Regardless of whether or not you were alive during any president's term, who is your favorite president?

For me hands down it's Teddy Roosevelt. Not only do I think he's the best president, but probably the most badass person who has existed. First naturalist president, established the first national park Yellowstone, explored and traveled the world. A true Republican.

Good 'ole Honest Abe. Abolition FTW.

Jefferson. Dealt with international conflicts peacefully, cut taxes, cut military spending, and reduced government power while letting go of unneeded staff. biggest things he used government for would have been Louis and Clark expedition and buying land from France... oh and that affair with one of his slaves thing... lol.

George Washington had it right.

He was the only one that actually fully followed the Constitution. His vision for America, that is, equal liberties, non-interventionism, government leaving the people the fuck alone, is what should be today...

2nd would be Ike. The last good president we had. For one, he was actually smart. Secondly, he wasn't a self aggrandizing piece of shit liar. He had flaws too (Social security expansion), but his pros (non-interventionism, immigration policy, low national debt, and near-zero inflation, and of course, the interstate system) far outweigh his negatives or short comings.

Better question would have been within X years (more recent ones)

At 1/30/13 02:30 AM, Ceratisa wrote: Better question would have been within X years (more recent ones)

Meh then all the replies you would see would either be FDR or Reagan. Speaking of which I'm pretty surprised I haven't seen a Reagan post yet.

Gotta say I am a big fan of Clinton, and I think it's very admirable what he's chosen to do outside of office with his charity work too.

At 1/30/13 09:01 AM, Saen wrote:

At 1/30/13 02:30 AM, Ceratisa wrote: Better question would have been within X years (more recent ones)

Meh then all the replies you would see would either be FDR or Reagan. Speaking of which I'm pretty surprised I haven't seen a Reagan post yet.

Some republicans seemed to have a very warped memory of what Reagan was actually like. And seem to tactfully forget the fact that he did more damage to the deficit than any other president, believed ketchup was a vegetable, and sold a bunch of weapons to Iran and then lied about it. I can't decide which of the 3 is worse.

soul khan

Reagan.

At 1/30/13 09:20 AM, Tony-DarkGrave wrote: Reagan.

At 1/30/13 09:30 AM, tyler2513 wrote: Ronald Reagan. A very true heroic Republican in my opinion

Really?

In order for you to have that opinion you need to gloss over a lot of what he did, check out his documentary which includes interviews with his son, and plenty of high profile people in his administration.

I know it's long and you are lazy, so just check out the part at 1h:04:40. The 7-10 minutes there is all you really need to know.

reagan was a hero

-supported anti-communist organizations
-economically crippled the USSR
- dropped inflation from the carter administration by 8% down to 4.4%
- survived a assassination attempt
- Approved the support of Afghans against the Soviet invasion

At 1/30/13 12:45 AM, Light wrote: He may not have been a badass like his cousin Teddy

I take it that you've never seen FDR: American Badass?

At 1/30/13 11:56 AM, Tony-DarkGrave wrote: reagan was a hero

-supported anti-communist organizations
-economically crippled the USSR
- dropped inflation from the carter administration by 8% down to 4.4%
- survived a assassination attempt
- Approved the support of Afghans against the Soviet invasion

You even watch that link I sent you?
I don't think surviving an assassination attempt bears any relevance to how good his actual policies were.

- He raised taxes and is on the record for saying the 'homeless were homeless by choice'. He was strongly again
- He took too long to respond to AIDS.
- He gave amnesty to 2.6 million illegal immigrants.
- At the end of Reagan's term there were 33 Million people living below the poverty line in the US, 7 million More than when he took office.
- He tripled the deficit. We are still living with the repercussions of that today.
- He traded money and weapons to Iran for hostages, an act that he knew was illegal, and then lied about it. When it came out he weaseled out of any responsibility.
- He cut taxes on the richest in America, whilst raising them for the middle classes, and is on the record for saying the 'homeless were homeless by choice'.

At 1/30/13 12:14 PM, Fim wrote: - He raised taxes and is on the record for saying the 'homeless were homeless by choice'. He was strongly again
- He cut taxes on the richest in America, whilst raising them for the middle classes, and is on the record for saying the 'homeless were homeless by choice'.

God I really need to proofread..

Also,

At 1/30/13 11:56 AM, Tony-DarkGrave wrote: - Approved the support of Afghans against the Soviet invasion

I think what you mean to say was that he sent billions of dollars to terrorists agencies... "Prepping for a possible war with the Soviet Union, Ronald Reagan spent billions of dollars funding the Islamist mujahidin Freedom Fighters in Afghanistan. With billions of American dollars, weapons and training coming their way, the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden took everything they were given and gave it back to the United States over a decade later in the worst possible way imaginable."

At 1/30/13 12:14 PM, Fim wrote: You even watch that link I sent you?

it wouldn't let me skip unless im on Youtube and im on my phone and it would take forever to load and stream something that big.

- He took too long to respond to AIDS.

OOOH AIDS who the fuck cares?

- He gave amnesty to 2.6 million illegal immigrants.

Obama did the same thing with the Dream Act.

- At the end of Reagan's term there were 33 Million people living below the poverty line in the US, 7 million More than when he took office.

and there was 40 Million after obama's first term your point?

- He tripled the deficit. We are still living with the repercussions of that today.

Bush's last day the deficit was 9 Trillion and now its 16 Trillion

- He traded money and weapons to Iran for hostages, an act that he knew was illegal, and then lied about it. When it came out he weaseled out of any responsibility.

and Obama had Fast and Furious to Drug Cartels.

- He cut taxes on the richest in America, whilst raising them for the middle classes, and is on the record for saying the

so has clinton and bush and obama.

At 1/30/13 11:56 AM, Tony-DarkGrave wrote: - Approved the support of Afghans against the Soviet invasion

Read: "Reagan laid the ground work for the Taliban to support Bin Laden and facilitate the 9/11 Attacks."

At 1/30/13 09:30 AM, tyler2513 wrote: Ronald Reagan. A very true heroic Republican in my opinion, and while there's a lot of mixed opinions on him because of all the scandals his administration went through. But when Air Controllers went on strike which is against federal law, he said "that's nice now fuck you" and fired them all, replacing them with military pilots until new ones could come in

That's nice, but considering he sold weapons to terrorists and expanded social engineering programs like Social Security, I'd say he can bite my ass.

I'd have to say Teddy Roosevelt.

He loved nature. He fought the large companies to ensure the free market was actually free. He knew how to shut the hell up, yet still be strong when it came to foreign policy.

Finally, based on what I have read about him (a great deal) he was very much a genuine President, not a cog in the wheel President. He acted on what he thought was best, not based on what was the best strategy for his party.

Reagan really had no effect on the collapse on the USSR at all, and a lot of the later comments by Soviet politicians about how important Reagan was and blah blah are mostly attempts to ingratiate themselves with the US. From about the time of Brezhnev's rule on, the Soviet economic system needed a significant change of course, and if it didn't get that, it would collapse over time. This happened to occur under Reagan's watch (or rather under George Bush's), but if Mondale had won this wouldn't have made any difference at all. The USSR fell for internal reasons, not external ones.

The one thing I will give Reagan credit for is modernizing and re-professionalizing the US military into being a definite threat to the Warsaw Pact. Everything else in his foreign policy was brinkmanship, fifties-style simplistic anti-Communism and support of crony dictators while giving lip service to American ideals. I've always been of the opinion that he was the recipient of the luckiest timing of any American president in history, and I doubt I'll change my mind.

To answer the question, I would have to say FDR because he's one of the few presidents that understood Keynesian economics, and I'm a big fan of Coolidge's wit.

At 1/30/13 12:33 PM, Tony-DarkGrave wrote:

At 1/30/13 12:14 PM, Fim wrote: You even watch that link I sent you?

it wouldn't let me skip unless im on Youtube and im on my phone and it would take forever to load and stream something that big.

Watch all of it then we'll talk. I guarentee you won't have the same opinion if you look at all the facts.

It's almost unbelievable how the myth of his presidency has been promoted, he did some pretty terrible things. And often the qualities that are attributed to him are completely false.

- He took too long to respond to AIDS.

OOOH AIDS who the fuck cares?

oh you meany ;'(

- He tripled the deficit. We are still living with the repercussions of that today.

Bush's last day the deficit was 9 Trillion and now its 16 Trillion

There is actually a very strong case for 'Reaganomics' being responsible for the extent of the problem with the US deficit today. I still think his biggest crime was saying that ketchup was a vegetable.

At 1/30/13 05:49 PM, Fim wrote: There is actually a very strong case for 'Reaganomics' being responsible for the extent of the problem with the US deficit today. I still think his biggest crime was saying that ketchup was a vegetable.

Isn't it funny that, for YEARS, those on the left bashed trickle down economics, but under Obama it's the greatest thing since sliced bread?

I don't get George Washington, he did little at all. He crushed a rebellion I guess but he also signed the Jay Treaty, an action that proved to be his most unpopular as it actually brought him criticism from a then unknown Representative from Tennessee Andrew Jackson (most other people attacked John Jay the negotiator and avoided Washington as he was too popular).

Anyway, I usually pick someone like Johnson or Truman or Wilson to spite people who downplay their achievements and overplay their failures. Anyways if I want a President who did what the Constitution was intended to do AND still manage to do anything good I'd pick Clinton, the reason i don't pick someone like FDR or Lincoln is because they pretty much had control of the government and thus they're doing what the Constitution was intended to do i.e. limit how much power one group could have (and in the case of Lincoln Jesus Christ did he go far). His foreign policy was more or less superb, stand up against genocide, respecting a nations sovereignty etc. etc. his domestic policy was all compromise, which is exactly what the Constitution intends to do (and is more or less how the Constitution was written anyway).

At 1/30/13 02:21 AM, LemonCrush wrote: George Washington had it right.

He was the only one that actually fully followed the Constitution. His vision for America, that is, equal liberties, non-interventionism, government leaving the people the fuck alone, is what should be today...

George Washington did not believe in most of that. In fact his financial policy started up a rebellion because his taxes were too high. He also created the first National Bank. In fact while he detested political parties he was leaning to the Federalists, who were pretty much for an aristocratic republic.

2nd would be Ike. The last good president we had. For one, he was actually smart. Secondly, he wasn't a self aggrandizing piece of shit liar. He had flaws too (Social security expansion), but his pros (non-interventionism, immigration policy, low national debt, and near-zero inflation, and of course, the interstate system) far outweigh his negatives or short comings.

Non-interventionism? HAHAHA! That was done by the time he took office all the isolationists were gone by that point and it ceased to be a relevant political issue. If anything he was even more interventionist, in fact he re-installed the Shah of Iran, that action led to the current Islamic Republic of Iran (if he hadn't had done that Iran would probably be a pretty stable Parliamentary Democracy right now and a good friend of the US). He bombed Guatemala and overthrew the government there because "it might be Communist" and replaced it with a bloodthristy dictatorship (this was the case with Iran, it really does not make the US government at the time look very bright). He also allowed South Vietnam not to participate in a unified election and began American intervention there. His one bright spot was when he literally could not make any connection with World Communism and the Egyptian takeover of the Suez Canal (whereas he could in the case with Iran and Guatemala) and stood up for Egypt. Truman by comparison had quite the better foreign policy in terms of how it would've been had Eisenhower not destabilized so many countries in an effort to stop Communism real or imaginary, he supported anti-colonial movements, supported Iran in its case against Britain, came to South Korea's aid when it needed it and when Korea was about to be fully Communist (although that didn't really end up very well).

For inflation, nope actually a big talking point for the Democrats in the period was the pretty high inflation, you can see it as the message of their campaign ads. And again that's not a fair talking point because inflation always occurs when you have a booming economy.

As for immigration policy what did he do? He kept the National Origins act, that racist piece of legislation passed during the peak of racism in the US (at least against other white people) which imposed quotas on nations based on their race, if they were Northern European they were allowed in at bigger numbers, Southern and Eastern European were limited and everyone else was pretty much banned aside from a few Mexicans in the South West. The Chinese Exclusion act was repealed by either FDR or Truman I can't recall which. But the guy who you're looking for who's responsible for the modern immigration system that wasn't racist as hell is Lyndon Baines Johnson, he repealed the National Origins act and let in the flood gates for Latin America and Asia. But god forbid he get credit for anything because uh VIETNAM! and uhh vietnam?

At 1/29/13 11:58 PM, Iron-Hampster wrote: Jefferson. Dealt with international conflicts peacefully, cut taxes, cut military spending, and reduced government power while letting go of unneeded staff. biggest things he used government for would have been Louis and Clark expedition and buying land from France... oh and that affair with one of his slaves thing... lol.

His foreign policy was shit. It solved absolutely nothing and made everything worse. Because of his embargo on both Britain and France the North East went into a depression and it had little effect on Britain and France from stopping what they were doing before (i.e. impressment). His cutting of military spending also left the nation vulnerable, in fact it had risen under Adams because they needed it to combat the French who were fighting America. His disastrous actions pretty much led to the War of 1812. His only good spot on Foreign policy was the war in Libya where he essentially sent a couple of Marines with a shitton of guns, got an army of mercenaries and burned Tripoli (this was the 2nd time they've gone to war, we're on the 3rd time).

At 1/30/13 11:42 AM, Fim wrote: In order for you to have that opinion you need to gloss over a lot of what he did, check out his documentary which includes interviews with his son, and plenty of high profile people in his administration.

I know it's long and you are lazy, so just check out the part at 1h:04:40. The 7-10 minutes there is all you really need to know.

Well his son Ron Reagan is actually pretty Liberal and hates his dad's policies, but he himself is still better than the Republicans we have today because he didn't let that get in the way of getting along. The guy stood up for gay rights when they were almost barred from teaching in California, the guy went on camera and said that the right to strike is a fundamental human right. If any Republican were to do that today on the national level they wouldn't get past the primaries even if they were an incumbent.

At 1/30/13 05:45 PM, Feoric wrote:

:I'm a big fan of Coolidge's wit.

Hopefully that's all you praise him for lol.

To actually reply to the OP Lincoln
Since WWII Reagan, just like the most recent poll..

James K Polk

He was elected on one main principle - if Mexico tried to retake Texas, the USA would go to War. Mexico tried to retake Texas, Polk went to war with Mexico, thus making him the only president to keep all of his election promises.

At 2/8/13 06:55 AM, Dogbert581 wrote: James K Polk

He was elected on one main principle - if Mexico tried to retake Texas, the USA would go to War. Mexico tried to retake Texas, Polk went to war with Mexico, thus making him the only president to keep all of his election promises.

Not true, there were plenty of Presidents who were elected on the platform of doing nothing (Coolidge, William Henry Harrison etc. ) and they did nothing.

abraham lincoln - a legend or arnold schwarzenegger - the funny one

At 2/11/13 08:41 AM, Korriken wrote:

At 2/11/13 07:55 AM, lukefoster1 wrote: abraham lincoln - a legend or arnold schwarzenegger - the funny one

I somehow don't think Schwarzenegger was ever president, unless you think Demolition Man is not a work of fiction.

also, Lincoln wasn't as awesome as the legends and history books make him out to be. I might so a post on it later. or you can look it up yourself and be educated and informed.

Does he need to be as people see him to make him less awesome. Or does it bring an element of reality to what is often the fairy tales of our past presidents? Realistically how many men live up to their name when their achievements are as great as Abe's?

At 2/11/13 12:58 PM, Korriken wrote: as they say, history is written by the victor. the truth has been distorted so heavily that almost no one knows it anymore. Everyone wants to cite Lincoln as "the man who freed the slaves!" but in reality his vision was to send the slaves to plantations overseas.

No that was the vision of Henry Clay and others like James Monroe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Colonization_Society

Lincoln had nothing to do with it.

he had no intention at all of "freeing" them.

You know that makes sense, because it's not like he passed the 13th Amendment or anything.

it makes me facepalm when people say that the "emancipation proclamation" freed the slaves when it didn't. the emancipation proclamation was empty words that didn't do squat. why? It only refereed to slaves in states that seceded from the union.

People miss the point of it. The point of it was not to free slaves, the point of it was to focus the war on the end of slavery in America. Before that it was merely to crush a bunch of rebellious states, now the stated goal of the war was to end slavery. By the end of the war all of the states in the Union had banned slavery including the border ones. Since it put the reason for the war the fight to end slavery it generated much support for the Union in Britain whose intervention could have decided the war (they were in fact very close to helping out the South, they wanted to weaken the Union a massive trading enemy and they were hurt by the loss of cotton). So Britain only lightly intervened selling a couple of war vessels to the Confederacy, because had it performed a larger scale attack and been joined by France (the French were hurt alot more by the loss of Cotton and they also admired the aristocratic lifestyle of the southerners but they would not have went to war had Britain not led the charge since at the time they were invading Mexico) the Confederacy probably would've won.

the states with slaves that didn't kept their slaves until the 13th amendment was put forth, which was forced on the south after the war which was under military control.

Not to judge this but Kentucky didn't pass it until I think the 1960's and Mississippi didn't pass it until the 1990's.

secession didn't happen because the south was afraid of losing its slaves. the south left the union because the union wasn't representing the south at all. the federal government only represented the wealthy northern businesses, mainly in shipping. wealthy shippers was buying up cotton on the cheap and shipping it to europe to make massive profits. However, a very high tariff was preventing any foreign ships coming in and buying any cotton, so the price of cotton was basically being strangled by the north, who were reaping huge profits off of it. Also, many businesses in the north were being subsidized by the government to keep them artificially afloat while the southern farms and plantation were suffering from low crop prices and high taxes.

Yah no. Had this been the reason for the Civil War it would've started much earlier, 1850 or 1828. The principal reason the South Seceded was because they thought that Lincoln was going to ban slavery, slavery was an integral part of the Southern lifestyle at the time so an attack on slavery was seen as an attack on the South. Besides both were very dependent on each other, textiles in the north were fueled by cotton production in the south, had economics been the principal reason for this then Lincoln would've lost. But no it was simply because slavery was just too unpopular in the North, they simple wanted it gone, to the North it was what kept the economy of the South backwards and primitive and they had just recently gotten into a depression and the Republicans blamed it on the backwardness of the South (it was really caused by a couple of land bills saying states can takeover swampland and sell it, the problem was that the states were given the ability to determine what was swamp land so they designated mountains as swampland, mostly land which had railroads on them as swampland and selling them for a huge profit causing a huge credit collapse as investors saw their investments being taken away by state governments).

Abraham Lincoln's election, who wasn't even in the ballot on most southern states, was simply the last slap in the face that the south needed to say "you know what, fuck it, i'm outta here!"

but you won't hear about ANY of that in history books. why? because the truth isn't as touchy feely as fiction and it makes the north look like a bunch of assholes, which they pretty much were.

Ah the whole "You don't see this in history books!" crap. It always arises from a few fringe websites, hell I once saw a website written by a Neo-Confederate historian (his only picture was him in a Confederate Uniform) which claimed that the purpose of Lincoln's Civil War was to create a Marxist revolution (this was just based off a letter Karl Marx wrote to Lincoln congratulating him on winning a 2nd term).

You're right though that the North isn't as nice as it's portrayed in the history books, but in the wrong way.

At 2/11/13 03:20 PM, Korriken wrote: that's because he got killed, ironically, by a southerner before it could be done. Lincoln couldn't care less about the blacks, and even stated that whites were superior.

Dude the guy is from the 1860's give him some slack. Even the Radical Republicans would be racists by our standards. Now Lincoln did care about them, in fact he even set up the Freedman's Bureau in order to give them some economic viability (before it was shut down by Johnson).

oh I'm sorry, I didn't know presidents had the power to unilaterally alter the constitution... that would explain a lot of shit we've been seeing for the last 200 or so years.

Presidents have to sign Amendments into the Constitution, and he certainly did.

and now you say the REAL reason why he did it. it was a military tactic. It wasn't due to a change of heart, it was to make Britain less likely to attack and whip up support for the war from the anti slavery crowd.

No he genuinely wanted to ban slavery.

that's what you were led to believe. the banning of slavery would have happened eventually, but not nearly as soon as it did if the war didn't happen.

Impossible to tell, the Founding Fathers assumed this would happen and their estimate may have been accurate had the Cotton Gin not been invented.

the North needed Southern cotton to prosper. cotton was taxed, the finished products were taxed, the exported cotton was taxed. when the south seceded and opened its ports to foreign ships, this brought the price of cotton up, which hurt the North, so they had to do something to bring the south to its knees.

Look there are economic reasons, this does not mean that Lincoln solely did it for economic and political reasons.

Like I said, it was a variety of things. the price of cotton being kept low thanks to the North's stranglehold on federal politics, the fact that the south had about as much sway as a gentle breeze on a massive oak tree, the anti slavery movement was a small part, but it wasn't the dominating factor. Lincoln being elected with few if any southern votes was the tipping point.

Again had this been the issue the Civil War would have started 1828 or 1850, not 1860. The thing was that the country was divided, the MidWest for example would team up with the South on some issues especially on tariffs to beat back the North East. The problem of course was slavery itself.

You never hear the whole story in history books. ever. only what the winners want you to hear.

I call bullshit on that. In my textbook for US history it portrayed everything it could to as racist as it could've been Theodore Roosevelt in particular was pretty nasty, hell it even talked about the Social Darwinists such as Madison Grant and their popularity in America. Hell even Columbus the genocidal piece of shit he was wasn't spared. Nevermind the whole "Fuck Catholics" movement known as the Know Nothings and the rest of the huge amount of intolerance all around the country.

If ending slavery was the predominant reason behind the civil war it would have probably never happened because the south would have had little reason to secede before legislation was passed, given they would have been able to keep their slaves up to the moment the legislation passed, then seceded in response to it. Also, the loss of slaves would have put many of the cotton plantations out of business, driven up cotton prices, and hurt the North's wealthy shipping companies.

The problem was that the Republicans were all for Free Soil, they wanted to contain slavery where it was and keep it from expanding outside. Anyone knew that eventually the slave states would be grossly outnumbered by free states and that they would ultimately ban slavery. It didn't matter the Legislation the very act that a Republican was elected was enough to make them angry.

every history book i've ever read has always, without fail, omitted all references of Lincoln's bigotry, his anti interracial marriage stance, and the fact he planned to resettle the blacks abroad. he wanted to send them to various british colonies, like Haiti and send them to build a canal in Panama because he believed that blacks could coexist with white Americans.

Which again you have to give him some slack BECAUSE HE'S FROM THE 1800'S! The whole notion of sending blacks out wasn't because they were racist, it was because they felt that whites and blacks could not co-exist peacefully (the Race Riot in New York for example gave good evidence of this to them). Of course he wouldn't have done that because he wouldn't have been able to. What he probably would've done was offered economic opportunity to poor blacks and had easy standards for re-admission in southern states.

The problem here is that you're saying he isn't an anti-slavery hero by looking at some things which make him out to be a racist (which somehow you can't be anti-slavery and racist at the same time) and ignoring the fact that he banned slavery.

bet you won't find that in a history book.

as the war raged on, the North targeted plantations and burned them to the ground, effectively obliterating the South's economy. after that. there was no reason for the wealthy shippers to oppose slavery because there wasn't any cotton left to ship to europe for profit. the abolition of slavery would also have the effect of wrecking the southern social order, making many of the once wealthy families completely destitute.