c) Ordered the wrongful relocation and effective imprisonment of thousands of innocent Japanese Americans, which included the confiscation & destruction of their belongings.
posted
George Washington. The transitions of power after him went so smoothly that I think people underestimate how wrong it could have gone had he not been the leader he is.
Lincoln's a close second. After them, a HUGE gap before anyone else.
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I like William Henry Harrison purely because he was too stubborn to have his inauguration inside and died of pneumonia, a month later, because of it.
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quote:c) Ordered the wrongful relocation and effective imprisonment of thousands of innocent Japanese Americans, which included the confiscation & destruction of their belongings.
No President is above criticism.
He did some bad things too.
Not a lot of people in the history of the world would have been capable of doing the *good* things FDR did. This country exists today because of him. There are maybe four Presidents you could say that about.
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quote:Originally posted by SteveRogers: I like William Henry Harrison purely because he was too stubborn to have his inauguration inside and died of pneumonia, a month later, because of it.
This does not make him a great president.
It makes him a stubborn fool, and a mere footnote in history.
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quote:George Washington. The transitions of power after him went so smoothly that I think people underestimate how wrong it could have gone had he not been the leader he is.
This is actually something we never really covered in history classes - our teachers more or less told us "He was a military officer, they gave him the reins of power, he founded the nation - NEXT!" If you happen to know of a good text better outlining the specifics, I'd be interested.
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quote:If you happen to know of a good text better outlining the specifics, I'd be interested.
I'll see if I can remember the book I read on it in college. That was 18 years ago, though, so it's not looking good.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: George Washington. The transitions of power after him went so smoothly that I think people underestimate how wrong it could have gone had he not been the leader he is.
Wow, you took the words right out of my mouth.
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Steve, there's a lot of room for "good" after the top tier.
I don't think FDR belongs on the top tier. I don't think the threat to the nation's existence was as grave as at the founding or during the Civil War. I also think he did permament damage to the idea of federalism, something I don't consider trivial.
For all that I disagree with him politically, I put him in the top 10 (maybe the top 5) on pure leadership ability and courage.
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Survey of historical and political scholars consistently places those three in a class by themselves. They are an excellent summary of presidential greats in a field which is defined by median mediocrity, featuring just as many failures as greats, just as many poor performers as good performers, and a good chunk of distinctly average performers.
I personally stand by Washington as the best of the three, though -- his greatness and legacy came on account of him playing it straight and attempting to purposefully constraining the capacity of the office of the president.
His trust-no-one approach and refusal to equate the new post to being King Of America established the office in a way that really made the system work.
Lincoln and FDR were save-the-day types. FDR's greatness is quite an accomplishment, given his tendency to overstep with radical projects. The people who rag on FDR are jumping on him as some sort of ignominious paragon of dangerous statism and socialism, while at the same time usually hypocritically excusing the fact that Lincoln simply broke presidential authority entirely for the duration of the Civil War.
Both could be said to be greatly responsible for the positive transformation of the crisis of their generation, and it can be said that a weak leader at their time in history would have aborted America's rise to superpower status.
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quote:quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by SteveRogers: I like William Henry Harrison purely because he was too stubborn to have his inauguration inside and died of pneumonia, a month later, because of it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This does not make him a great president.
It makes him a stubborn fool, and a mere footnote in history.
You have to admit, though, that he did the least damage while in office. He's my favorite president, too. I sort of wish the last four inaugurations followed suit.
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1)Teddy R. 2)Johnny A. 3)Woody W. (OK, not really, but I couldn't think of a third, and Woody is a funny name.)
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My list: 1) Thomas Jefferson 2) George Washington 3) Martin Van Buren 4) Theodore Roosevelt 5) Calvin Coolidge
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quote:Originally posted by TL: Dag, I'm in agreement on the greatness of Washington.
I'd probably go
1) FDR 2) Lincoln 3) Washington
Then... The gap you described.
I'd say that Theodore Roosevelt should probably be somewhere high on the list. I certainly wouldn't mind someone like him in there now. We are facing some of the same problems that he dealt with in his presidency. For one thing, the lobbying power of large corperations is starting to get out of hand.
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So what? I share my birthday with the president who just happens to be the savior of the union.
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quote:You want Bush Quayle Gore Cheney to have been our last 4 presidents?
Um, I meant The last two Bush inaugurations, and the last two Clinton inaugurations, but you make a good point.
Maybe if two people keeled over per election, it'd be good. You know, Bush *and* Quayle bought it. Then Clinton *and* Gore. I dunno.
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I find it sad that the last "great" of even "near great" president (according to those polls) was president almost 60 years ago. I think it's about time to find another great president. The question though, is if we would truly recognize one for who they were. We are so secularized, and so either wouldn't vote for greatness, or would criticize greatness for its actions. Will we ever truly see another great president?
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quote:Originally posted by Evie3217: I find it sad that the last "great" of even "near great" president (according to those polls) was president almost 60 years ago. I think it's about time to find another great president. The question though, is if we would truly recognize one for who they were. We are so secularized, and so either wouldn't vote for greatness, or would criticize greatness for its actions. Will we ever truly see another great president?
So you suggest that a truly great president would have to NOT be secular? I don't think a celebration of religion is a necessity for greatness, but then again I also don't wholeheartedly approve of the secularization of American government. I have zero problem with a religious president, so long as he doesn't try and remake the world through his religious ideology. But then, people often get what the vote for. I don't think that's the case with Bush, but often it is.
I don't know where/when it happened, but somewhere along the way, and I'd say this definetely a late 20th century invention, we got the idea in our heads that the separation of church and state was the Founder Fathers' way of keeping religion out of the government. It wasn't. It was their way of keeping the government out of religion. Consider what was going on in England, and how the King messed with church doctrine, and for that matter the long, LONG history of European authoritarian screwing with religious dogma, doctrine, practice, etc. and you'll understand why they felt it was necessary. But they certainly weren't thinking about the kinds of issues everyone makes a hullabaloo about these days.
The next great President needs to have strong ideas, but I'm not sure how much it'll matter if he doesn't have a congress willing to put his great ideas into practice. Ideally, the next president will have an amazing set of ideas on where to take the nation, how to heal and not divide the nation and further, and in general make us feel like we are actually GOING somewhere as opposed to feeling like we're on a slow, steady downward spiral into the basement that Macedonia, Persia, Rome and Britain currently occupy. And quite frankly I see that as having almost zero to do with religion.
Most of the complaints we have about religion today are silly, if you ask me. Some Christians complain when the Ten Commandments are removed from in front of a Supreme Court House, well why? How many of the Ten Commandments are even LAWS IN AMERICA? While I agree that for the most part, Christian morality is where the majority of the basis of American morality comes from, I think it is utterly ludicrous to also say that the majority of American law, or even a decent amount of American law stems from Christian law. Stoned any sinners lately? Hell even the president had pre-marital sex and was a heavy drinker before Laura came along.
There's a war of ideology being fought. The next president needs to step up and talk about the role of religion in this country and this government. American policy is NOT Christian policy, no matter how much the two might seem to overlap from time to time, it is not directly derived from it. Religion has its place in society, but if you ask me it is NOT at the forefront. It should not be shoehorned into everything, but at the same time we don't need to secularly whitewash everything the way many Lefties are doing. The next president needs to find a balance that the majority of the country can accept so we can get down to fixing some of the more physical problems.
FDR started getting the country back on its feet on the VERY FIRST DAY. He passed more legislation (that actually worked!) in his first week than Bush has gotten passed in six years. The next president needs to actually send his OWN ideas to Congress for consideration, instead of constantly calling on them to figure it out for themselves. Presidents used to do it all the time. We need a reformer, we need a go getter, we need someone willing to strike a balance and bring unity to a divided nation. We need someone who considers sacrifice of life for his nation, and not for his party, to be the last full measure of devotion. And we need someone committed to cutting at least some (if not a majority) of the corruption and inefficiency out of government so we can get some quick, INTELLIGENT decisions made that are for the betterment of the nation as a whole. The stakes are too big for the petty playground crap going on in the Congress right now. As I said earlier, that means a larger commitment to the nation as a whole and less of one to the party.
quote:I don't know where/when it happened, but somewhere along the way, and I'd say this definetely a late 20th century invention, we got the idea in our heads that the separation of church and state was the Founder Fathers' way of keeping religion out of the government. It wasn't. It was their way of keeping the government out of religion. Consider what was going on in England, and how the King messed with church doctrine, and for that matter the long, LONG history of European authoritarian screwing with religious dogma, doctrine, practice, etc. and you'll understand why they felt it was necessary. But they certainly weren't thinking about the kinds of issues everyone makes a hullabaloo about these days.
How would you propose we make sure the influence stays unidirectional? If "seperate" doesn't mean seperate, what does it mean, and where should we draw that line?
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I'm often disturbed by how frequently "greatness" is defined as "benevolent dictatorship." Why are people so fond of presidents who overrepresent the power of their office?
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quote:Why are people so fond of presidents who overrepresent the power of their office?
They're easier to remember because it's just one guy.
If you asked people "what was the greatest Congress in the history of the U.S.?" this would generally not be followed by an actual congress ("35th Congress, WOO!") but by people confusedly listing their favorite congresscritters from history ("clearly, Daniel Webster")... for pretty much the same reason.
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Best Man to Be President: Washington, followed closely by Lincoln
Best President: hmm, much harder. How do people define "best" in this context? Most effective at accomplishing his agenda? Best at performing the duties of Chief Executive? Country prospered under his guidance? Had the biggest net positive impact? I've managed to confuse myself sufficiently; I'll just say Chester Arthur. Wait, Ike. No Jackson. In truth, I think almost all presidents have been "good" and I don't think there's sufficient structure to rank them as "better" or "best." With the exception of Harding. What a corrupt, ignorant, incompetent, naive, ninny. He was the worst; everyone else is the best. Except Nixon.
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quote:Why are people so fond of presidents who overrepresent the power of their office?
I don't quite think that's the association that's being made when it comes to Lincoln and Roosevelt. I think it's more of a 'look at what they were able to accomplish against impossible odds' thing than a 'let's examine, specifically, how they did it,' kind of thing.
Ends seem to justify means when it comes to the history books.
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Jimmy Carter was an Honest President. It is unfourtunate that our present system cannot accommodate an honest man in that office. Therefore Carter was ineffective. I still have written him in for most of the recent elections
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quote: I find it sad that the last "great" of even "near great" president (according to those polls) was president almost 60 years ago. I think it's about time to find another great president. The question though, is if we would truly recognize one for who they were...Will we ever truly see another great president?
I think part of the reason is that it takes time to see and appreciate a president's influence. For example, I consider the jury to still be out about the kind of president Bush is.
Depending on the cascading events in the Middle East and the world, in 60 years he could be seen as a revolutionary who actually accomplished a road map of peace that brought stability to the world, or he could be seen as a mass murderer whose fool hardy policies destabilized the world and crystallized terrorists' resolution.
He could also be remembered (or not) as anything in-between. It takes time to appreciate influence, barring a clear cut victory like an enemy signing a surrender document and abiding by the surrender.
EDIT: grammer and added a word.
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quote:I'm often disturbed by how frequently "greatness" is defined as "benevolent dictatorship." Why are people so fond of presidents who overrepresent the power of their office?
quote:I don't know where/when it happened, but somewhere along the way, and I'd say this definetely a late 20th century invention, we got the idea in our heads that the separation of church and state was the Founder Fathers' way of keeping religion out of the government. It wasn't. It was their way of keeping the government out of religion. Consider what was going on in England, and how the King messed with church doctrine, and for that matter the long, LONG history of European authoritarian screwing with religious dogma, doctrine, practice, etc. and you'll understand why they felt it was necessary. But they certainly weren't thinking about the kinds of issues everyone makes a hullabaloo about these days.
How would you propose we make sure the influence stays unidirectional? If "seperate" doesn't mean seperate, what does it mean, and where should we draw that line?
I suppose in a broader sense sure, seperate does mean seperate, I'm just saying that what we think of today as the PRIMARY focus of that line in the constitution is NOT what was originally intended, it was the for the benefit of the other way around.
But I have no idea on how you can ASSURE that it stays that way. When it really comes down to it, much of it is an honor system. When you elect a religious president who tells you right up front that God wants him to be president and he's going to act on his faith, then you should vote for him accordingly depending on your own beliefs. If you have another candidate who tells you right away that he is catholic, but he won't force his dogma on you, his faith is part of his morality but not his state policy, then you vote accordingly too.
This happened in 04, and Bush won.
For the matters that can't be decided by elections, it has to go to the courts, though quite frankly I think much of it should just be solved with common sense. Sadly, there isn't enough to go around.
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Washington and Lincoln undeniably occupy the top two spots. It varies for me largely depending on which documentary I've watched lately.
A substantial gap before FDR, and then quite a ways before anyone else. FDR was good, but the national crises and trials he faced when compared to Lincoln and Washington? Piddling.
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