing has changed—it is still the evil party.

[clearcarbon]

"The negotiations between Egypt, Israel and Jimmy Carter are one of the most successful foreign policy events of my 83 years. Jimmy deserves much praise for that."

He helped accelerate development of the Air Launched Cruise Missile. That was helpful.

[Cen-Tejas]

correct

[Right_Wing_Madman]

Jimmy Carter, who is in hospice care, has many virtues.

Author chose the wrong path right out of the gate.

[quantim]

“The best thing he did was...”

Get Ronald Reagan elected, those horrible 444 days were over.

[Albion Wilde]

Odd how some people think of him as one of the best and most moral of all our Presidents in history.

He was full of barely-concealed rage and jealousy. His virtue signaling was the prototype for today's woke monsters.

[BiteYourSelf]

Yes.🤔

[Phoenix8]

The article also shows he heavily supported the CCP. To the point of disagreeing with his own Dems who urged him to stop Pol Pot.

That has to be one of the most immoral decisions any president has ever made: let 2 million children, women and men be slaughtered so we can make the direct successor to Mao (Deng)…the GREATEST mass murderer in history happy.

[Phoenix8]

I agree with you on LBJ. He probably did the most lasting damage with his great society. I can’t remember him at all as I was a small child or baby.

BTW did you know Johnson never should have been president? He stole 400 votes to win the 1948 Tx democratic runoff. He won by under 100 votes.

You can search it, pretty much fact today, a top democratic election judge names Luis Salazar admitted it in 1977.

Johnson literally went to old graveyards and took hundreds names from gravestones which he somehow inserted in the tally.

[trebb]

I guess he was a nice guy, but a horrible President... his brother Billy would have been better than him.

He gave us the “Malaise” of 21.5% interest rates, long lines at gas stations with even/odd days, a failed rescue attempt, gave the Panama Canal away and opened the door for our enemies to leverage it. And a lot of stuff I probably forgot.

[Colorado Doug]

Iran was just one of Carter’s many stupid moves. So, let me alter your analogy just a little. When a quarterback throws a countless number of bad passes and throws only one good one, the one good one was likely just luck.