Hey all, I was just wondering what everyone's opinion on the worst president is? Though I imagine a lot of people might feel that its Bush 2, lets keep it to presidents who have completed their term so as to minimize repitition :)
I'd say my top three would be Lincoln, FDR, TR, with an honorable mention to Jimmy Carter for being an utter boob.
Your turn!
csullivan:with an honorable mention to Jimmy Carter for being an utter boob.
Hey give Carter some credit for fighting off a giant swamp rabbit!
I don't know who was the worst president, but I know who my dog thinks is the best. He likes George more then any other.
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I am torn between Lincoln and FDR, with honorable mention to Truman and to JFK for making sacrificing yourself for the state sound like fun.
Someone recently said something to the effect of, "The Democrats want to take my money. The Republicans want to put me in jail. I can always make more money if I'm not in jail."
I'd always thought of George Bush the elder as worst president until his son ascended to office. I was thinking of how those accused of crimes lose all their assets without trial. But that's mostly because I learned American history in public school, so I didn't know anything about many earlier presidents. Now that I've read more about Wilson, I have to put him near the top of the list as well.
Scott
equack wrote:
equack:Imperialism on the Right versus Socialism/Regulation on the Left, I would see the Left as a greater threat to domestic liberty than international crusading from the Right.
Woodrow Wilson. He made the world safe for mass murder. King Lincoln comes in second. He was the first warmongering fascist in US history and opened the door for Wilson and FDR.
Good lists.
Lincoln, FDR, Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Truman
Peace
I think maybe we should quantify worst in terms of the civilian carnage from US actions during their reign. Here would be my rough ranking
1. Truman: A-Bomb on Japan
2. FDR: Fire bombings of Dresden
3. Lincoln: Southern genocidal campaign (march to the sea)
My vote definately goes to that fascist pig lincoln. You just can't beat a president that orders executions without trials, unleashes thugs called "generals" to rape and pilage, burns down entire states, and then makes people march through soldiers to get to the voting booths. Not to mention that he hated black people and wanted them all to go back to africa. People praise him for letting them fight his war, when he was just hoping that a lot of them would die. I bet Stalin killed so many people in his own country as an effort to break Lincoln's record.
I want to vomit everytime i hear a republican fanboy remind everyone that lincoln was republican...only an idiot would be proud of that.
2nd place goes to FDR, first and foremost for the New Deal. I also hate him because he knew about pearl harbor and let it happen. The families of the people that died there should have been able to wheel the *** into a volcano for letting it happen. Also, he shouldn't have gone into the European theator in WWII, but he did, and that allowed japan to take over parts of Alaska...how inept can you be?
Anyone who names GW as the worst president ever is absolutely insane, or completely ignorant of this countries long list of terrible rulers. Sure he's a socialist and a warmonger, but nothing compared to fdr, lincoln, carter, jfk, and truman. He also least tried to privatize social slavery..oops security. Not his fault that AARP members are so used to being slaves that they can't imagine things any other way.
The worst president? That's a difficult choice because there are so many to choose from. I would say it's a toss up between Lincoln, Wilson and FDR. But, if I had to pick one, it would be Wilson. That crazy do-gooder gave us the income tax, the Federal Reserve, and our entry into the horrendous World War I. Way to go, Woodrow!
There's a difference between any president?
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Niccolò:There's a difference between any president?
Yes. And to claim otherwise is a revolt against morality.
Certainly is. Compare Lincoln to Van Buren and it becomes apparent.
While none of our presidents were perfect, some did truly believe that spending taxpayer's money on projects of individual benefit was robbery, and some did object to government interference with financial markets, while others supported both of those programs. Some supported war for imperialist reasons; others opposed any war in which we were not attacked first. It may only be a difference in degree, but it is a difference.
JonBostwick:Yes. And to claim otherwise is a revolt against morality.
Questioning the capacity of parasites is revolting against morality now?Strange.
csullivan:Certainly is. Compare Lincoln to Van Buren and it becomes apparent.
One robs an Irish Catholic to kill an American southerner.Another robs most Americans to exterminate and expel Cherokee. The only difference I can see is the colour of the skin that the one man kills in comparison to the other.Is that what I'm to take away from your comparisons?
Niccolò: csullivan: Certainly is. Compare Lincoln to Van Buren and it becomes apparent. One robs an Irish Catholic to kill an American southerner.Another robs most Americans to exterminate and expel Cherokee. The only difference I can see is the colour of the skin that the one man kills in comparison to the other.Is that what I'm to take away from your comparisons?
csullivan: Certainly is. Compare Lincoln to Van Buren and it becomes apparent.
Perhaps you're not able to comprehend the difference between murdering people that you took an oath to defend and killing people who are murdering the people you took an oath to defend.
I like the idea of Lincoln, especially since he is responsible for so many deaths. If you consider that his actions in precipitating a conflict with the CSA caused 600,000 deaths, he may well be the bloodiest president in US history, and oh what a history that is. I wonder if any single president can be linked to so many deaths? Truman ordered the nuclear attack of Japan, but even the destruction of two cities doesn't add up to 600,000.
Yes it's an intersting question and as one respondent mentioned a "Target Rich enviornmet". For what its worth my answer is lincoln. He is the one to whom all suceeding presidents cite as the source of their right to power over the Constitution and to steal our wealth and our rights. He set into motion: 1) the blatant destuction of the constitution, 2)depriving the people of their right to with draw their consent by withdrawing from an abusive union, 3) welfare corporatism, 4) Preidential war making with out the consent of congress, 5) visiting a war of aggression upon his own countrymen, 6) arresting, jailing, and exiling any citizen who dared take execption to the presidental policies, this includes the supression of the press, rigging elections, the use of troops to intimidate elected officials(as in Maryland) and judges. I could go on but I think you can get the picture. The presidents from Grant, Mckinley, Wilson,Roosevelt,Hoover,Roosevelt, etc., all take/took their cue and inspiration from lincoln. There were others who are guilty of abusing the office... Adams, Polk come to mind quickly, but none have had nearly the desructive impact as has lincoln. This country was not established to bring about "Great Leaders". It was established to be an anti-state country where the rule of the law of liberty held supreme.
Michael "A'gaidhl" Willis, Imperial Storm Trooper, Retired
I think LBJ deserves some credit for the massive number of people he killed in Vietnam, although there is certainly some tough competition here.
... just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own - Albert Jay Nock
Niccolò: JonBostwick:Yes. And to claim otherwise is a revolt against morality. Questioning the capacity of parasites is revolting against morality now?Strange.
No. Saying that all criminals have equal guilt is.
Without a doubt 1. W. Wilson (gave us the federal reserve ) 2. FDR (gave us socialism w/ the "New Deal") Honorable Mention goes to all others elected after Wilson (except FDR he's #2) because they have done nothing to correct the tryanny that number 1&2 started.
ContumacySince87: Perhaps you're not able to comprehend the difference between murdering people that you took an oath to defend and killing people who are murdering the people you took an oath to defend.
Yes. I'm very thankful that the man exists to kill these murderous, little, brown heathens,
JonBostwick:No. Saying that all criminals have equal guilt is.
So the hitman is better than the mob boss... Alright. I think I understand now!
The most current target of my venom is FDR, for building on the work of his predecessors to an unmatched degree of socialism. The fact that he is revered makes me ill.
He and Lincoln are touted as two of our greatest presidents, which makes them all the more vile and despicable.
The aspiration toward freedom is the most essentially human of all human manifestations. -Eric Hoffer
How about the short list of good presidents?
Of the post-Founder age, I think only three stand out as being anything other than awful:
Not to disagree with the other selections, but how about an honorable mention for Lyndon Johnson? He gave us Medicare, Medicaid, the Great Society, the War on Poverty and Vietnam.
You know, it's funny. I remember that in 1963 a fellow warned me, "If you vote for Goldwater for President, within a few years we'll have half a million soldiers in Vietnam and riots in the streets." Well, he was right. I voted for Goldwater and darned if we didn't wind up with half a million men in Vietnam and riots in the streets.
Of course, we must remember that politicians, including Presidents, are as much an effect as they are a cause. Most simply ride the underlying cultural currents like opportunistic surfers. They tend to reflect the basic philosophy that dominates the electorate at any particular point in time.
Wilson was the worst, though Lincoln, FDR and Truman are all in the same league. They were all horrible. I actually think Carter might have been a little better than Reagan, at least in economics. Ironically, if he was worse, it was because he was in some ways more aggressive in foreign policy.
All of you suffer most from Wilson and the progressive movement, namely public education. I have read your thoughts and it seems most of you lack a good history education, as well as the ability to discern and explain cause and effect because A happened before B does not mean A cused B. Public education purposfully destroys critical thinking, think about it when was the last time the students were required to learn about Thomas Jefferson from Thomas Jefferson, and explain what you learned and why you draw those conclusions, trying to instill such rigor only in later years is a pointless endeavor.
As for the Presidents, Lincoln and the North did not start the civil war or cause it the south did. The key period you need to look up is 1833 - 1855. Key topics are the Compromise of 1833 in which congress declared that all new states coming into the union would be 'free'. And the lincoln-douglass debates of late 1850's, as well as the war hawks such as John C. Calhoun. Essentially the south decided to go to war because they realized that as free states grew in number the slave holding regions would be far out numbered by the free. They were corect. On the intelectual front the country was beginning to quesion openly that which the founders questioned privately, "how can a nation founded on the high ideals of liberty co-exist with the institutions of slavery" it cannot unfortunately the founders knew if they would not have opportunity to deal with this in thier lifetimes so almost everyone of them on thier death beds freed thier slaves and even left provision for them to start a new life. This act was a death bed declaration they hoped thier more enlighted sons catch on to. They did not, and a civil war was used to answer this question as well as defining the balance of Federal versus state power, unfortunatley it was Federalist senators and congressman who wanted to Punish the south, which they did againsts the Lincoln administration, and after Lincoln assassination they did just that resulting in the period known as 'Reconstruction' this caused a knee jerk reaction against the negro population because they were seen as tools used by the north to control and take advantage of the south and thus on and on until the Civil Rights movement. Even to this day southerners despise "Yankees" for thier belief in big centralized and controling governmen. As for civil war and ww1 deaths, this is due to mainly advances in warfare tecnology ahead of battlefield tacticts, men were using revolution era tacticts in an age of rifles, machine guns and first uses of chemical and biological warfare.
As the next few decades rolled by, the those at the helm of the Abolitionist movement, went on to use government coercion to push 'social reform. Evangelicals such as D.L. Moody, Charles Spurgeon, in conjuction with remnants of the Quaker and Shaker movements made popular the "Social Gospel" of the 1880's through early 1900's. President McKinley in the late 1890s was the first to depart from the monroe doctrine, in issues with spain over cuba, thus resulting the Spanish American War. This set the tone for Woodrow Wilson and 'The War to End All Wars' better known as world war 1. After this bloody encounter the nation knee jerked back to Isolationism and the Do-gooders turned thier attention to domestic intervention, with such ideas as prohibition, income tax ect. leading to the the Great Depression (Mises et al) culminating in the new deal. Every President up until Reagan has furthered interventionism in some way or another. Now in the spirit Mr. Mises I think it to soon to start determining whether his policies were good or bad longterm, and while he was a foriegn interventionist, his ideals of people needing to be free of intervention from government and the encouragment of individual enterprise that are already proving prosperous. Example, Bill Gate, Steve Jobs, Micheal Dell three college drop outs who started finacial empires and business revolution FROM A GARAGE, early in the eighties a company called Comp USA obtained grants from the Reagan administration to take ARPA NET and develpe it the result was the internet, the rest is history.
In conclusion it is aggresive movements and arrogance that propels interventions at home and abroad, presidents are the culmination of this. Moving forward we need to reject the idea government is responsible for the people, but people for the government. We must in order to enjoy liberty and the persuit of happiness accecpt its noble responsibilities. Society today does not have the moxie to govern itself, for Life Liberty and self governance require responsibility and self restraint, young men and women today do not understand this, to create anew the lofty ideals of our founding fathers we must accept that action without consequences cannot exist or be promoted, we must restrain our lower angels and raise our sons and daughters to do the same. Perhaps then when we are old we will see great men and women leading this country that we can be proud of for centuries to come.
You know. Coolidge is the only president I actually like... Odd.
Guaranteed popular thread. ;-)
Definitely Lincoln. As some others have noted, other presidents (like Adams) opened the door a smidgen - but he blew them off the hinges. Further, his heavy-handed moralizing and his assassination have essentially defied him in the eyes of popular history. As a result, not only are his actions a precedent, their use by subsequent presidents is justified and portrayed as a good thing in the eyes of many simply by noting he did it too.
The big three are fairly obvious: Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR. It is very difficult to rank them, but I think I have to put Wilson at the #1 worst. The income tax and the Fed made possible FDR's schemes more so than anything Lincoln did made Wilson's possible.
It is sort of funny that no one mentioned LBJ until recently. Not as surprisingly, Nixon hasn't been mentioned (that I've seen). He does not rank with Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR, but he's certainly on par with LBJ. Not just Watergate, etc., or even the lies and bombs on Vietnam and Cambodia, but let's not forget the price and wage controls, affirmative action, the EPA, etc., and of course, the final severing of the gold standard. That's all pretty bad stuff!