Who is the most over-rated president of all-time?

[OohPooPahDoo]

for the purposes of so-called historical perspective, i won't include recent presidents.

reagan

 

[regent]

Does the average American know what went on during those FDR years? Well the historians know and they have never rated FDR below the top three presidents, and recently they rated FDR number one. Strong presidents are usually called tyrants, dictators, kings, and so forth and the good strong presidents are called great. Who mentions Martin Van Buren or Taft in our list of presidents why? But we still remember Harding, Hoover and soon Bush as bad. If Republicans thought highly of Bush he would be their poster boy for this election, but Republicans have by-passed Bush and gone back to Reagan, a president rated by historians as slightly above average. Best they got. But Republicans have one president rated Near-Great, Teddy Roosevelt, yet Republicans avoid Teddy like the plague? Wonder why?
We either have faith in the hundreds of historians that rate presidents or faith in the ratings of our political party. I choose the historians.

FDR couldn't change Harding jock strap.

IF FDR was "great" for giving us 20% Average unemployment for 8 years then FDR should crazyglue his lips to Harding's nut sack.

Sorry, not into those kind of things.

 

[regent]

Maybe you should try thinking for yourself sometime. Or is that too challenging?

That's why we have historians, doctors, scientists, they may no more about their field than the average citizen or even a political party, in fact, I often feel political parties are not totally objective or honest.

And you believe historians are totally objective or honest? How stupid are you?

I think historians are more objective and honest about history than politicians, or even some posters. Do you believe that historians you disagree with are communists?

 

[notatallanti]

No single president has done as much to destroy the influence and power of America in the world as Bush II.

Many people have good points about other presidents, but the facts are there before our eyes.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

OK, let me say this, if FDR is "Great", Harding and Coolidge must be God

 

[regent]

OK, let me say this, if FDR is "Great", Harding and Coolidge must be God

Harding, like Reagan,didn't seem to know what was going on in his own administration. With bribery, Tea Pot Dome, Veterans Administration and other scandals, historians have rated harding as America's worst president. Of course that is the rating by historians and maybe in Republican circles Harding may be spoken of as a God. I hope not.

 

[Desperado]

Ronald Reagan did not make the list?
If there ever was a Over rated President it was Reagan.

 

[GHook93]

(a) I am liberal, so I say Ronald Reagan.
(b) I am conservative, so I say FDR.

 

[Unkotare]

Does the average American know what went on during those FDR years? Well the historians know and they have never rated FDR below the top three presidents, and recently they rated FDR number one. Strong presidents are usually called tyrants, dictators, kings, and so forth and the good strong presidents are called great. Who mentions Martin Van Buren or Taft in our list of presidents why? But we still remember Harding, Hoover and soon Bush as bad. If Republicans thought highly of Bush he would be their poster boy for this election, but Republicans have by-passed Bush and gone back to Reagan, a president rated by historians as slightly above average. Best they got. But Republicans have one president rated Near-Great, Teddy Roosevelt, yet Republicans avoid Teddy like the plague? Wonder why?
We either have faith in the hundreds of historians that rate presidents or faith in the ratings of our political party. I choose the historians.

Appeal to authority: fallacy

Yes, appeal to authority can be a fallacy,

It is, because you are not making a case, you are merely insisting that it is so because someone else said so.

 

[rightwinger]

Appeal to authority: fallacy

Yes, appeal to authority can be a fallacy,

It is, because you are not making a case, you are merely insisting that it is so because someone else said so.

Appeal to one authority can be a fallacy

Appeal to hundreds of authorities.......not so much

 

[Sallow]

St Ronnie, of course.

Trick Lib Question of Reagan
March 28, 2008

CALLER: Ronald Reagan, why did he never respond to the Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon in 1983?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: By the way, to answer the guy's question, "Why didn't Reagan respond?" He did. It's one of the most underreported aspects in world history. Amir Taheri wrote about it on April 18th, 2007, in a publication called Gulf News. Basically, Reagan sunk Iran's navy, if I could just sum this up. We sunk Iran's navy. The attacks from Lebanon came from Iran, as they still do to this day. We sunk Iran's navy, but we didn't talk about it much then because that would have made us look mean, and the mullahs didn't talk about it because they didn't want the world to know their navy had been sunk, but it happened.
END TRANSCRIPT

Operation Praying Mantis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Operation Praying Mantis was an April 18, 1988 attack by U.S. naval forces in retaliation for the Iranian mining of the Persian Gulf and the subsequent damage to an American warship.

In short, Iran lost one major warship and a smaller gunboat.

Agreed.

Ronald Reagan was a law breaker and committed Treason.

How did he commit treason?

Sold arms to a known enemy of the United States without the approval of congress.

That's how.

 

[freedombecki]

Agreed.

Ronald Reagan was a law breaker and committed Treason.

How did he commit treason?

Sold arms to a known enemy of the United States without the approval of congress.

That's how.

As I recollect, Ollie North was called onto Congress' carpet for that, wasn't he?

 

[regent]

Appeal to authority: fallacy

Yes, appeal to authority can be a fallacy,

It is, because you are not making a case, you are merely insisting that it is so because someone else said so.

Yes that is how one uses argument by authority. It is when the authority is not, or the wrong type of authority that it becomes fallacious. Or as one book I have on logic says, "When we argue that a given conclusion is correct on the on the ground that an expert authority has come to that judgement, we commit no fallacy." In this case a couple of hundred experts came to the conclusion that FDR was America's greatest president.

 

[rightwinger]

(a) I am liberal, so I say Ronald Reagan.
(b) I am conservative, so I say FDR.

I'm liberal and I said JFK

 

[freedombecki]

Sorry, I didn't vote correctly. I would have voted on a contemporary person, except I didn't realize it was limited to historic figures. In that case, I would change my vote to Andrew Jackson.

Andrew Jackson engaged in the craven displacement of tribal Americans to the worst lands in America through ethnic cleansing of regions owned by natives. Today, the people in those desolate places have one of the highest ethnic suicide rates in the world and occupy the very poorest counties in this nation.

Andrew Jackson made a small number of Europeans wealthy at the expense of all native tribal people, by giving them the best hunting grounds, mineral resource areas, etc., as these resources became known and exploited.

Not much of a human being was Jackson, and he taught European Americans the idea that if you make racial and ethnic displacement a law, you can benefit extraordinarily and kid yourself that the people you displaced were animals or insects.

Andrew Jackson set a precedent of things to come for ethnic groups in this part of North America.

I agree that it looks bad on paper; but I don't think people really understand the times. There was a lot of Indian savagery during that time. I'd be interested to learn more about it. I know that what I've read on some of the Western tribes, they were quite barbaric and murderous. I will say that there is some history to indicate that the white men did mistreat peaceful Indians as well.

Well, the Indians thought the lands were their domain, and they had no concept of a deed contract, they depended on the person they allowed land use to to respect the tribe's changing needs if necessary. They were confused when their European counterparts were willing to fight and kill to keep a deed, and when they did die, the deeds were passed to other white persons, and not the tribe. This was the behavior of usurping enemy tribes, which the Indians knew must be dealt with sternly by daubing bright paint on their faces and chests and going to war to get their hunting grounds back. The Europeans could not be taught anything that was right or sacred to the tribal Americans and became their most lethal of all enemies. The whites were equally confused by what they considered great expectations of the tribes to keep a controlling interest on land use when they had a property deed. As more people came by ship to America into populated areas, more land was expropriated by the British for colonists to exploit.

Eventually, the surplus people from Britain, France, and all the EU countries pushed their way into the Indian territories, claiming all for their flag's profit for all future times with no regard for the natives who used the vast woodlands for hunting and harvest, extracting berries and the flesh of wild animals for making pemican to sustain them through wintertime, and there was some planting seeds for corn to make meal and pumpkins which contain nutrients for keen eyesight, lifelong. They shared their knowledge and saved the Pilgrims many times over with helping them establish fields and gardens of native seeds after their supplies of food from Europe ran down.

Europeans took no responsibility for the welfare of the people who saved the first colonists by taking pity on them and teaching them how to plant and process staples for all-year-long use.

Jackson just epitomizes a lot of wrong that were done to the tribes of America. His job as he viewed it was to get them out of the way of "progress" so they marched, mostly to their early death, along the Trail of Tears, to Oklahoma at his behest.

I just wonder what it was like for that 1/32 of my ancestors to wind up in Oklahoma and relearn a world of things to help them survive, including becoming nomads following herds of buffalo, blending in with tribes more different from each other than Europeans, Chinese, and Africans and try to compensate to their children for the hard prairie life full of water shortages and drought and the smell of death as they died of fevers no natives had before 1492 and 1607, respectively, when white men began showing up on the shores of Virginia, Manhattan, and Massachusetts.

 

[freedombecki]

Ronald Reagan did not make the list?
If there ever was a Over rated President it was Reagan.

Recent presidents were not included according to the OP, Desperado.

 

[rightwinger]

Sorry, I didn't vote correctly. I would have voted on a contemporary person, except I didn't realize it was limited to historic figures. In that case, I would change my vote to Andrew Jackson.

Andrew Jackson engaged in the craven displacement of tribal Americans to the worst lands in America through ethnic cleansing of regions owned by natives. Today, the people in those desolate places have one of the highest ethnic suicide rates in the world and occupy the very poorest counties in this nation.

Andrew Jackson made a small number of Europeans wealthy at the expense of all native tribal people, by giving them the best hunting grounds, mineral resource areas, etc., as these resources became known and exploited.

Not much of a human being was Jackson, and he taught European Americans the idea that if you make racial and ethnic displacement a law, you can benefit extraordinarily and kid yourself that the people you displaced were animals or insects.

Andrew Jackson set a precedent of things to come for ethnic groups in this part of North America.

I agree that it looks bad on paper; but I don't think people really understand the times. There was a lot of Indian savagery during that time. I'd be interested to learn more about it. I know that what I've read on some of the Western tribes, they were quite barbaric and murderous. I will say that there is some history to indicate that the white men did mistreat peaceful Indians as well.

Well, the Indians thought the lands were their domain, and they had no concept of a deed contract, they depended on the person they allowed land use to to respect the tribe's changing needs if necessary. They were confused when their European counterparts were willing to fight and kill to keep a deed, and when they did die, the deeds were passed to other white persons, and not the tribe. This was the behavior of usurping enemy tribes, which the Indians knew must be dealt with sternly by daubing bright paint on their faces and chests and going to war to get their hunting grounds back. The Europeans could not be taught anything that was right or sacred to the tribal Americans and became their most lethal of all enemies. The whites were equally confused by what they considered great expectations of the tribes to keep a controlling interest on land use when they had a property deed. As more people came by ship to America into populated areas, more land was expropriated by the British for colonists to exploit.

Eventually, the surplus people from Britain, France, and all the EU countries pushed their way into the Indian territories, claiming all for their flag's profit for all future times with no regard for the natives who used the vast woodlands for hunting and harvest, extracting berries and the flesh of wild animals for making pemican to sustain them through wintertime, and there was some planting seeds for corn to make meal and pumpkins which contain nutrients for keen eyesight, lifelong. They shared their knowledge and saved the Pilgrims many times over with helping them establish fields and gardens of native seeds after their supplies of food from Europe ran down.

Europeans took no responsibility for the welfare of the people who saved the first colonists by taking pity on them and teaching them how to plant and process staples for all-year-long use.

Jackson just epitomizes a lot of wrong that were done to the tribes of America. His job as he viewed it was to get them out of the way of "progress" so they marched, mostly to their early death, along the Trail of Tears, to Oklahoma at his behest.

I just wonder what it was like for that 1/32 of my ancestors to wind up in Oklahoma and relearn a world of things to help them survive, including becoming nomads following herds of buffalo, blending in with tribes more different from each other than Europeans, Chinese, and Africans and try to compensate to their children for the hard prairie life full of water shortages and drought and the smell of death as they died of fevers no natives had before 1492 and 1607, respectively, when white men began showing up on the shores of Virginia, Manhattan, and Massachusetts.

The idea of owning land was alien to nomadic people. Why would you want to restrict yourself to one piece of land? In the spring, you went where the fish were, in the summer you planted, in the winter you hunted. Can you imagine doing that in the same 40 acres?

What made it possible to exist on one piece of land was a monetary system. You planted crops and sold them for money which you used to get through the rest of the year.

 

[Unkotare]

Yes, appeal to authority can be a fallacy,

It is, because you are not making a case, you are merely insisting that it is so because someone else said so.

Yes that is how one uses argument by authority. It is when the authority is not, or the wrong type of authority that it becomes fallacious. Or as one book I have on logic says, "When we argue that a given conclusion is correct on the on the ground that an expert authority has come to that judgement, we commit no fallacy." In this case a couple of hundred experts came to the conclusion that FDR was America's greatest president.

You didn't read the sentences in your book that came before and after that quote (unless you did, and are being deliberately dishonest now). I suppose it's possible you didn't understand what was written in your book. You commit a fallacy in your appeal to authority in the way you tried to use it here, not in support of but in place of your own reasoning.

 

[Artevelde]

That's why we have historians, doctors, scientists, they may no more about their field than the average citizen or even a political party, in fact, I often feel political parties are not totally objective or honest.

And you believe historians are totally objective or honest? How stupid are you?

I think historians are more objective and honest about history than politicians, or even some posters. Do you believe that historians you disagree with are communists?

As a historian I know that historians disagree among each other and often change their mind. The way historians have evaluated Presidents, for example, has varied quite wildly over time.

No historian worth his or her salt would claim that historians are per definition more objective about history than other people.

I find it very weak that you apparently don't feel you can make a judgement for yourself, based on your own reasoning.

 

[Artevelde]

No single president has done as much to destroy the influence and power of America in the world as Bush II.

Many people have good points about other presidents, but the facts are there before our eyes.

Complete nonsense.