Best President in your lifetime

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by panerd

I don't really understand either of these threads. They are supposed to be about things that happened in our lifetimes that we personally experienced and can post some personal anecdotes and instead we are posting about things that happened when we were 10 or sometimes something that happened before we were born. I think I am around the median age for this board and Reagan was basically when I was in K-8th grade. Some of you guys are older than me and maybe were in high school or college but without doing a person by person search some of you guys are talking about Reagan's policies that you lived through at age 3!

Next up thread: Best team you have ever seen.

Panerd: "The 1927 yankees"

I never was old enough to vote for or against Reagan, but I think you are classifying our age group a little unfairly if you think we were not able to see or understand the effect of his administration. Even the same thing for Carter. It is not like when we were adults we only started understanding things without any concept of the previous 10 years.

The Poll was who was the best president in your lifetime. What you want is a different poll called something along the lines of "Who was the best president that you could have voted for" perhaps, which of course would then limit the discussion for most of this board to only 3 presidents to choose from and be somewhat boring and pointless.

[JediKooter]

Tough call for me. Either Reagan or Clinton, but, like someone said, 'Pick your favorite cancer'. Reagan did help bring an end to the Cold War by out spending those red bellied commie bastards and Clinton helped balance the books from that spending.

Say what you will about both (and there's plenty wrong with them, they are politicians after all), but, while both of them were in office, my quality of life improved.

[OldGiants]

I liked Ike.

I could have legitimately voted for Truman, but he wasn't a choice.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by SteveBollea

1. Reagan didn't win the Cold War, Gorbachev chose to lose it by not sending in the tanks then Eastern Europe started falling apart as people had been saying the USSR's spending was unsustainable since the 60's.

For God's sakes...thank you!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!

As someone with a history major, who did an extensive concentration on Russian history (and Soviet history) I am tired beyond belief of the "Reagan won the Cold War" bullshit. It's patently untrue.

What you say here Steve is much closer to correct (not 100% correct, but as a broad generalization, to say "Gorbachev chose to lose the Cold War" is much closer to the truth than "Reagan won the Cold War.")

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

For God's sakes...thank you!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!

As someone with a history major, who did an extensive concentration on Russian history (and Soviet history) I am tired beyond belief of the "Reagan won the Cold War" bullshit. It's patently untrue.

What you say here Steve is much closer to correct (not 100% correct, but as a broad generalization, to say "Gorbachev chose to lose the Cold War" is much closer to the truth than "Reagan won the Cold War.")

Doesn't surprise me one bit.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Dutch

Doesn't surprise me one bit.

Spare me your bullshit. It's not my fucking "liberal opinion" - it's the truth of the matter.

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

Spare me your bullshit. It's not my fucking "liberal opinion" - it's the truth of the matter.

"My opinion is fact, discussion over!" -- Joseph Stalin...and Daddy Torgo!!!

[DaddyTorgo]

You're in over your head here Dutch. As I said, I did extensive concentrations in both U.S. Foreign Policy as well as Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union. Crack all the silly little jokes you want, that's fine.

There were many causes to the end of the Cold War. "Reagan outspending the Soviets" was not one of them. If you want to make an argument that the general standard of living in the West forced the Soviet economy to struggle to keep pace and that was a contributing factor, that is true (by some measures, Soviet standard of living reached its height under Brezhnev in the 70's and began to lag quickly from there due to various factors). But that's not military spending, and it also was something that began in the 50's and carried all the way through U.S. administrations up until the end of the Cold War, not just Reagan.

I don't really think you want to get into a deep historical discussion with me over the causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

[Dutch]

Pfft....I can look up your degree and your speciality on Wikipedia. FWIW, I never said "Reagan outspent the Soviets" and that's why he won. Maybe you should take a class on building proper strawmen.

[RainMaker]

Why does everyone use strawman when they are losing an argument?

[panerd]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Why does everyone use strawman when they are losing an argument?

I enjoy this as well. I also enjoy when people's degrees make them an unquestioned expert in something but when they talk out of their butt about something else (i.e. Obama and economics) against someone with a degree in that area then it is all purely opinion.

EDIT: Not defending Dutch, in political threads his opinion is very easy to figure out. Also not bashing DT, but he needs to at least acknowledge that his Soviet studies professors are definitely going to have some sort of slant and while he may have read A LOT more than all of us on this subject it still doesn't make him an expert or his opinion any more valid.

[flere-imsaho]

I always find it amusing that the people who tell us Communism is a terrible economic system, doomed to failure*, are often the same people who tell us that the Soviets were so economically strong in 1980 that they had to be bankrupted.

Good stuff.

*which it is, at anything other than a very, very small level

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Why does everyone use strawman when they are losing an argument?

It's funny, I picked up the use of the "strawman" from the liberals here on FOFC.

[flere-imsaho]

Well, it is our job to teach you uneducated conservatives a thing or two.

[CrimsonFox]

Originally Posted by molson

Maybe it's just childhood sentimentality, but I really think Reagan gave us all an expectation of prosperity, a sense of security, national pride. He was really everything a leader should be. This was as easy as voting for W. in the other poll. It would be a tougher decision to decide who I think would be in 2nd place in both categories.

Actually that makes him one of the worst since it was all fiction. There was no real prosperity. Just increasing debt and really bad ideas and ideals. He just knew how to sell his bad ideas. All the reps nowadays took their acting cues from him and his pointless staged scenes, like "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall". And the "Star Wars" program (aka shooting missiles out of the sky with other missiles) is as stupid a concept as when the vikings thought they'd try making their helmets with the horns on the inside.

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Well, it is our job to teach you uneducated conservatives a thing or two.

Even if it's while your losing? The arrogance!!!

[flere-imsaho]

Allow me to defend (haha!) missile defense.

Missile defense will eventually absolutely work. With current advances in microchips and technology, there will certainly come a day, perhaps even no longer than a decade or two hence, where our interceptor systems will be smart enough to actually intercept an ICBM in flight and blow it up way high in the stratosphere.

On that day I'm sure we will all take a moment to rejoice greatly before getting back to the work of rebuilding the U.S. city destroyed by a dirty bomb set off by a guy who used as his delivery system (and detonator) a '78 Pinto.

[Dutch]

Actually, to be fair, the first city that will be destroyed by a Nuclear Pinto is Tel Aviv.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Dutch

Pfft....I can look up your degree and your speciality on Wikipedia. FWIW, I never said "Reagan outspent the Soviets" and that's why he won. Maybe you should take a class on building proper strawmen.

I'm not sure what you mean about looking up my degree and specialty on Wikipedia? Is that supposed to be some knock? Because the example about Soviet standards of living peaking under Brezhnev was from memory. It's a factoid that has stuck with me.

You credited Reagan with "winning the Cold War" so I'm not sure in what other way that would apply.

In reality, the Soviet Union made the decision to lose far more than we "beat" them.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by panerd

I enjoy this as well. I also enjoy when people's degrees make them an unquestioned expert in something but when they talk out of their butt about something else (i.e. Obama and economics) against someone with a degree in that area then it is all purely opinion.

EDIT: Not defending Dutch, in political threads his opinion is very easy to figure out. Also not bashing DT, but he needs to at least acknowledge that his Soviet studies professors are definitely going to have some sort of slant and while he may have read A LOT more than all of us on this subject it still doesn't make him an expert or his opinion any more valid.

Of course my primary Soviet studies professor had a slant. But when I did my own independent research (and FWIW when I carried those same conclusions into other classes - for say U.S. Foreign Policy for example), nobody that I read who had any degree of learning about the topic argued against my conclusions.

Glasnost & perestroika, the eternal "guns or butter" debate, the debacle in Afghanistan, social agitation by returning veterans of Afghanistan, the increasing regional fragmentation and ethnic self-determination movements among the various republics. That's just a short list of some of the primary causes.

My opinion is certainly not more valid, but you also cannot deny that by virtue of the greater knowledge that I have of the subject it is much more informed, much more nuanced, and therefore much more likely to be "the truth."

That doesn't even take into account that it is the position of (insert appropriate numerical adjective here - I have no desire to attempt to quantify which one it should be) of the people who spend their lives studying this.

[Dutch]

You credited Reagan with "winning the Cold War" so I'm not sure in what other way that would apply.

Yes, the Soviets put the dagger in their chest when they thought communism would beat capitalism in the long run. Reagan made sure that dagger was pointed directly at the heart when and if the Soviets capitulated. And he did so by being tough and sympathetic at the same time.

In reality, the Soviet Union made the decision to lose far more than we "beat" them.

Heh...the Soviets competed with us and they lost. In the final act, yes, they did surrender their control and therefore lost but not because they really had a choice in the matter, other than a nuclear holocaust draw, I suppose.

[Abe Sargent]

I certainly think Clinton was a solid president, but Reagan had the harder decade so I call him the better dude.

[Solecismic]

I voted for Clinton because I believe he was both quite intelligent and genuinely interested in making America a better place. He was not afraid to piss off either party.

I was disappointed Ford didn't receive an elected term. He had a lot of potential. I think Reagan ended up being a good president, but his rhetoric was upsetting and he wasn't a great leader. The others on this list were mediocre to downright harmful.