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Jimmy Carter’s Human Rights Legacy
The Dispatch ^ | 3/21/2026 | Takeyh

Posted on 10/17/2026 3:57:43 PM PDT by 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.

(Excerpt) Read more at thedispatch.com ...


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

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I despised the late Jimmy Carter. The thing is, I couldn’t exactly tell you in detail why. Let me explain that; the first POTUS I actually remember , in a vague childish sort of way , was Richard Nixon and I began to have an interest in politics and world news after that (i remember thinking Nixon was treated very poorly).

Thus Carter was president during the time I was a tween and young teenager which has been quite a few decades ago. Over time I have forgotten some of the things that he did. Now, as I read more about him, I see my emotion that I have is justified.

Perhaps the greatest evil event in our lives , for those of us who were alive in the late 70s, was the genocide of the Cambodian people by the Red Chinese backed Pol Pot. I’ve been reading about how the United States actually supported the genocidal Pol Pot and his men and guess who was the stimulus of that support? Yes! Jimmy Carter. His true indifference to morality was so great that he actually condemned the Vietnamese for overthrowing the Khmer Rouge! Pol Pot was perhaps the worst genocidal leader (in exile by then) in modern history in terms of percentages of people murdered, about 1 of every 4 in the entire nation.

This article briefly mentions a few other failures by him like allowing the overthrow of Iran by radical Islam (sound familiar..watched the news lately?) and the transition of Nicaragua to the communist like State they are to this day. Nicaragua’s leader ,Ortega, by the way recently announced the nation will hold no further elections.

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

1 posted on 10/17/2026 3:57:43 PM PDT by Phoenix8
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To: Phoenix8

President Malaise.


2 posted on 10/17/2026 4:04:32 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (The right of the Democrats to embezzle elections shall not be infringed. )
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To: Phoenix8

Carter was the kid who excused bullies but held friends to HIS standards. He was a foreign policy disaster re: Iran and Panama. The Soviet Union would have never collapsed under his watch.

He became more domestically liberal over time. The best thing he did was nominate Paul Volker for Fed Chair.


3 posted on 10/17/2026 4:08:48 PM PDT by alternatives?
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To: Phoenix8
He was a monster who did more harm to the country then any other president.

Why was there such a sharp fall off in American Education after him? Because he put the federal government in charge of education. There is no worse betrayal then to lobotomize the youth of an entire country. Your own country.

4 posted on 10/17/2026 4:09:56 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (I just want FReepers to READ THE ARTICLE. And then think 30 secs before pounding keyboard.)
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To: Phoenix8

“an honorable man who held the country together during the post-Watergate period”

https://www.lerctr.org/~transit/healy/crap.wav


5 posted on 10/17/2026 4:12:02 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: Phoenix8

Spare me the accolades, the man was a nutcase, dumber than a sack of peanuts.


6 posted on 10/17/2026 4:13:07 PM PDT by Fungi
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To: Phoenix8

On the international stage Mr. Jimmy appeared to be the village idiot. He was just completely naive and incredibly stupid. Or he may have been deliberately evil. It appeared that he was willing to believe anything that anyone said and could not accept that most of the so called international underdogs were in fact nothing more than satanic terrorist.


7 posted on 10/17/2026 4:13:59 PM PDT by Trumpet 1 (PpUS Constitution is my guide. Wait)
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To: Phoenix8

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.

The handling of the Iran fiasco is one of the worst foreign policy events of US History.

When a Quarter Back throws and unbelievably great for a touchdown and also throws the stupidest pass that is intercepted we only remember what we want to remember.


8 posted on 10/17/2026 4:15:21 PM PDT by spintreebob
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To: Phoenix8

The most useless and pathetic president in my lifetime.


9 posted on 10/17/2026 4:15:41 PM PDT by ealgeone
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To: ealgeone

I thought that until Biden.


10 posted on 10/17/2026 4:17:02 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn )
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To: central_va
I still give it to Carter. What he did he did so intentionally.

Biden didn't know what he was doing.

11 posted on 10/17/2026 4:18:00 PM PDT by ealgeone
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

A total four-flushing phony. Read the book by one of his Secret Service agents - the “press” kissed his tail bc he carried his own suit bag. The bag was as empty as Carter’s brain; when he was out of the sight of cameras, he dropped it and made the guards carry his full bag.


12 posted on 10/17/2026 4:19:10 PM PDT by laconic
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To: Phoenix8

I get so annoyed at morons who think Carter was the worst US president ever.

Was it Jimmy Carter who was indirectly responsible for the death of 57,000 Americans? Was it Jimmy Carter who ushered in the Great Society which is still decimating America today?

Jimmy Carter quite literally was a Sunday school teacher in comparison to the evil that Johnson did. Not to mention the evils that Obama and Biden also committed.


13 posted on 10/17/2026 4:28:43 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
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To: Responsibility2nd

Compare Jimmy Carter to Woodrow Wilson...


14 posted on 10/17/2026 4:29:40 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

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.


15 posted on 10/17/2026 4:31:54 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
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To: ealgeone

In your lifetime? So you were born after 1970.


16 posted on 10/17/2026 4:32:38 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
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To: Phoenix8

Carter supported the muslims.


17 posted on 10/17/2026 4:34:58 PM PDT by CodeToad
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To: Phoenix8

Ideas like you have develop over years.

I used to see Jimmy Carter as weak but generally well intentioned. The grandpa that became President. He was the first President I can remember, I’m a few years after you it appears.

Today I believe like so often is the case, his legacy is created, heavily supported by a very sympathetic media, but not accurate.

Weak men seldom are good (moral), and Carter is no exception.

As to the article, it essentially destroys the “grandpa” view of Carter with historical facts that depict him in a very different light.

True morality requires courage and strength, even being alone at times, and Carter lacked all of those. Just saying nice sounding things, wearing sweaters, putting solar panels on the White House roof, and caring for your pet dog doesn’t make you moral. It just makes you grooming a public image that is in no way tied to the consequences of the actual decisions made.


18 posted on 10/17/2026 4:38:52 PM PDT by Red6
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

He was good. The problem was his naivete. Trusted Brezhnev and let the Shah lose his country. Unable to see that Iranian students in the US that were paid for with oil money hated him. That oil money was meant to bring Iran into the 20th century. The Shah’s big picture had to be carried out in an end justifies the means manner. Didn’t work. Carter was naive enough to think the embassy wouldn’t be attacked by crazies. It gave Brezhnev the opening to go into Afghanistan. It was 2 years earlier that Carter cancelled the neutron bomb as an olive branch to the Russians. That was stupid as well as unreciprocated. Then there’s the canal. It was the right thing to do and the treaty gave the US the right to use military force should a civil disturbance in Panama threaten the canal. The naivete comes into focus when his successors allowed Panama to give control to China along with MFN status. Foreign policy blunders didn’t do him in as much as inflation and interest rates. Throw in Billy Carter, Andrew Young meeting with mid east enemies, and the failed hostage rescue attempt you end up with a joke for a president. I think Carter was a good mentor to Bill Clinton on how to not run a country.


19 posted on 10/17/2026 4:47:33 PM PDT by DIRTYSECRET
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To: CodeToad

People are still needlessly dying today because of his actions.


20 posted on 10/17/2026 4:49:51 PM PDT by DarrellZero
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