Posted on 06/26/2005 6:55:58 PM PDT by RWR8189
Reagan is the greatest American!
What's funniest is that there seem to be no greater Americans than Presidents.
Arguably, the American man who did the most for the world was either Thomas Edison (who with just four of his inventions/improvements, electricity, the electric light, the phonograph, and motion picture photography, changed the face of the planet) or Einstein (without whom the atom bomb would never have been created by the U.S., which might well have meant the Japanese winning the war with their own).
Yet Disney, Dubya, Elvis, Oprah, Billy Graham, and Slick Willy are all above both.
Oprah? Billy Graham? BJ Clinton? What fools these mortals be.
I agree with you but am so glad Reagan won. He gave us our country back.
So Edison invented electricity?
After reading your cogency (is that a word?) about G.H.W. Bush, it does come to mind - what about Barbara Bush? After all, who else has the ear of _two_ presidents?
I mean, one always listens to their wife/mother, right? At least in general terms, this advice has usually served me well. :)
I think we could argue about that, but I think that, given the hindsight and situation we have now, I'd define greatness in a President in one who keeps his Presidency closest to that envisioned by the Founders in an age where that may be a challenge. Over the 20th century, Coolidge has the strongest credentials there, in my eyes. Cal Thomas has a fine article on the man and his administration here:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/PoliticalPhilosophy/HL576.cfm
Heh, as someone else pointed out, I thought last century was 19th
You know, it has to set in still, I was referring to the 70s as "last decade" until 1993
LMAO Coolidge? Come on. What can Coolidge possibly have accomplished in the 20th century that was more vital than undoing the damage FDR created at Yalta?. My God man have you ever learned the value of perspective?
"So Edison invented electricity?"
No--God invented electricity. But Edison improved its use by man far beyond anyone else's work. He was the first to reliably generate it for use in the home. And it spread nationally and internationally as a result.
You simply can't read, or you'd have a clue. Hyperbolic commentary doesn't make you any more right. Bye.
I agree that Washington was our greatest. I do not agree that Lincoln was among the greatest. Reagan was certainly among the greatest.
Fine post. I have no idea why it was deleted. Not a thing in it was any worse than a billion other posts I've seen here. And it was certainly far more truthful than many.
Was it the assertion that someone was a communist? Was it the assertion that someone cheated on their spouse? Maybe the comment that someone's surviving family is greedy? That that someone was no Mother Teresa? Stating that this particular someone's name is invoked to grant privilege for some where that someone asserted a goal of equality for all?
I would appreciate knowing why that post crossed the line so I can avoid it myself.
Your problem is you are talking to an electrical engineer. If Edison had had his way we would still be stuck with DC current and 5 watt light bulbs. It was Westinghouse that bucked Edison's God-hood and brought us AC power without which we would still be corresponding via telegraph.
Washington formed the nation and Lincoln preserved it.
Washington would have been my #1. I would have ranked Franklin and Lincoln ahead of Reagan (though he would be the greatest modern American). I'm surprised that Henry Ford was #24. Where would our economy be today without him? More importantly, where would our barbecues be without him?:) Thomas Edison at #15 was way too low too, considering his inventions in sound, the lightbulb, movies, and even the stock ticker.
He's not wrong about Coolidge though.
One thing the Constitution does allow for is some reasonable economic regulation, and that's where Coolidge failed.
Specifically, the reason we got into the Depression is because the economic expansion of the 1920s was financed on credit, be it stock, real estate, auto, etc, it was paid for with money that didn't exact, so when it came time to collect on those debts, thats when everything went South, I could be wrong, but that's my personal opinion, and in regards to credit, I think we have been making the same mistakes in that department for the last decade.
How can the average person, who is presumably not great, judge who is the greatest? It's ridiculous.
No one questioned this guy's statement. If that's not proof that liberals are elitist scum, I don't know what is. This country is founded on the idea that the people make exactly this judgment every election day.
I agree with your first four. I support W a lot, but he isn't in the top five for me. He would probably be in the top 5 for modern great Americans though.
This is a really amazing gift from the people of America to Nancy Reagan.
Nancy should have been on the list too.
Can you not say the same about Pres. Reagan?
The WORLD is a different place today because of Ronald Reagan. He gave our nation optimism when we needed it most. I watched the movie "Miracle" and thought back fondly to those days in the early 80's. That was the only time I ever seriously watched hockey. I also remember the time our school had an assembly in honor of one of the fifty hostages who had attended our school. There were yellow ribbons everywhere. It showed me what our country was all about.
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