Bush's Legacy

[prisonermonkeys]

I think Bush will invariably be compared to two people: firstly, his father, and secondly, Barack Obama. I'm not American, so I don't know how he stacksup against his father, and his comparison to Obama is impossible to determine given that the President-Elect hasn't even served for a day.

Like most presidents, I think he's going to be remembered outside America for all his failures and shortcomings. The only thing I can remember Clinton for was the Lewinski Affair, whereas Watergate is the only thing I really know about Nixon's tenure. Bush is likely to be known for the Florida election problems, two unpopular wars, the current economic situation, and what I think might be the single greatest slide in popularity and approval of any President.

But that, of course, is outside the States. Most of the time we only seem to remember the negatives, so an outgoing president's worth is usually measured by the number of marks against his name. In this case, it's not going to be good for Bush ...

 

[Sage]

This is why I love GTP – any other forum I might have been blasted to pieces for saying that FDR was horrible, but all my fellow crazies seem to reside here!

(Although, really, how crazy do you have to be to pick on a Keynesian fool who extended the Great Depression by an estimated seven years?)

 

[nk4e]

I think that we need to change the title of this thread to " Presidential Legacies: the good, the bad, and the Bush"

 

[YSSMAN]

Fact! FDR did OK on the war. But all his policies extended the great depression up until the war!

Depends on your interpretation of what his policies were actually meant to do. On the one hand, you're most-certainly right that some of what he did encourage created his own "mini depressions," but nevertheless, there was some progress forward from the abysmal year of 1933.

Historical interpretations of what he wanted to do, outside of politics, goes along the lines of Roosevelt attempting to restore confidence in the system with the New Deal. Certainly things like the FDIC helped in the banking situation, and his support of unions helped some of the labor problems as well...

But I find both sides plausible. Every President has a good and bad side, but depending on your own viewpoints on various policies, you're likely to have a very different opinion of every one. People often speak of the damaging changes that Roosevelt caused with the powers of the President, but depending on who you talk to, this is something that had been growing steadily since the first true "modern" president, Teddy Roosevelt.

===

RE: LBJ

I think you've got two sides of the story...

- Vietnam
- Great Society and Civil Rights

Both are going to cause drastically different outcomes in your viewpoints, I believe.

 

[Omnis]

This is why I love GTP – any other forum I might have been blasted to pieces for saying that FDR was horrible, but all my fellow crazies seem to reside here!

(Although, really, how crazy do you have to be to pick on a Keynesian fool who extended the Great Depression by an estimated seven years?)

Did you have to link to those UCLA plagiarists?

 

[Duke]

RE: LBJ

I think you've got two sides of the story...

- Vietnam
- Great Society and Civil Rights

Both are going to cause drastically different outcomes in your viewpoints, I believe.

Actually, you can put the Great Society up there with Vietnam, rather than down there with Civil Rights. And that's one of the reasons he is one of the most actively bad presidents in US history.

 

[1X83Z]

If FDR, means Franklin D. Roosevelt, I would very hardly consider him has the worst president of the United States.

And from Wiki:

This is the problem with this forum. Duke is a very active small- or no-government guy and he's manipulated Sage into those beliefs, so you get a lot of slanted, inconsistent stuff here. The opinions forum is good for the occasional laugh, but you won't find anything of worth here.

 

[Duke]

This is the problem with this forum. Duke is a very active small- or no-government guy and he's manipulated Sage into those beliefs, so you get a lot of slanted, inconsistent stuff here. The opinions forum is good for the occasional laugh, but you won't find anything of worth here.

Uhhh, OK. I think you'll find many of us hold similar beliefs, and I've certainly found Sage more than capable of thinking for himself. I can't take credit for Dan, Famine, FK, or even really Sage - they are all independent thinkers who have arrived at mostly the same conclusions I have.

If by "anything of worth" you mean "anything that always agrees with what I already believe", then you're probably out of luck. But I've found many things of worth here whether they agree with my precepts or not.

While we're defining things, can you define "inconsistent" for me?

 

[1X83Z]

While we're defining things, can you define "inconsistent" for me?

I mean 'inconsistent with what the vast majority of people believe.' This forum may well be renamed 'The Crazy Zone.' Like I said, good for the occasional laugh, and little else.

 

[Max Powers]

The crazy zone for the vast majority of socialists, maybe.

 

[Sage]

I mean 'inconsistent with what the vast majority of people believe.'

Because the majority always gets everything right.

 

[Omnis]

The opinions forum is good for the occasional laugh, but you won't find anything of worth here.

If you were the only contributor, I'd have to agree.

 

[Keef]

Because the majority always gets everything right.

The history of this country has proven to me that the majority usually get it wrong, eh? It's interesting how that can happen. But I suppose the majority aren't capable of seeing past the stimulus checks in their mailboxes...

 

[McLaren]

Also don't give the crap about not having a terrorist attacks since 9/11, he used our fear to try and finish his fathers lost war resulting in the senseless killing of thousands of ours brave young men and woman as well as countless lives of innocent Iraqis as well as trillions in property damage.

You kids and your zero knowledge of the 3 groups of terrorists in the middle east.

Here's a clue. A chunk of those deaths come from suicide bombers and the on going war between the groups that have been fighting long before we got there. We did not suddenly go to Iraq and cause those people to think, "Hey! Let's fight & blow up each other's followers!"

I still am waiting for you to name a President that has been worse than Bush.

Carter. The only thing I remember him doing that was really annoying besides already-mentioned flaws was raising peanut prices. Hmm, I wonder why.....

 

[nk4e]

You kids and your zero knowledge of the 3 groups of terrorists in the middle east.

Here's a clue. A chunk of those deaths come from suicide bombers and the on going war between the groups that have been fighting long before we got there. We did not suddenly go to Iraq and cause those people to think, "Hey! Let's fight & blow up each other's followers!"

Didn't we go into the Middle East because the threat of "terrorism"

 

[YSSMAN]

In Afghanistan, yes, arguably with a majority of support across the world. In Iraq, well, that all depends.

BUT...

We, much like the British, have been dicking around in the Middle East since the early half of the 20th Century. Terrorism or not, we'd be there anyway.

 

[Omnis]

People shouldn't talk about terrorism until they've read Blowback, Imperial Hubris, and especially Dying To Win.

 

[McLaren]

Didn't we go into the Middle East because the threat of "terrorism"

That doesn't mean we suddenly made all those suicide bombers go nutty.

 

[nk4e]

That doesn't mean we suddenly made all those suicide bombers go nutty.

I never meant that we made all those suicide bombers go nutty, they are hurting their own people also and hardly ours. Though we are not fighting a conventional war.

 

[McLaren]

I never meant that we made all those suicide bombers go nutty, they are hurting their own people also and hardly ours. Though we are not fighting a conventional war.

We're not, but my original response to the OP was about how the deaths of the innocent were not suddenly caused by us entering their country.

 

[nk4e]

We're not, but my original response to the OP was about how the deaths of the innocent were not suddenly caused by us entering their country.

I believe that I forgot the question mark ^^"

 

[Touring Mars]

It's difficult to judge Bush's legacy for the simple reason that the world is a very different place today, and technology now allows every man, dog and M5Power in the world to have their say on whatever they want. Opinion polls are an industry in their own right these days, and the role of US President is arguably a very different job to what it used to be, therefore it is nigh on impossible (IMO) to make a really meaningful list of which Presidents were better than others...

That said, I feel that Bush's legacy is mostly a negative one - how much he is personally to blame for that is a moot point, however. Although I always felt that he wasn't the sharpest tool in the box, I think any President would have faced tremendous difficulties when placed in the same situations.

 

[wfooshee]

I never meant that we made all those suicide bombers go nutty, they are hurting their own people also and hardly ours. Though we are not fighting a conventional war.

The suicides don't see it as their own people. The different factions fighting each other are to each other mutual enemies.

Back on topic, I have no idea what Bush's legacy will be. If it's history that looks at it, he's not gonna turn out as bad as people think. If it's Kalifornia media that writes his story, then all is lost, it's hopeless for him.

Even Hillary said on one of those Sunday morning news shows that given the reports Bush had on his desk she would have done the same thing: invade Iraq. Then she went on to present that as a horrible intelligence failure and make it Bush's fault again. Her words were something like (paraphrasing from memory,) "He shouldn't have done it, but with the information at hand, I would have done it, too."

Huh?

Bush's loss historically will be the economy. His is the worst Republican record economically that I can think of. Had he reigned in the mortgage fiasco things would have turned out differently. Myself, I think he just wasn't sharp enough to see it coming, and was sold bill of goods by the people "advising" him. I think the lenders wanted cash flow (loans out, interest in) without risk (federal guaranty) and he saw no problem with that. He bought into the "stimulus" theory of it.

But still nothing like Carter.

Carter brought us not only double-digit inflation, but a double-digit prime. Can you image? My sister married in 1978 or 79, and their first house was bought with a rising-payment mortgage at (ready?) 13.5%!!!! They were upside-down on their house for ten years!!!

As for "up" presidents, how about Ike? A very quiet time, a much improved federal highway system, and the beginnings of the space program.

 

[FoolKiller]

Now, please inform me on another president who managed to make grades plummet in schools, make the economy go into recession twice(01-03,07-who knows), granted there are others to blame but he takes majority.

Assuming the president had the power to influence the economy that heavily (hint: he doesn't) you cannot blame Bush for the 01-03 recession. The market began its crash in August of 2000, a full two months before Bush was even elected. Blaming Bush for that recession would be like blaming Obama for the current recession. If you want to blame a single leader for that one blame the guy who was in office when it began, Clinton.

As for the current situation we have often discussed on this site governmental policies that have been going on for 30 years that eventually led to the housing crisis. We could blame every president since Carter for this one. If it can be placed on any one man's shoulders it would be Alan Greenspan, and then you can blame every president who kept him in place while he led the Fed.

Not sure, I was 15 at the time so I couldn't vote. Also yes I do blame him since he is in charge, it's his job to make sure the country doesn't fall down into the state that it's in.

I will blame your age for your lack of understanding. President is not the same a dictator. There are three branches of the government in order to provide checks and balances to prevent any one branch from leading us to ruin. Nothing the president wants to do can be done without the support of Congress, and still anything that does pass that does not meet Constitutional standards is supposed to be rejected by the Supreme Court, the members of which are appointed by the president and approved by the Congress.

Now, with that bit of middle school social studies out of the way, please explain again how the president is completely in charge and the state of the country falls squarely on his shoulders.

Depends on your interpretation of what his policies were actually meant to do.

If we are going by intent then Bush should be held very high, as Bush was doing what he thought was best. That is what I will give Bush credit for. When he saw something that he thought was for the best he stuck to it, even if it was unpopular. I would take a person that stands by unpopular principles over one that will change hairstyles based on polls.

Even if I disagree with those principles and think they are an idiot for having them they will still earn my respect as a person. That said, I would prefer someone that followed popular opinion and actually did good, but as popular opinion rarely leads to that I doubt it will ever happen.

Uhhh, OK. I think you'll find many of us hold similar beliefs, and I've certainly found Sage more than capable of thinking for himself. I can't take credit for Dan, Famine, FK, or even really Sage - they are all independent thinkers who have arrived at mostly the same conclusions I have.

My beliefs have always been close to what they are today, and it wasn't until reading Atlas Shrugged that I had a philosophy to give them a name. Over the years some things have been tweaked a bit, but my base principles are the same as always. The only credit I can give to any people on this board is Danoff for directing me to a few more good books, like Milton Friedman's Free to choose.

I mean 'inconsistent with what the vast majority of people believe.' This forum may well be renamed 'The Crazy Zone.' Like I said, good for the occasional laugh, and little else.

If Crazy means not signing on to the mainstream two-party system that is constantly failing to do any good, then I will gladly allow myself to be labeled crazy. At least I know I have my principles and haven't stepped away from them just to be a part of the popular group(s).

I have been labeled crazy by friends and family for my political beliefs, but I am still not going to back off from them.

I do find it odd how the crazy people are the ones that can quote the Constitution to defend their beliefs.



Regarding the topic of Bush's Legacy, I think down the road he will be viewed fairly middle of the road.

 

[nk4e]

The suicides don't see it as their own people. The different factions fighting each other are to each other mutual enemies.

Though that the news headliners keep on saying" innocent people" I understand that there are factions within the Middle East.
Like I said in the beginning, I would like to see his book later in the future. I want to know how is he going to reflect on all his actions.

 

[Omnis]

... therefore it is nigh on impossible (IMO) to make a really meaningful list of which Presidents were better than others...

Impossible? Nonsense. The best-ever President is William Henry Harrison, without a doubt.

 

[1X83Z]

If you were the only contributor, I'd have to agree.

Technology now allows every man, dog and M5Power in the world to have their say on whatever they want.

I think these remarks - both of which attacked my political views, despite the fact that I never post any - prove both the quality of the forum, and the insecurity of the posters in their beliefs. My point is proven - good for a laugh!

 

[Sage]

I think these remarks - both of which attacked my political views, despite the fact that I never post any - prove both the quality of the forum, and the insecurity of the posters in their beliefs. My point is proven - good for a laugh!

Except that they didn’t attack your political beliefs – they attacked you for going into a political thread, and instead of posting something about the thread subject, going on an ad hominem attack against two of the posters.

Speaking of that – you bold-faced lied to Duke, I, and many other people here about every facet of your life. For several years. Many dozens of lies. Duke and I defended you, both out here in public and in the moderator forum. Out of anybody on this planet, you have the least right to be attacking the character of either of us.

It would have been inappropriate for anybody to post the lie you posted in this thread – but for you to post that takes a surprising (although I really shouldn’t be surprised anymore) amount of audacity.

Sorry I had to make this post, but I’m genuinely sick of you going out of your way to piss me and others off. And don’t make a snarky one-liner post with a rolleyes or lol smilie in it – surprise me by being a little repentant for once.

 

[Omnis]

I think these remarks - both of which attacked my political views, despite the fact that I never post any - prove both the quality of the forum, and the insecurity of the posters in their beliefs. My point is proven - good for a laugh!

My intention was not to attack your political views. How would I even know what they were? Do you see the point of my post now? I like you, but it's not a very good move to come in and criticize a thread for being devoid of worth while not contributing any relevant, meaningful content of your own.

 

[1X83Z]

Except that they didn’t attack your political beliefs – they attacked you for going into a political thread, and instead of posting something about the thread subject, going on an ad hominem attack against two of the posters.

Speaking of that – you bold-faced lied to Duke, I, and many other people here about every facet of your life. For several years. Many dozens of lies. Duke and I defended you, both out here in public and in the moderator forum. Out of anybody on this planet, you have the least right to be attacking the character of either of us.

It would have been inappropriate for anybody to post the lie you posted in this thread – but for you to post that takes a surprising (although I really shouldn’t be surprised anymore) amount of audacity.

Sorry I had to make this post, but I’m genuinely sick of you going out of your way to piss me and others off. And don’t make a snarky one-liner post with a rolleyes or lol smilie in it – surprise me by being a little repentant for once.

Look, here's the deal, Sage, plain and simple.

It is my opinion that there is a very specific slant shared by the "forum leaders" of this particular forum (the Opinions Forum, not GTP). It is further my opinion that when people who are not forum leaders who do not subscribe to this particular slant post here, they are scorned, and the 'good ol' boys club' of forum leaders attacks them, sometimes outrageously. Finally, it is my opinion that because of this, this forum (again Opinions and not GTP) is simply good for a laugh.

I didn't mean to get personal and I (truly) apologize if you were personally offended - there's me being repentant. However I simply do not and will not apologize for the above opinions, and honestly Duke's comment in reply to the original poster of this thread set me over the edge and compelled me to post here - and your reply wasn't too much better.

As I said, you guys have created a sort of 'club' wherein you laud each other's comebacks against people with opposing viewpoints, agreeing with each other and putting witty replies in each other's signatures, but it absolutely ruins any ability to have any sort of discussion with perspective in here, because the perspective's always the same.

The worst part is I actually agree with you guys the vast majority of the time. Yet every time I read a post with a cheap insult like "Get your history from somewhere besides the mainstream media and Rolling Stone," I really begin to question whether I've aligned myself with the right people.