your favorite american president

[Heart of Darkness]

This is probably due to my government professor, but...

James Madison.

Seriously, he amended the Constitution nearly 200 years after he was president.

 

[Spaghetti]

Gonna vote Teddy Roosevelt. The man was totally bad ass while at the same time a great leader and the only President I would want to go to the pub with. Plus he'd probably drink me under the table to boot

 

[RufusMcLaser]

There's clearly a lot to be said for Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and FDR. But the one I admire the most is Teddy Roosevelt.
Yes, I know they all had their flaws, even by the standards of their time.

 

[lukemdizzle]

eater FDR o Teddy Roosevelt

 

[Flishiz]

George Washington was a terrible General, but an excellent President.

Still, I love Warren G. Harding. Because he was almost certainly our worst President. That's kind of admirable. It takes a lot of skill to be that horrible. Also, he gives me a retort for knee-jerk Bush haters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_G._Harding

Okay, seriously I probably liked Lincoln the best. He was a fascinating man. He believed in freedom for all men, but at the same time was pretty clearly a racist. He wanted blacks to be free, but he didn't want them in his America.

First off, Buchanan was the worst president.

Second, Lincoln WAS NOT A RACIST. All depictions of him and racism hide very specific details that affirm his general acceptance of blacks. The (mostly textbook) publishers very carefully omit information that otherwise would have been obvious, and is in the most part necessary to understand the man.

 

[DrDeath3191]

Lincoln. Because he quite frankly kicks all sorts of ass.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

George Washington was a terrible General,

LIEZ!

Joking aside, I don't know if he was a good general or not. I just can't help but feel that being a general at all added to his badassedness, since I'm assuming it takes a good bit of work to attain such a title.

He lost almost every battle he ever fought. Whereas Benedict Arnold WON almost every fight he ever fought. There's a lot to THAT story that isn't publicized much. Like how Arnold would get demoted and jailed for WINNING BATTLES.

First off, Buchanan was the worst president.

Second, Lincoln WAS NOT A RACIST. All depictions of him and racism hide very specific details that affirm his general acceptance of blacks. The (mostly textbook) publishers very carefully omit information that otherwise would have been obvious, and is in the most part necessary to understand the man.

You seem to be under the impression I am following some sort of bandwagon in my claim that Lincoln held racist viewpoints. I am not. Based on what the man said (he said he would forget about the "freedom for blacks" issue if the South would end the war) and what he did, I have concluded on my own that he was not of the opinion that black men and women should live and work in a white society. I would call that racist. He might have thought they were EQUAL (in the sense all men should be free), but when it came to living in his states, he seems to have felt some were more equal than others.

That said, he was still a great man. All significant historical figures are like this. They all have positive and negative qualities. The negative actions don't undermine the positive ones. Whatever happened happened.

 

[Lord Beautiful]

He lost almost every battle he ever fought.

Wow. Well, thanks for sharing that bit of knowledge. I think we both learned a little something from this exchange, and by "we both," I mean, "me."

 

[RufusMcLaser]

You seem to be under the impression I am following some sort of bandwagon in my claim that Lincoln held racist viewpoints. I am not. Based on what the man said (he said he would forget about the "freedom for blacks" issue if the South would end the war) and what he did, I have concluded on my own that he was not of the opinion that black men and women should live and work in a white society. I would call that racist. He might have thought they were EQUAL (in the sense all men should be free), but when it came to living in his states, he seems to have felt some were more equal than others.

That said, he was still a great man. All significant historical figures are like this. They all have positive and negative qualities. The negative actions don't undermine the positive ones. Whatever happened happened.

I agree. Lincoln's public views on race [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_on_slavery#On_citizenship_and_on_voting_rights_for_blacks] and racial relations are bigoted and racist by our standards, but in his time they were very progressive and just as controversial. And this is the point I want to make- let us judge the men by the standards of their own era, not by the standards of ours.

 

[Sion_Barzahd]

Teddy Roosevelt.

Anyone who gets shot during a speech and then continues has to be made of some tough shit.

As an English man i have little knowledge of US presidents, but this certainly wins my seal of approval.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

You seem to be under the impression I am following some sort of bandwagon in my claim that Lincoln held racist viewpoints. I am not. Based on what the man said (he said he would forget about the "freedom for blacks" issue if the South would end the war) and what he did, I have concluded on my own that he was not of the opinion that black men and women should live and work in a white society. I would call that racist. He might have thought they were EQUAL (in the sense all men should be free), but when it came to living in his states, he seems to have felt some were more equal than others.

That said, he was still a great man. All significant historical figures are like this. They all have positive and negative qualities. The negative actions don't undermine the positive ones. Whatever happened happened.

I agree. Lincoln's public views on race [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_on_slavery#On_citizenship_and_on_voting_rights_for_blacks] and racial relations are bigoted and racist by our standards, but in his time they were very progressive and just as controversial. And this is the point I want to make- let us judge the men by the standards of their own era, not by the standards of ours.

Oh, absolutely. History is history. One of the things I most hate about many History professors is they impose their own morality on the events of the past. I was very lucky with my college professor. He was an older man who'd dedicated his life to history, and he just presented the class with what happened. He did a good job showing that every historical figure was first and foremost a person. People are not 100% good or 100% evil.

Granted, there are those who tend more towards one side than another. Jay Gould and John D. Rockafeller were both rather despicable, although Gould was at least hilarious in his antics. And Columbus did some great things and was somewhat of a visionary, but he had some difficulty in the person-to-person relations areas of his life, heh.

 

[x434343]

Reagan. Anyone who can be shot in the chest, say, "What just happened? Why am I bleeding?" and take down the USSR is amazing.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

He lost almost every battle he ever fought.

Wow. Well, thanks for sharing that bit of knowledge. I think we both learned a little something from this exchange, and by "we both," I mean, "me."

I learned that some people like Rurouni Kenshin. Which is good, because it rules.

Ever noticed the parallels between that series and Highlander?

 

[Inverse Skies]

I'm not American but I do like the way Obama has galvanised your nation and inspired so many millions of people. I know more about him and his plight than a lot of your other Presidents, so with my limited knowledge I'll have to say him. Nobel prize winner as well, nice.

 

[Nmil-ek]

The dead ones.

 

[Lord Beautiful]

I learned that some people like Rurouni Kenshin. Which is good, because it rules.

Ever noticed the parallels between that series and Highlander?

'Fraid not. Other than the emphasis on sword-fighting, I'm not seeing any connections. Other than the main characters of both franchises being wanderers.

 

[bcponpcp27]

Well, i'm going to be predictable and say Lincoln. Honestly, this is the man that prevented the country from dissolving into nothingness. Without this man, America as we know it (or perhaps at all) wouldn't exist today. Go Lincoln!

 

[Dancingman]

Which of the 44 great presidents of this great nation is your favorite?

My favorite is either Franklin D. Roosevelt or Harry S. Truman.

Roosevelt was one of the greatest that we have ever had, and we had him for a damned long time, no argument here.

Truman wasn't very remarkable, even though I believe that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did save a significant number of lives, I think that he did it for very wrong reasons (revenge for Pearl Harbor, and a ferocious hatred of the Japanese). He did desegregate the armed forces, and took a stand against anti-communist alarmism (not quite McCarthyism yet, but close), I dunno, he just wasn't particularly remarkable.

George Washington was a terrible General,

LIEZ!

Joking aside, I don't know if he was a good general or not. I just can't help but feel that being a general at all added to his badassedness, since I'm assuming it takes a good bit of work to attain such a title.

Washington was a pretty good general, again, he fought with what little he had, even though we got a lot of French support in that department, even though he wasn't the greatest military tactician ever to grace the battlefield, and wound up making some serious blunders that nearly cost us the war, he did pretty well. He surrounded himself with people who were skilled, and basically made the Continental Army from a drunken gaggle into a disciplined fighting machine.

He was much better as president, he again showed talent in hiring brilliant people, like Alexander Hamilton, greatest treasurer ever, and John Jay, who, despite some failures in negotiations with Britain that were not his fault (talking about Jay's Treaty, Hamilton gave the British our negotiating strategy, and Jay got very little out of the Treaty). Washington also really demonstrated the power of the Constitution, when Western farmers rebelled over the excise tax on whiskey, AKA the Whiskey Rebellion, Washington basically asserted the power of the federal government and hit the rebellion like a bolt of lightning. Critics accused him of using excessive force, but what it really did was assert the government's power and basically demonstrate that this wasn't something that would just roll over.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

I learned that some people like Rurouni Kenshin. Which is good, because it rules.

Ever noticed the parallels between that series and Highlander?

'Fraid not. Other than the emphasis on sword-fighting, I'm not seeing any connections. Other than the main characters of both franchises being wanderers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r653sXZbEh8

Well, I just see a lot of very similar characters. And a similar theme. And a subversive influence from rock and roll.