Posted on 08/12/2005 3:25:54 PM PDT by hang 'em
I don't know your point. Mine is that things are relative. We who actually remember those gas lines and alternating days probably reacted to 50 cent a gallon gasoline more than we are reacting to $2.50-#3.00 a gallon gasoline today. Those of us who remember know that the 'gasoline shortages' then were contrived. During the time of those long lines and alternate days, gasoline deliveries were being made - to closed service station businesses (out of business) that had underground storage tanks. There was no shortage. It has nothing to do with the fact that the ignorant peanut farmer is very high on my list of worst president's.
We who remember also remember the hostages, the inflation, the Panama Canal, the really raw deal and poor advice he gave the Shah, the fact that he was a pawn of David Rockafeller, among many other things.
Again, your point?
In my lifetime its definately Carter and Clinton.
Carter was at the top of the list, because as much as I disliked Clinton, he did better than Carter day to day.
However, with the revelations regarding the WALL to cover up commiegate that lead to 9/11... Clinton now definately takes the #1 in my lifetime.
Ah, I think we are attempting to make equal points, but were discussing it at cross purposes.
I also agree with your point that there was no real gas shortage, but an agenda at play. Every time Carter opens his mouth he proves that he still has an agenda and it is not a pro-American agenda.
To think this man was POTUS and more of the same agenda manifested with both Clintons gives my goosebumps chills.
Friends now? :)
I strongly disagree.
FDR did not turn the US into a socialist state. LBJ was the granddaddy of socialism. Nixon and George H.W. Bush, along with George Bush, pushed socialism to stratospheric levels.
Don't blame FDR--that is wrongly placed blame. LBY, et al., took FDR's Social Security and warped it into the cesspool it is today.
Without a doubt, Scumbag was the worse president. What other president had 15 felonies in office???
I agree with you. Carter was the worst...not just because of what he did in office, but what he's done (to us) since he left office. We knew Clinton was a liar and a criminal before he was elected, so we (voters) got what we "asked for."
Besides, who has done more to empower the Republican party and the conservative movement than has Bill Clinton, who had both houses of Congress and a majority of the Governors' offices under Democrat control, and lost all of that to the Republicans by his mid term...?
In that sense, he was bad for the Democrats, but good for the US.
In my lifetime, it's Carter by a mile.
It's a matter of fact, not courtesy. But thanks, anyway.
Certain "progressives" wanted tariff reform (Cummins, La Follette, Beveridge, etc.), but they were insincere in it, and wanted it as a matter of fighting the Old Guard and little more. Come 1912, they put their collective reformer tails between their legs and sucked up to the great TR, who understood that the only substantial difference between him and Wilson was on the tariff. Like I said, for Roosevelt, the tariff was all politics.
Mainstream historians ignore the tariff becuase they see no value in it from their own little perspectives. It means nothing to the qualities they wish upon Wilson, TR, and the progressives. Despite their ignorance, the tariff was the largest issue of the election of 1912.
re. FDR and socialism.
Come on. While you're fretting over the Great Society (frettable, indeed), FDR was setting prices, output quotas, and wages and other labor conditions. Socialist?
Try bloody effin socialist.
Jefferson Davis.
Lyndon B Johnson, hands down.
First place goes to - Hilliary RodHAM...the prez in charge during the clintoon misadministration.
Second: Carter no question.
Third worst: FDR
Fiscally, LBJ and George Bush are bigger socialists than FDR.
I know that does not sit well with your opinion, but the FACTs and the number crunchers have proven that is true.
Try facts. Facts are so much better than opinion when it comes to issues like this.
Carter and Clinton in recent times..............LBJ, Harding, FDR and Lincoln in past times.
I find your list entirely accurate
You are historically correct
Hey EEE......we kinda think alike, but I liked Nixon and think he was a good President........a dope for his friends, but a good Prez nonetheless.
Maybe living the period through newspapers, magazines, and manuscripts, to which I immersed myself for three years?
The tariff was the primary issue of 1912.
As for the electoral vote count, your math is wrong. The TR/Taft votes (electoral and popular) added up to what TR and Taft got in 08 and 04, respectively, and the Wilson votes added up to what Parker and Bryan got in those same years, averaged out. In other words, Republicans voted for either Taft or TR, and Democrats voted for Wilson. Sure, there were crossovers, but they canceled each other out.
I won't comment on your assessment of the 1970s, etc. I will only repeat that you give the tariff too much value in history. The tariff mattered politically far more than it ever meant to economics. We'll have to disagree on this. Nevertheless, you, who worships the "American System" ought to recognize this: in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the tariff was THE political issue and dividing point, slavery excepted.
1900s Progressivism was built on the railroads and labor conditions. The market took care of both. Meanwhile, the tariff kept pace as THE electoral dividing line. That doesn't mean that it really mattered as an economic instrument, but it sure as sh*t mattered politically.
Sure, there were other important issues in 1912. Indeed, Roosevelt's "direct democracy" was hugely important, and Taft went after him and it with the express purpose to defeat both, even if it meant Wilson winning the election. But for all the meaning of progressivism, it was the tariff that was the most identifiable issue with the voters. Not one in ten voters of 1912 could give you any cogent description of progressivism. It's only historians who can do that. To the average voter, it was party identification and the tariff that mattered, and how the candidates fit that mix. The remaining voters who really understood what it all meant voted for Taft... lol!
x, I'll bother you on this post, for it's my essential interpretation of the 1912 election.
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