No Right Answer: Best U.S. President Ever

[LordOfTheDance]

A best president list without Washington or Jefferson? Sorry but no respect for this one.

 

[Warforger]

First off, there were no Republicans during the Era of Good Feelings. There were only Democrats. Republicans only came around in the 1850s, unless you count the Know-Nothings who came in around the 1840s.

No, the party I'm talking about is mostly called "Democratic-Republicans" but I just call them Republicans because that's what they called themselves. The Democrats are not that party. By 1828 the Republican party had split into the Democrats led by Andrew Jackson and the National Republicans led by John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay.

As for the Know Nothings, those were mostly local mainly in Maryland IIRC, but when the Whig party disintegrated it split into the American Party and the Republican party the American party being the new Know Nothing party, that party then transitioned into the Constitutional Union party before finally going to the Republicans.

Second, we, a ragtag nation, managed to best the British Navy to the point where their newspapers were moaning about the fact they couldn't win,

Um they constantly won at the very least on the East Coast (hence why they burned down the White House), the Great Lakes got better towards the end but not anything conclusive.

Had the British government court- marshaling everyone and anyone who lost a battle, and stopped veteran armies from the Peninsula and other Napoleonic campaigns at Chippawa, Lundy's Lane, Baltimore, and at New Orleans, with an army of pirates, creoles, Kentuckian and Tennessean milita, and a handful of regular soldiers, we crushed the best the British had to offer with only a handful of casualties.

In a couple of battles, otherwise the British just steamrolled a bunch of untrained militia hence again WHY THEY BURNED THE WHITE HOUSE DOWN.

That by itself is something to be proud of, but at the same time, our country of 18 independent states became a nation, all because of "Mr. Madison's War".

Not sure it was called that, but the goal of the war was to capture Canada, not survive British onslaught, and in that objective Mr. Madison failed. Sure the Americans got lucky and repelled the British because the weather really hated them. Yah overall it did have positive effects on America, but that doesn't mean it was because the war was such a success.

And finally, they didn't "forget" to bring the ladders, the British general who was in charge of it ran, was court-martialed afterwords, and was dismissed from the service.

Doesn't seem like you negated what I said.

1. Wait, there are people who actually think that Calvin "Oh-don't-mind-me-I'm-just-gonna-cause-the-Great-Depression" Coolidge is one of the Greatest Presidents?

Yup [http://iusbvision.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/in-honor-of-calvin-coolidge-a-great-president-few-remember/]. I would link to the GOP wall of their heroes, but apparently they took that content out.

2. Polk was a war-mongering asshole who invaded Mexico and stole half their country so that slavery could expand. The Mexican Cession caused the Fugitive Slave act and Bleeding Kansas so no, I do not think he is the Best President.

The thing though was that he had a goal at the beginning of his office i.e. to expand the territory of the United States and deal with all of its foreign policy issues and he succeeded. He dealt with the SouthWest and he got Oregon all like he promised.

6. George Washington is considered to be one of the Best Presidents because he really established what it meant to be president, he created the Cabinet and set up the two term system for Presidents which went unbroken til FDR. He also managed to stay independent along party lines while not being out of the loop. Personally, I don't find him all that great, the only thing he actually did was put down the Whiskey Rebellion but people still worship him.

Yah he did roughly nothing while the nation wasn't well booming. It just seems outside the Whiskey Rebellion and Jay's Treaty nothing happened during his term.

Also The Federalists collapsed because they were against the War of 1812, which was immensely popular and because they wanted to secede from the US to form the Essex Junto.

The thing though was that their support was already falling apart, this was just the death blow.

8. How do you define Liberal and Conservative? For me its:
Liberal= Big gov't, high taxes, high spending, change
Conseravtive= Small gov't, low taxes, low spending, keep things the same

I believe that Lincoln and Teddy both fall rather firmly in the Liberal category.

Lincoln again was sort of in the middle if not leaning towards Conservative, I mean he started out openly not even wanting to ban slavery just keep it from expanding into the territories. Yet he made a couple of steps to ban it (by then the border states had also banned slavery so there wasn't as much opposition to a national ban). His Reconstruction plan was well really lenient, only 10% of people pledging loyalty to the Union and they get to get re-admitted? He was more leaning on the Conservative Republicans so the Radical Republicans often threatened to leave the party (they temporarily ran against him in 1864 with John C. Fremont but Fremont dropped the campaign as election day approached).

Theodore Roosevelt called his Domestic Policy the "Square Deal" where he becomes the in between the Conservative and the Progressive. So I wouldn't exactly call him a liberal nor would I automatically associate Progressivism with Liberals because Progressivism is many different things that can go on all ends of the spectrum. For example Eugenics was a Progressive movement and Theodore Roosevelt was a pretty big racist when it came to foreign affairs, and that certainly was a pretty Conservative movement. Another example would be the Temperance movement which would evolve into the Prohibition movement, that was also considered a pretty Conservative movement but it was also Progressive. But like I said he was a compromise candidate like Woodrow Wilson, a guy in between. In 1912 he was pretty Liberal, but at that point he was probably just pretending to believe in that stuff because the whole point of his campaign was to get Taft to adopt a more Progressive platform.

But I generally think Liberal and Conservative are terms that are defined by time period and area, obviously a Conservative from Lincoln's time would all be irrelevant now. I mean even better when going back the 1790's, many of the issues there would be hard to place on our modern spectrum mainly because everything was so different. It's more interesting when going to other countries like say those in Eastern Europe, are Socialists left wingers or are they right wingers there? If Conservatism is trying to conserve what you had before then shouldn't Socialists there be right wingers? Things like that make me distrust the whole spectrum as simplifying such a complex thing as ideologies.

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

Knowing these guys the disembodied head of Nixon would win.

I thought that too, but then I remembered that Nixon is technically President of Earth, so it wouldn't count. My vote would be on David Palmer.

 

[Joseph Harrison]

As for the Know Nothings, those were mostly local mainly in Maryland IIRC,

I don't know about Mary land but I do know that The Know-Nothings, or America Party, were very popular in Boston and New York due to the high Irish populations in those areas. Have you ever seen Gangs of New York? Its all about that.

Yup [http://iusbvision.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/in-honor-of-calvin-coolidge-a-great-president-few-remember/]. I would link to the GOP wall of their heroes, but apparently they took that content out.

Wow, that was even more ignorant than I thought it would be.

The thing though was that he had a goal at the beginning of his office i.e. to expand the territory of the United States and deal with all of its foreign policy issues and he succeeded. He dealt with the SouthWest and he got Oregon all like he promised.

I was only saying that his methods of acquiring the South West were not as upstanding as the OP seemed to believe.

But I generally think Liberal and Conservative are terms that are defined by time period and area, obviously a Conservative from Lincoln's time would all be irrelevant now. I mean even better when going back the 1790's, many of the issues there would be hard to place on our modern spectrum mainly because everything was so different. It's more interesting when going to other countries like say those in Eastern Europe, are Socialists left wingers or are they right wingers there? If Conservatism is trying to conserve what you had before then shouldn't Socialists there be right wingers? Things like that make me distrust the whole spectrum as simplifying such a complex thing as ideologies.

This is essentially what I was trying to say, the guy I was quoting said that Lincoln, and Teddy were Republicans like it was a bad thing and I just wanted to point out that Republican and Democrat as we currently see them did not have the same meaning at the time and we can't really compare them to modern day Republicans and Democrats.

 

[ghostrider409895]

I would like to see how Harry S. Truman would have held up against the two presidents.
There is a man who was an underdog. Higher up people did not think this rural country guy who did not have as much education as other presidents could win. There was even a paper company that printed off on the front page that Truman lost. When he went in; however, he was a strong president. Before that, he had to take over for FDR and finish up WWII. He made the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan. Whether you agree or disagree on that decision, it takes serious decisiveness to say that we will use this new destructive weapon when there is a lot of uncertainty. He maintained his decision to fire General MacArthur when he started becoming too full of himself and his position, basically becoming disobedient. He kept sending air drops into East Berlin, and when he realized there was not enough planes that could supply the city, he built another airport. He pushed for an immediate recognition of Israel because he felt it was right to side with the Jewish refugees.

If all else fails, he took this picture after he was declared president.

Spoiler

This being after the misprint I talked about earlier.

Anyway, that is just my thoughts, and I would like to see how he would hold up.
Also, it has been a few years since US History, so I might be a little off on some facts. Tell me if I did anything wrong so I can correct it.

 

[WaterDancer]

John Adams: An independent leader that bowed to no party. He was know to make good decisions even when everyone opposed him. When his cabnit wanted war with France, He pulled a Xantos gambit to harass french ships that messed with them. This brought America together and later got France to sing a peace treaty so they would leave America alone. He didn't care if it made him look weak as he wanted to do what he felt was best for America. Later would become friends with Thomas Jefferson again after Benhamin Rush died.

 

[MorganL4]

TR fought in a war HIMSELF before he was president.

W sent OTHER people to war for no reason while he was president. (AND he went AWOL from the National Guard during Viet Nam.)

There's no friggin' comparing those things!

I'm Pretty sure they meant George Washington not George W Bush.

 

[sibrenfetter]

As a non-American the answer seems easy. I just heard of a documentary that Lincoln was actually a vampire-hunter and had magical powers. That spells winner right there.

 

[jmarquiso]

Against Abe: he may have freed the slaves, but he also revoked the protections of the Constitution in the north and allowed military tribunals to hang American citizens on hearsay. (Which was found unConstitutional after his death)

I personally consider the Civil War a hell of a refutation of the Second Amendment. What was the Confederacy but a well organized militia against the established government?

 

[jmarquiso]

John Adams: An independent leader that bowed to no party. He was know to make good decisions even when everyone opposed him. When his cabnit wanted war with France, He pulled a Xantos gambit to harass french ships that messed with them. This brought America together and later got France to sing a peace treaty so they would leave America alone. He didn't care if it made him look weak as he wanted to do what he felt was best for America. Later would become friends with Thomas Jefferson again after Benhamin Rush died.

Yep, I'm also reminded of the Cuban Missile Crisis with this method. The best presidents stood up in a way that benefited their country as well, and many won elections by keeping us OUT of war.

 

[jmarquiso]

Hey LBJ had a pretty aggressive civil rights reformation. He knew he couldn't win an election so he might as well piss off a bunch of southern democrats. In retrospect if you're not a minority you probably don't care about all that...

So did Nixon However, he'll forever be remembered for something else.

President of Earth.

 

[BOOM headshot65]

Spoiler: My Top 5

1) Dwight D. Eisenhower
2) Ronald Reagan
3) 3 way tie: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Harry Truman
4) Theodore Roosevelt
5) George W. Bush

Spoiler: My Bottom 5

1) Jimmy Carter
2) Andrew Jackson
3) Ulysses S. Grant
4) Warren Harding
5) Richard Nixon

Franklin D. Roosevelt also deserves special Mention. While he falls in the middle ground, I am not to fond of him. Sure, he did good with the depression, and was a good war leader in WW2, but he was EXTREMELY corrupt and a communist (or at least, surrounded himself with communist).

 

[Bato]

All of this has made me go back and re watch a couple videos on a similar matter.
<url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7iVsdRbhnc&feature=plcp>George Washington versus <url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7y2xPucnAo&feature=plcp>JFK

NSFW too I guess I should say.

 

[BaronIveagh]

What was the Confederacy but a well organized militia against the established government

Yeah, never mind that a sizable portion of the regular army and several of the officer training schools went over to the other side as well. Or the fact they were led by Lincoln's first choice of the army's officers to lead the US army against them.

You're forgetting that it was also a well organized militia that put them down.

Fág a' Bealach

 

[the7ofswords]

TR fought in a war HIMSELF before he was president.

W sent OTHER people to war for no reason while he was president. (AND he went AWOL from the National Guard during Viet Nam.)

There's no friggin' comparing those things!

I'm Pretty sure they meant George Washington not George W Bush.

No ... I'm pretty sure when they said "Bush" they meant Bush ... hence the reference to going to other countries and how "we didn't find what we were looking for, but we went there and fought anyway ..." Remember the whole WMD thing that turned out to be a fabrication? George Washington never did anything like that.

 

[Deimateos]

Gonna have to go with Lincoln for my vote. As for everyone saying George Washington, you realise that he was a huge racist and when it came to war, mercy was never his strong point.

Lincoln was also a white supremacist, the difference being that he didn't believe that his views should impede on the basic freedom of not being a slave for the nation's black population. Other than "they shouldn't be slaves" Lincoln was still a white supremacist, just not the same type as the frothing, rabid variety we have now.

http://www.nps.gov/liho/historyculture/debate4.htm
Ctrl+F and look for "I will say then that I am not,"

That said, I'd still pick Lincoln. Even though he didn't wan't me to vote or have true equality, he got the ball rolling on my ability to vote, and one day if we get a black president (a real one, not "black" via the Jim Crow/KKK "one drop rule", like Obama keeps being sold as) there might be real social and political equality.

 

[NoJustNo]

No...

Just...

No.

A month or two ago, I had wasted so much of my life and needlessly subjected myself to so much stress because of the unbelievably ridiculous things this community thinks, that I actually requested a moderator perma-ban me.

Still hooked on this site thanks to Yahtzee and the occasional dose of Bob, I just knew that my soft lurking would result in my finding something so ridiculous said here that I would be driven to making another account just to post a response. In fact probably about three separate times, I got close. Some of the things so phenomenally twisted brought me as far as considering a new account, but I always backed off.

But now, at last, from an actual Escapist video series, comes the single most wrong thing I've ever heard from this website, anywhere. I will explain what it is and why it is wrong, then please perma-ban this account so that I can be free again.

Now, onto the point:

I am a huge fan of Rush Limbaugh, I listen to him all the time, and have for a handful of years.

Do you not like him? That's okay; I'm not posting this to say that you should.

Do you hate him? That's okay; I'm not posting this to say that you shouldn't.

Do you think he's wrong on almost everything? That's okay; I'm not posting this to say that he isn't.

Do you think he's racist? That's okay; I'm not posting this to say that he isn't.

Do you think that he's a vile human being? That's okay; I'm not posting this to say that he isn't.

Do you think I'm a brainwashed zombie to be a fan of his? That's okay; I'm not posting this to say that I'm not.

I bring up the fact that I am a frequent listener of his only because I want you to understand that I have credentials when it comes to talking about what Rush Limbaugh believes in and says; I've listened to him ten times more than you ever have. And I just KNOW that some people are gonna say "but he did this and said this and he is a bad person for X reason", because they'll falsely assume I'm posting this to make a case for the EIB network and its integrity, but I'm not.

I am posting this for just one reason, JUST one.

Rush Limbaugh is not anti-Lincoln. He's not one of those cynics who think he just did it for political reasons.

The fact that the editor(s) of this video just posted his face there (blanked out for comedic effect?), while clearly doing absolutely no research and knowing absolutely nothing about his stance on that issue, shows that they don't even think of Limbaugh as a guy who really exists in reality. To them, he's simply a living punching-bag; a strawman incarnate, that they can attribute to any stupid ideology they don't like and then beat it up.

It's the most cosmically, outstandingly, overwhelmingly dumb thing I've ever seen, heard, read, felt, smelled or in any other way experienced in the two and a half years I have been a frequent of The Escapist. Thank you for reading, goodnight.


PS: You could link to some out-of-context quote, or some minor thing and blow it out of proportion, but just listen to his show some time if you really care that much to know

PSS: And if you're wondering, I did actually stop watching the video after that part. Do they correct themselves or say they were just kidding? Well that sucks and I'm never going to find out. But I highly doubt it anyway

 

[BabySinclair]

]James. K. Polk.

In one term, accomplished all of his goals, ended a war, seized Oregon from Britain and the Southwest from Mexico, started naval academies and a separate treasury, was an outstanding orator, and came up from out of nowhere to be the strongest candidate, even against the incumbent. Boom.

Well, he did end a war, but only after starting it. Other than that, yeah, he did those things.

But best President ever? James Madison.

He started the war that brought together America from a collection of like 15 or 16 states, and made them a nation in more than name, his major rival political party, the Federalists, managed to self-destruct itself, which propelled the US into the Area of Good Feelings, and he brought backwoodsmen like Andrew Jackson and officers like Winfield Scott from nobodies and next to nobodies to people known all across America as Heroes. Plus his chosen successor, James Monroe, and his Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, created the Monroe Doctrine.

So, in closing: James Madison,*in comic book guys voice* Best. President. Ever.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to put away my inner APUSH student.

The Monroe Doctrine was a joke to the European powers, Jackson proved to be one of the worst presidents in US history, we won the War of 1812 because Britain got bored more than military success on our part, JQ Adams brought back the party system and the VP being on the ticket because he felt like being a dick to Jackson, though it's understandable

Polk ran one a platform of three things and, did what he promised to do, and then refused to run again, the way all presidents should behave.

 

[Sovereignty]

I died a little inside from all the "JFK" posts... Seriously. Luckily I was revived inside a tad from the mention of Polk =)

 

[Mr.PlanetEater]

How about William Harrison. That man did more in 30 days than any other president.