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| Re: IS GEORGE BUSH ... It's ludicrous to call a sitting President ''best'' or ''worst'' (79971) | |||
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Re: IS GEORGE BUSH ... It's ludicrous to call a sitting President ''best'' or ''worst'' |
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Posted by JPC on Wed Dec 7 15:03:13 2005, in response to Re: IS GEORGE BUSH ... It's ludicrous to call a sitting President "best" or "worst", posted by Fred G on Mon Dec 5 18:35:35 2005. I think part of this perception rests in the fact that more recent issues tend to be more controversial. All presidents in their time were quite controversial. Even those presidents that have been all but canonized by modern opinion often were quite vehemently hated in their day - Lincoln for example, as Chris pointed out. But as time goes on, opinions on various issues solidifies and thus our opinions on public figures and events solidifies as well. This is the "verdict of history," and often has little to do with popularity or with opinion at the time of the events.Truman represents the last of the WWII-era presidents, what is generally considered to be the last most recent epoch of history. And you might note that generally opinions on this era are pretty non-controversial - we pretty much all agree on what happened and what should have been done. This was most certainly not the case back when the events were occurring - ask someone old enough to remember. The next epoch after the WWII era was the Cold War, which only recently ended, so my prediction is that within the net 10-20 years you will see opinions gel (and it already is starting to) on issues like containment, disarmament, appeasement, nuclear weapons and deterrence, the Vietnam war, the draft, and of course the associated domestic issues - deficit spending, military buildup, street crime, and so on. What we're in now is likely the next epoch to follow the Cold War. Eactly when and how it started is not apparent yet, but someday will be. Perhaps September 11, 2001, but then again maybe not. It will all be clear someday. The issues we deal with today are dealing with terrorists and other stateless entities and rogue dictators in Third World nations and how to deal with them (as opposed to nuclear superpowers), and on the home front, dealing with the effects of technology, particularly in health care - genetic treatments, the rising cost of health care and government's role in it, the rapidly aging population, as well as issues of domestic security (protection against terrorism). Issues of individual rights (abortion, the right to die, limits to freedom of religion and speech, and so on) may also rise to prominence, as part of the larger debate between the socialism espoused by modern American liberals and the EU, and essentially libertarianism as advocated in the Constitution. (At least, that's one of my pet issues that I'd like to see raised more generally in society). To give a specific example of this gelling of opinion, affirmative action, is an issue that divides Americans nowadays. If we had a discussion on affirmative action on this board, it would quickly devolve into a flame war. But we all agree that slavery is wrong. Unless, perhaps there's one white supremacist out there (and shame on him). The fact that we all agree, and have the same reaction, to the last statement, is testament to the gelling of opinion. But if we had O/T chat back in the 1840's, public opinion on slavery would be just as divided as it is on affirmative action today. There would be all sorts of arguments, sounding quite alien to modern ears, that people would take seriously. The idea that black people were somehow biologically different from white people was taken seriously, even, sadly by many scientists and others who should have known better. If you were brought up in a society where black people were treated as second-class human beings in everyday life, the idea of continuing it does not seem so strange, despite however many persuasive arguments by abolitionists to the contrary. But as time goes on, opinions gel on various issues. The abolitionists won the slavery debate, the Union won the War Between the States (which became known as the Civil War), and the president who led the Union through this war was virtually deified. Someday virtually all of us will come to some common conclusion about affirmative action, about abortion, about the federal deficit, about socialized medicine, about the death penalty, about how to deal with terrorism, and so on. That future discussion on affirmative action would be completely one-sided, with all the other arguments that would pop up on this board seeming as senseless and immoral to our descendants as the archaic justifications of slavery proffered in the 1840's. If I knew what that position would be, I'd be a far wiser person than I am. All we can do is go along for the ride, but isn't that the wonder of life? And once these opinions gel, we will generally be able to weigh the worth of our modern presidents with less uncertainty and certainly less controversy. Did Reagan's hardline policies with respect to the Soviet Union work? It appears they did. What about his various jaunts through Central America? Supporting Saddam Hussein in the 1980's and taking a hardline stance against Iran? What about ballooning the federal deficit? Once we have a better handle on these issues, it will be much clearer to evaluate President Reagan's influence. Bush 41 presided smoothly over the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. He successfully removed Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, but as a political realist, left Hussein in power, did not support the Iraqi rebellions to overthrow him after the Gulf War, and left a mess that would lead to a war just twelve years later. The economy also went south during his term. What will Bush 41's legacy be? We won't know until we have come to agreements on the value of these decisions. But of course by then we will have a whole new crop of issues to deal with. Rights of aliens (the kind from outer space)? Genetically modified humans? Habitability of other planets? Dealing with whatever results today's environmental concerns cause? And so on. |
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