POTUSes

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Vrede too
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POTUSes

Unread post by Vrede too »

Couldn't recall an appropriate existing thread to put this into:

10 Criteria Future Historians Will Use to Rate Obama's Presidency

10 Historians on What Will Be Said About President Obama's Legacy

Barack Obama Ranked 12th Best U.S. President Ever in Major Survey of Historians


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https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2 ... ge=overall

My lifetime:

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 5
John F. Kennedy, 8
Ronald Reagan, 9
Lyndon Baines Johnson, 10
Barack Obama, 12 (suck on that, Bill :D )
Bill Clinton, 15
George H. W. Bush, 20
Gerald R. Ford Jr., 25
Jimmy Carter, 26 (would be much higher in a ranking of ex-presidents)
Richard M. Nixon, 28
George W. Bush, 33 (yep, Worse than Nixon and Worst in over 8 decades)

Seems reasonable. I might quibble over Kennedy and Reagan being ranked too highly (more personality than product), but I haven't applied the rigor to the question that these 91 presidential historians have. I'll bet that Trump won't beat #36 Herbert Hoover.
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billy.pilgrim
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Re: POTUSes

Unread post by billy.pilgrim »

other than personality, I'll never understand Reagan. What did he do that wasn't bad for the country?

there was the nuclear thing, but if you understand the circumstances, that was juvenile at best.
Trump: “We had the safest border in the history of our country - or at least recorded history. I guess maybe a thousand years ago it was even better.”

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Vrede too
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Re: POTUSes

Unread post by Vrede too »

[color=#BF0000]Vrede too[/color] wrote:... George W. Bush, 33 (yep, Worse than Nixon and Worst in over 8 decades)
He must be conflicted between his fear for the country and his relief that he'll no longer be the Worst in the modern era.
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Re: POTUSes

Unread post by billy.pilgrim »

Vrede too wrote:
Fri Feb 17, 2017 6:01 pm
Couldn't recall an appropriate existing thread to put this into:

10 Criteria Future Historians Will Use to Rate Obama's Presidency

10 Historians on What Will Be Said About President Obama's Legacy

Barack Obama Ranked 12th Best U.S. President Ever in Major Survey of Historians


Image
https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2 ... ge=overall

My lifetime:

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 5
John F. Kennedy, 8
Ronald Reagan, 9
Lyndon Baines Johnson, 10
Barack Obama, 12 (suck on that, Bill :D )
Bill Clinton, 15
George H. W. Bush, 20
Gerald R. Ford Jr., 25
Jimmy Carter, 26 (would be much higher in a ranking of ex-presidents)
Richard M. Nixon, 28
George W. Bush, 33 (yep, Worse than Nixon and Worst in over 8 decades)

Seems reasonable. I might quibble over Kennedy and Reagan being ranked too highly (more personality than product), but I haven't applied the rigor to the question that these 91 presidential historians have. I'll bet that Trump won't beat #36 Herbert Hoover.

I still can't get over ike at #5. He started the goddamn viet nam war and supported huge spending for the military transportation complex that he whined about in his farewell address

I'm sure that this is oversimplified, but what would the ME look like today if you remove one single event - Ike using our CIA to pose as state department officials while they overthrew the democratically elected democracy and installed a brutal puppet dictator.

Imagine a democratic 21st century Iran


(along with all the other democracies we have shut down)
Trump: “We had the safest border in the history of our country - or at least recorded history. I guess maybe a thousand years ago it was even better.”

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O Really
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Re: POTUSes

Unread post by O Really »

Ike at #5 seems a stretch to me, too, but there's the interstate system, established NASA, integrated schools, lucked into a period of good economy, and was widely personally popular.

But considering Bush the Younger at #33, the bottom 10 must have been really awful.

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Re: POTUSes

Unread post by billy.pilgrim »

O Really wrote:
Wed Jun 07, 2017 2:15 pm
Ike at #5 seems a stretch to me, too, but there's the interstate system, established NASA, integrated schools, lucked into a period of good economy, and was widely personally popular.

But considering Bush the Younger at #33, the bottom 10 must have been really awful.

The interstate system built by ike for big trucking and big manufacturing has destroyed more towns and small businesses than any trade agreement

They died when interstate passed them by and whole sections of towns were destroyed when the highway cut through neighborhoods.

And like most socialized programs for the rich, the poor and middle class pay for the destruction of Ike's interstates caused by ever increasingly large trucks moving Chinese goods from subsidized ports to big box stores.

But to his credit, he warned us not to do what he did.
Trump: “We had the safest border in the history of our country - or at least recorded history. I guess maybe a thousand years ago it was even better.”

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Vrede too
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Re: POTUSes

Unread post by Vrede too »

Granted, the Cold War military rationale was huge, but I think most thought and many still do think that the interstate highway system was/is a wonderful thing for all of the US. We might have done things differently if we knew then what we do now about costs, environment and social impacts, and unintended consequences, but I'm not inclined to hold it against Ike. Otherwise, I don't know enough to opine on whether #5 is apt or not. It's not like many (any?) of the POTUSes since have been dramatically better.
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Re: POTUSes

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The American interstate system is a wonder of the modern world.

As much as it allowed goods to be more easily imported, it allowed American goods to be more easily exported. (The US exports far more manufactured goods to Canada than it imports. American manufacturing is doing as well as ever and only keeps increasing.)

These days it's wonderful for fuel efficiency; trucks don't have to keep stopping for red lights and traffic is a small town every 20 feet. I've driven across Wisconsin / northern Michigan. On a NON-interstate highway, it really IS a small town every 20 feet. It takes forever to get anywhere. Northern Ontario may be full of 200-mile stretches of nothing, but you never have to slow down.

But it's also important for national security, allowing major evacuations for hurricanes and other natural disasters. Regular highways wouldn't cope - not just because of the number of lanes, but by going through a small town every 20 feet.

High school friends who grew up in the Soviet Union told me about how during harvest, university students and soldiers would be tasked to help out in the fields. And then there would be mountains of rotting grain, because they lacked the transportation to get it to market. Now, keep in mind that any non-nuclear war would be an endurance race. Like WWII Germany, resources and food could run out before weapons...

Soviet bombers criss-crossed America all through the cold war. Under NORAD, Canadian fighter jets would shadow them to the American border and join up again when they came back. They didn't always come back; perhaps flying on to Cuba. (This practice lives on via the Treaty on Open Skies.)

America was OK with this, though it's not wise to tell Americans about it. A reconnaissance bomber would show Russia things the US WANTED them to see: "Look, we REALLY DO have scores of missile silos pointed at you! We'll open some silo doors so you can see the missiles!" And look at the vast, endless farms... all with tractors and combines and other equipment! And the endless rail network and INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM! Bomb any highway or rail hub, and we'll STILL have no problem getting food and other resources to market!

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O Really
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Re: POTUSes

Unread post by O Really »

rstrong wrote:
Wed Jun 07, 2017 3:07 pm
The American interstate system is a wonder of the modern world.

... I've driven across Wisconsin / northern Michigan. On a NON-interstate highway, it really IS a small town every 20 feet. It takes forever to get anywhere. Northern Ontario may be full of 200-mile stretches of nothing, but you never have to slow down.

There are several highways where one can get a good taste of non-interstate travel. When we have time and interest, Lady O and I will sometimes drive "the road less taken." US 301 pretty much anywhere, US 17, US 1 all give you a before-the-interstate experience. Sometimes it's interesting, like US 11 in northern Virginia, where the road pretty much parallels the interstate but runs through quaint little towns that are all about 10 miles between, spaced that way for early travelers on wagons. Like US 30 toward Lancaster PA through Amish country and old route US 90 from Lafayette to Lake Charles, LA. And sometimes it's just a pain in the ass, like US 1 from Ft. Pierce to Miami. But clearly, no matter the original purpose, or despite the impact of small town businesses by-passed by the highway, having the interstate system has way more value than harm.

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Vrede too
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Re: POTUSes

Unread post by Vrede too »

O Really wrote:
Wed Jun 07, 2017 4:16 pm
... having the interstate system has way more value than harm.
That has to be compared to alternatives we might have pursued, it's not like our transportation network would have been frozen in the 1950s. Plus, with the looming threat of AGW cataclysm, our auto use, highway-based economic system and living patterns are huge contributors. Your premise can at least be questioned, though it's probably too big and complex an issue for us to tackle adequately here.
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Re: POTUSes

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Vrede too wrote:
Wed Jun 07, 2017 4:29 pm
That has to be compared to alternatives we might have pursued,
Passenger high-speed rail could only have replaced a very small percentage of the interstate highways. And where it did, the problems of towns being bypassed would have been even worse. You can at least pull off the interstate to visit a town.

For freight, even regular rail would still have been on the decline. Here in Manitoba they've been tearing up rail lines for the last couple of decades or so.

What killed them is the intermodal container. The sea can. It used to be that freight had to be reloaded from truck to train, then back to truck to reach a destination. And from train to truck to warehouse to ship - and back again - at seaports. But now you load a standardized shipping container just once, and it can be moved from ship to train to truck without reloading. And left behind at your loading dock for loading.

With roads reaching everywhere that rail doesn't, intermodal container trucks win.

This has led to another major change: Cities getting their waterfronts back.

Waterfronts used to be all wharfs and warehouses acting as interim storage areas. Now the warehouses aren't needed. Ships load and unload MUCH faster, so less wharfs are needed. And so waterfronts are turning into trendy condo and park areas.

On the other hand farmers have to truck their grain much further because after the loss of freight, grain alone often doesn't support rail service. And so farmers have to invest in big semi-trailer grain trucks.

Intermodal containers have been as significant and disruptive as the internet.

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Re: POTUSes

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Jimmy Carter will be back in town this week, building more Habitat for Humanity homes. These ones just a few blocks from my apartment.

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Re: POTUSes

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rstrong wrote:
Sun Jul 09, 2017 5:00 pm
Jimmy Carter will be back in town this week, building more Habitat for Humanity homes. These ones just a few blocks from my apartment.
CBC: Jimmy Carter gets medical attention after collapsing from dehydration in Winnipeg
A Habitat volunteer told CBC News he saw Carter, 92, collapse after he'd been working in the sun for about an hour, using a handsaw to cut wood for a staircase.
[...]
A spokesperson for Habitat for Humanity told media that Carter was taken there as a precaution, for observation. The former president has told the organizers he is feeling fine.
Sorry. We should have been more careful after Warren G. Harding.

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O Really
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Re: POTUSes

Unread post by O Really »

Semi-serious question: I know he likes to participate, and certainly his presence is inspirational, but a hand saw? In the sun? They couldn't have found him a power saw and a shady spot?

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Re: POTUSes

Unread post by rstrong »

It was only about 69F at the time with a light breeze and a few scattered clouds. I went next door to get groceries around the time and it was quite pleasant.

I doubt he would have let the Secret Service agents tell him 'no' under those conditions. They might have stopped him from using power tools though because of his age.

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billy.pilgrim
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Re: POTUSes

Unread post by billy.pilgrim »

President Carter is a great man and was a good president. Too bad the same people who elected trump preferred a B movie actor who could call up a tear for the national anthem and recite bumper sticker slogans.
Trump: “We had the safest border in the history of our country - or at least recorded history. I guess maybe a thousand years ago it was even better.”

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Re: POTUSes

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Vrede too
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Re: POTUSes

Unread post by Vrede too »

rstrong wrote:
Sun Jul 09, 2017 5:00 pm
Jimmy Carter will be back in town this week, building more Habitat for Humanity homes. These ones just a few blocks from my apartment.
rstrong killed Jimmy. Bastard.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBoTEZxWkec


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOR38552MJA
Last edited by Vrede too on Tue Jul 18, 2017 8:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Vrede too
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Re: POTUSes

Unread post by Vrede too »

rstrong wrote:
Thu Jul 13, 2017 4:47 pm
... Sorry. We should have been more careful after Warren G. Harding.
We appreciate that Vancouver started what Seattle and San Francisco finished. Left Coast rules!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_G. ... nd_funeral
Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
-- the interweb, paraphrased
1312. ETTD.

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rstrong
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Re: POTUSes

Unread post by rstrong »

Vrede too wrote:
Tue Jul 18, 2017 8:45 am
rstrong wrote:
Thu Jul 13, 2017 4:47 pm
... Sorry. We should have been more careful after Warren G. Harding.
We appreciate that Vancouver started what Seattle and San Francisco finished. Left Coast rules!
Warren G. Harding lives on, on Last Week Tonight.

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