Even though I'm a conservative, I have to give credit where credit is due. I mean, Reagan never got his disk sucked, that I know of. At lest not while doing his job ;)
George Washington. The Son Of a Bitch defeated Britain (With the help of France and Spain) to gain our independence. He pretty much started this COMMINIST country.
First off, George Washington was a second-rate general who got lucky more often than not. Second, this country is not communist, it is a hybrid system.
I don't know if you're aware, but the US is probably the most un-communist country in the developed world. Many of the problems our country has stem from our inability to accept that the "free market" is not actually a 100% benevolent force.
He also didn't really start the country. He was a figure that was often put in charge of things because his image was bigger than the man because he was at places like the Battle of Bunker Hill, or Yorktown (he was not a great military commander, and lost more battles than he won). What made Washington Great is he would step up and take charge when other people shirked the responsibility. So, his name was out there a lot. He wasn't a large contributor to the ideological wing of the Independence Movement, and he didn't contribute much in the drafting the Constitution (although he was the President of the Convention, again, his image was important to have associated with it).
FDR. FDR was the most beloved President in US History. He gave people hope, he got people working when corporate industry wouldn't. He governed in the interest of the people. He put safety nets in place to ease the suffering of people in the future (social security, unemployment insurance, welfare programs, etc). FDR lead the US, a disillusioned broken country, our of the depression, gave the people hope, and lead them to fight against the Fascists in Europe and the Empire of Japan simultaneously; he did it all from a wheel chair. There is a reason that if you ask any person who was alive back then (if you're lucky enough to find one anymore), that they will tell you how great FDR was, and how much they hated Hoover (the Republican who wanted to "let the market fix itself"). My Grandfather was a Democrat till the day he died because of FDR, and he was an NRA member.
Is that supposed to be a witty retort? His summation of FDR's presidency is the most widely accepted view of FDR, and those who deny it are generally those who claim that FDR's actions prolonged the depression, despite the fact that the economic recovery was only stalled when he began listening to his more conservative adviser and cut back on the New Deal programs.
He is one of my favorite presidents as well, which is difficult for me considering his actions against Japanese Americans, as well as his actions pertaining to the Supreme Court.
But then again, so many people love Lincoln and he made Grant the leader of the Union's Army (horrifying) and suspended Habeous Corpus, so I suppose every president has their mistakes.
You know, everyone in history is human, and everyone made mistakes, or decisions that we don't like with our modern sensibilities.
One thing FDR did was refuse to sign an anti-lynching bill. Back then though, there were racist "conservatives" from the south who were still Democrats and thus part of the Roosevelt coalition. So, to keep the coalition together, FDR had to appease them. We look at that now, and say, "that was a crappy thing to do," but it made sense in that time in history.
Most anyone in history did bad things, or made bad decisions. Ghandi did bad things. MLK is the only guy I can't really say anything bad about.
I am no expert on history, but I do know a few things about economics. I know for example, that the broad consensus among economists (you'll never get full agreement) is that WWII got us out of the depression with it's increased demand for labor and simultaneous decrease in supply. I know that it's bad for the economy to burn crops while people starve. Or lock people up for trying to work past the legally allotted hours. I don't know how conservatives viewed things back then, but even if they pushed his bad economics, he was at the helm. I know that it's easier to get votes when your government work programs are targeted where you need support. I know that everyone loved him so much that just as soon as the he died they put term limits on the presidency.
I'm not saying he was terrible, times were hard and much of the economic manipulation was untested. It's not like he was President Jackson, but he sure as hell wasn't the best.
You have yet to point out which of his economic policies you believe were actually harmful. His public works programs did wonders for local economies all around the country, while providing legitimate, long lasting benefits as well as employing vast swathes of laborers, who were then capable of providing for their families (at least more so than they were before said public works projects came about). So what part of his economics are you referring to as "bad"?
Policies executed by the AAA and NRA are listed in my other response below. Government investment crowds out private investment. This is shown not only by neo-classical analysis but also by Keynesian models. The money to hire government workers (who almost doubled during the depression), doesn't come from nowhere, it comes from the private sector. It isn't just a matter of shifting money around. Public works lack the necessary market information provided by price incentives. This means that public works can produce any old thing (and sometimes did/do) regardless of demand for said works. This means shrunken overall production, which has been attributed to extending the depression.
To make it worse, FDR and company was under the impression that over production was the actual cause. Many of his policies therefore focused on reducing supply. This at a time when people are starving and going without. It's entirely backwards.
I know for example, that the broad consensus among economists (you'll never get full agreement) is that WWII got us out of the depression with it's increased demand for labor and simultaneous decrease in supply.
Most economists I know (and the books I read) actually attribute us getting out of the depression to the increased demand created by people having money from having jobs essentially. If people do not have money to spend, the economy stays in a state of depression (as history has shown repeatedly). It is true that FDRs programs worked slowly, and the end of the war was a major contributor, but if we went back to how we were before the FDRs programs, our middle class would have dwindled much earlier. That is evidenced in how we did not really have a middle class for most of our history.
FDR's policies were what most economists would call "Keynesian Economics," and many economists actually support that school of thought. It just does not support the "conservative" narrative, so many "conservatives" reject it.
I know that it's bad for the economy to burn crops while people starve.
That was not FDR's policy. That was the greed of big business (I'm assuming you're talking about the crop burning in California, where Upton Sinclair was running for governor on the platform of preventing that). If you have a problem with crop burning, talk to agribusiness.
Or lock people up for trying to work past the legally allotted hours.
Do you have a primary historical source that corroborates this claim? I'd be interested to know why someone would WANT to work longer when they are protected by law to not be forced to do so.
I don't know how conservatives viewed things back then, but even if they pushed his bad economics, he was at the helm.
The Republicans back then thought the way they do now. They thought, like Herbert Hoover, that if the government just sat back and did nothing, eventually the market would fix itself (which, of course is not true, and has never been true). FDR's policies were actually doing something, so thank God for that, or God knows how long the depression would have lasted.
So, if by "bad economics" you mean, "economic policies that pulled us out of the great depression and created the middle class," you'd be right.
If by "bad economics" you mean programs that took our country from a 28% unemployment rate to a 2% unemployment rate, you'd be right.
I wouldn't call them "bad economics" and neither did my grandfather, or any of his brothers and sisters.
I know that it's easier to get votes when your government work programs are targeted where you need support.
Exactly. They government should actually work for the people of this country.
I know that everyone loved him so much that just as soon as the he died they put term limits on the presidency.
This is how much they loved FDR:
In the 1932 Election:
-FDR had 57% of the popular vote, and carried 42 states.
In the 1936 Election:
-FDR had over 60% of the popular vote, and carried 46 states.
In the 1944 Election:
-FDR had 54% of the popular vote, and carried 36 states.
In other words, FDR never had a close election. People loved him, in general terms. Of course, there were still "conservatives" back then that wanted to deregulate the markets again, and they were responsible for getting that amendment passed. It was not (obviously) because people did not like FDR. In truth, the idea of creating a limit of Presidential Terms, has been talked about since the early 19th century, most specifically, Thomas Jefferson, talked about it.
In truth, it probably scared Republicans and "conservatives" that a President like FDR, who was left-of-center (but not much, in the context of those times, actually), would break the previously held de-facto rule of only holding two terms, and potentially keep a President from being a Republican for decades. Remember, there was no written rule for that. So, in short, the 22nd Amendment was passed for political reasons, but I like what it does.
I'm not saying he was terrible, times were hard and much of the economic manipulation was untested. It's not like he was President Jackson, but he sure as hell wasn't the best.
I can't think of a better President, frankly. He wasn't perfect, he had his problems, but I think he did the most for the country when it needed someone to step-up and do something. Hoover and the "conservatives" certainly weren't doing anything.
EDIT: PS. My Grandmother was not a fan.
There are always some people who are the exception, not the rule.
Concerning the arrest of workers, Do you have a primary historical source that corroborates this claim?..No I don’t. This was something I heard somewhere sometime. I’ll get back to you. If I don’t find it, it’s not a big deal. I have thoroughly backed up the rest and more below.
FDR's policies were what most economists would call "Keynesian Economics," and many economists actually support that school of thought.
The Keynesian Economics of the time have been long abandoned for the more refined “Neo-Keynesian” school of economic thought. Keynes’s models are still taught in some intermediate econ courses, but not most from I understand.
In response to crop burning you said, That was not FDR's policy.
The econlib.org article is very thorough. At the end there is a long list of famous economists and their single point explanations concerning the length of the Depression. Most of the explanations (from a huge swath of experts) are based around hindered private sector investment (Government investment crowds out private investment), monetary policy, fiscal policy, regulatory policy. The point is “policy” prolonged the Depression.
As I stated earlier, I’m not really a history buff. I don’t know if you are an historian, but the following are quotes from known historians and economists.
Pulitzer Prise winning Historian Dorris Kerns Goodwin said “The America over which Roosevelt presided in 1940 was in its 11th year of depression. No decline in American history had been so deep, so lasting, so far reaching”. Historian Robert S. McIlvaine states “For all it did, for all it changed, the New Deal never succeeded in its primary goal, ending the Depression”
A 2011 WSJ article by Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian entitled “Stimulus and the Depression: The Untold Story” covers the various government plans and policies that harmed the economy including the NIRA and the Wagner Act. The article concludes that “labor input would have been about 20% higher than it was at the end of the 1930s and would have returned the economy to trend by that time”.
The article goes on to argue that it was not WWII that caused the economic turnaround but rather the abandonment of New Deal policies. The article shows that most of the recovery occurred before 1941 stating:
In a 1938 speech President Roosevelt acknowledged that some administration policies were retarding recovery. Economic policy shifted considerably around this time, and the economy boomed. Antitrust enforcement resumed. The fiercely controversial undistributed profits tax, which was retarding investment, was drastically reduced and then eliminated in 1939. The sit-down strike was declared illegal, and employers could fire sit-down strikers.
The National Recovery Association (NRA) which sprang from the NIRA listed above not only loosened Anti-Trust laws, but actually established industry wide cartels.
The NRA was not dissimilar to Mussolini’s Trade Associations. The policy was Fascist in nature. It was later deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Roosevelt admitted that it played a key role in prolonging the depression.
Benjamin Anderson, an economist alive during the Great Depression said:
The impact of all these multitudinous measures: industrial, agricultural, financial, monetary, and other, upon a bewildered industrial and financial community was extraordinarily heavy. We must add the fact of continuing and disquieting utterances by the President. He had castigated the bankers in his inaugural speech. He had made a slurring comparison of British and American bankers in his speech in the summer of 1934. That the private sector could survive and even show early signs of recovery in the midst of so great a disorder is demonstration of the vitality of private enterprise.
EDIT: The econlib.org article above brings it all together nicely:
One of the most coherent explanations, which pulls together several of these themes, is what economic historian Robert Higgs calls “regime uncertainty.” According to Higgs, Roosevelt’s New Deal led business leaders to question whether the current “regime” of private property rights in their firms’ capital and its income stream would be protected. They became less willing, therefore, to invest in assets with long lives. Roosevelt had first suspended the antitrust laws so that American businesses would cooperate in government-instigated cartels; he then switched to using the antitrust laws to prosecute firms for cooperating. New taxes had been imposed, and some were then removed; increasing regulation of businesses had reduced businesses’ ability to act independently and raise capital; and new legislation had reduced their freedom in hiring and employing labor. Public opinion surveys of business at the end of the 1930s provided evidence of this regime uncertainty. Public opinion polls in March and May 1939 asked whether the attitude of the Roosevelt administration toward business was delaying recovery, and 54 and 53 percent, respectively, said yes while 26 and 31 percent said no. Fifty-six percent believed that in ten years there would be more government control of business while only 22 percent thought there would be less. Sixty-five percent of executives surveyed thought that the Roosevelt administration policies had so affected business confidence that the recovery had been seriously held back. Initially many firms were reluctant to engage in war contracts. The vast majority believed that Roosevelt’s administration was strongly antibusiness, and this discouraged practical cooperation with Washington on rearmament.
I'm sure this is a different subject entirely but...To refer to the southern democrats of FDR’s time as “conservatives” misses historical context. I must question your chosen area of study, or at least your ability to remain objective in your profession. Southern Democrats were Democrats because they were for Unionization, which was racist in nature since it kept low wage minorities (whom they viewed as scabs) out of work. The southern democrat was historically racist. The Democrat party became the party supposedly for the minority only after JFK helped out MLK for reasons of political expedience.
I must question your chosen area of study, or at least your ability to remain objective in your profession.
What is your profession? Please do question it, but I'd like to know what background you have? Do you have a PhD in American History?
For the record, I pride myself in my objectivity, but thank you for questioning it. I always welcome questions.
Southern Democrats were Democrats because they were for Unionization,
Southern Democrats were actually democrats because Democrats were for states rights (earlier in history), and small federal government. Essentially, the Democrats of the late 19th century were the small government "conservative" party. FDR did not sign an anti-lynching law because he had to keep the Southern Democrats in his coalition. In that context of history, the Republican Party had not yet adopted that line (small government, states rights, support big business, etc) fully, and so many in the South were still Democrats. It did not change fully until the Civil Rights era, when the Republicans were against the Civil Rights act (as seen in Strom Thurmonds historic filibuster).
Southern Democrats were Democrats because they were for Unionization, which was racist in nature since it kept low wage minorities (whom they viewed as scabs) out of work.
Are you aware that the south was still not nearly as industrialized as it was in the North, and still isn't? Unions are typically for industrial trades. The Democratic Party and Unions have NOT always been tied together. That is new. Don't confuse the old Democratic Party with the new one.
The southern democrat was historically racist.
You're right! I would go further to say that the Southern Democrat was typically in favor of perpetuating systemic Jim Crow racism in the south, which is why signing the anti-lynching bill into law would have alienated them, and FDR still needed them.
What's interesting about the Roosevelt Coalition is that it had so many different (often diametrically opposed) groups under the same banner. You had hardcore leftists, unions, and minorities ALONG with basically the "Tea Party" of the day. It was a motley crew to be sure.
The Democrat party became the party supposedly for the minority only after JFK helped out MLK for reasons of political expedience.
Well, kind of, but it was in that era that the switch was complete. Both parties swapped places. It began in the early 20th century, and completed during the civil rights era. You're right though, basically!
Remember, in the early 20th century, it was assumed that if an African-American was walking into a polling booth, he was voting Republican. It is not like that now.
I don't have a background and I don't need an history PhD, I already said I'm not an historian. Now to question your chosen area of study, why did you only respond to the post that I stated was off subject? The one I pulled off the top of my head is not the one that refutes your FDR claims with sources and quotes. Why haven't we addressed that post yet?
As for the rest of your post...I guess. Like I said, I just pulled it off the top of my head.
Yes. Yes I did. I'm not sure what your point is. Are you trying to insinuate that I am wrong? Or are you agreeing with me by pointing out that I DO in fact know my history because history is my life (and it would be wierd if I did not know history)?
If you are trying to cross swords with me over history, I would love for you to actually try to.