Another crash on the D.C. Metro.
Ten smartest and dumbest dog breeds. Or, just adopt a mutt and be surprised.
Strange maps.
Author alleges Christian right group, conservative politicians tied to proposed Ugandan law that would execute homosexuals.
Lawsuit claims Frederick County, Maryland Latino woman was arrested, detained for over a month, then released without charges or an explanation.
I love this scene.
Oh sure, he was a bigot, fought to keep D.C. segregated, turned a blind eye to racial violence, and locked up thousands of people for criticizing the government . . . but he took on greedy Wall Street! Pretty sad display of priorities, here. Wilson was one of the worst presidents in U.S. history.
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TheAgitator.com
From the DC Metro crash item: The crash is the latest in a series of incidents putting the region’s subway system under intense scrutiny.
Yeah, intense scrutiny ought to solve the problem. Maybe later they can have a Congressional inquiry or even a special blue ribbon committee.
I can vouch for those dog breeds. I had a Chow and a Sheltie.
The Sheltie was already an adult when we got the Chow. When the Chow tried to steal the toy that the Sheltie was playing with, the Sheltie would actually go and get a different toy, give it to the Chow, and then go back to playing with the first toy. That was amazing to watch.
The Chow, on the other hand, would jump off the couch, always banging his head on the cocktail table. If only he’d moved down about a foot, he would have missed the table. We speculated that he didn’t mind hitting his head. Maybe he didn’t notice it. He never yelped or was otherwise surprised by it.
We now have Siberian Huskies. Also very smart dogs once you get past the three year mission to completely destroy your house (the white one is only just beginning that phase).
Or get a mutt or two that are mixes of smart dogs. Our less intelligent mutt is a Golden Retriever/Aussie Cattle Dog mix, and our freakishly smart one is a Border Collie/German Shepherd mix. Got them both as pound puppies, and smart or dumb, they would have received the same love.
Isn’t the intelligence of dogs largely subjective? What about training? What about what the breed was bred to do? I have a great pyr that doesn’t fetch, but then again this is a common trait for the breed. Is my great pyr “dumb”?
From the article on The Family: “The fundamentalist group The Family has operated secretively with the help of influential congressmen and senators who are members of the group to promote their anti-gay, anti-abortion, pro-free-market ideas in America and other parts of the world…”
Do you notice how “pro-free market” comes after two things (i.e., “anti-gay, anti-abortion”) that are horrible in the eyes of NPR? As if free-market ideas are an abomination. Ugh.
My dachshund is pretty smart. The problem is that the stubbornness negates any intelligence. Dogs generally don’t have to be smart, they just need to be happy and behave themselves and I’m happy.
I have a Border Collie/Australian Shepard that is extremely intelligent. I also have a Pug which I’m surprised isn’t on that list (but she may just be uncommonly intelligent).
One of the reasons I think my Pug is rather intelligent is that she watches TV. She treats it like a window sometimes, but the most interesting thing is she remembers commercials. If a commercial has a dog in it, near the end, she’s already up and whining looking for the dog she knows is coming.
With regard to the Latino woman who spend a month in jail for no reason, you just need to have some perspective. I mean what’s the big deal? Sure, she was arrested, but they eventually let her go. It’s not like they forced her to pay for her room and board during that time, nit did she have to do any work. She should be thinking them for the all-expenses-paid vacation she got. And let’s not forget she would have gotten free medical care if she needed it (in case she slipped in the shower or something).
I think the real point of no return here is the fact that she started walking away before they were done harassing her. That’s just plain disrespectful of our country’s boys in blue who were merely doing their job investigating someone suspiciously eating lunch by herself in a public place. I mean, let’s face it, she was out in public without a male chaperone. In some countries, that’s a serious crime, so let’s not blow it off as if she wasn’t asking for trouble. Hell, I bet she was brazenly speaking with a foreign accent as well. If Latinas want to eat lunch in the U.S.A. they should at least have the decency to learn to speak with an American accent, don’t you think?
paranoiastrksdp,
The level of intelligence isn’t measured by how well they fetch. I’m sure it’s measured by how fast and how well a dog learns while being trained.
We have a 2 y/o labramutt (she’s definitely a lab mix, but we don’t know what else she’s mixed with). She’s about 42 pounds and barely knee high, with some skinny legs (we convinced my 5 y/o little cousin she was a giraffe dog, LOL). She’s the smartest dog my wife and I have ever had (and I had german sheppherds, dobermen, and rots growing up).
Our dog knows the names of her toys, pees when we tell her to “go potty”, poops when we tell her to go “poo poo”, will only throw up on our bathroom floor when she gets sick (dont’ have to worry about cleaning up carpets), and has a pretty big vocabulary (if I tell her “go see Sara” she’ll go to my wife, the same when she says “go see Nando”. She also knows “walk” (she goes and stands by the door), “where’s your leash?” (she’ll go sit by the banister where we hang her leash), “wanna go outside?” (she’ll go stand by our patio door), etc. She’s also extremely cute, LOL.
Most of their dumb breeds seem to be the more independent or lazier or more stubborn breeds. I can vouch shepard sort of dogs being pretty smart, but also pretty high energy.
Maybe they aren’t dumb. Maybe they’re just refusing to bend to human domination. Maybe the “smart” ones are just spineless automatons who are easily molded into the roll of “pet”.
Dachshunds are anarchists. They reject your authority and the need for it.
I am curious about what they used to determine intelligence. The labrador retrievers that I’ve known have always been dumb as rocks in terms of figuring things out on their own but extremely trainable if you’re willing to put the effort into it. I refer to my parents lab as The Manatee, as she’s big and dumb and just wants love.
Ugh, Wilson. In my opinion he was the worst president in history, and that goes beyond even the inexcusable racial idiocy. I tell my friends who go nuts about Iraq, you want a *real* frivolous war that America had no business in? Forget 4,000 dead, Wilson’s war left over 100,000 Americans dead and we got into it for even less good reason than Bush did in Iraq.
But then people look at me like I’m not patriotic or something….
My pit mix puppy learned her name in literally ten minutes. (And the name the shelter had given her was totally different.)
She still tears the house apart though.
CC
Re: The Family
You sure that’s not a new Dan Brown novel? Reads like one of his faux-conspiracy theory novels.
Wilson was a pretty awful president. I’d say that it’s between him and FDR that were the worst presidents. Nixon is number 3.
It would have taken…a lot less…than your…”I love this scene”…for my son…to be here…now…instead of us…coming up…to this fourth year…without him…and still waiting…on our legal system…to make their decisions…re appeals…as we continue forward…in keeping a promise…to Sal.
http://www.justiceforsal.com
“One of the reasons I think my Pug is rather intelligent is that she watches TV.”
Wow, I think my young’ns are gonna be geniouses or somthin. They’re watchin’ the TV all the time.
I had a bassett hound when I was a kid. He was a very smart dog. He figured out how to open the dog food container. He had three ways to get to cookies on the counter. Most of his problem solving abilities centered aroud food. I could never get him to “fetch”. I’d throw the stick, tell him to fetch, and he’d look at me as if to say “You threw it, you chase it!” He also had a vengeful streak. My dad took the rolled-up newspaper to him for getting in the garbage. The next morning, Baxter left a present in my dad’s workboots, regurgitated leftovers. He peed on my mom’s pillow after she punished him. Baxter would hike his leg on one uncle whenever he came over. If you came home drunk, he crapped in your shoes. But he knew how to flirt with the ladies, track rabbits, and look at you as if to say “you gotta love me.”
“Wow, I think my young’ns are gonna be geniouses or somthin. They’re watchin’ the TV all the time.”
Or you could read the rest of the post…
I mean no offense to lab owners but I never understand how these things make the smart dog lists. I have known numerous people who owned black labs and I have yet to encounter one that strikes me as intelligent. My family has an Airedale terrier and my parents are semi active among the local Airedale community (which, yes does exist). I’m always disappointed not to see them on there. Not only do I believe them to be smarter than many of the dogs on that list form anecdotal experience, they also have the history as a working breed to back it up.
RE: Frederick County Case
Heh didn’t think I would see that here. I have been “discussing” it with a group in the Frederick News Post forums (having lived in Frederick for 7 1/2 years, I still try and keep up with what’s going on there).
The sheriff already released his statement defending his officers,
http://www.frederickcountymd.gov/documents/Sheriff%27s%20Office/Press%20Releases/Sheriff%20Responds%20to%20Lawsuit%20Filed%20111009.PDF
Apparently, she was behind some store complex and got up and ran when then officers came into view. They followed her, demanded ID, and when they ran her ID, which was El Savadoran, found she had an outstanding warrant from ICE. She is suing for a cool million claiming racism and profiling and all that jazz.
What I have been discussing with others is whether running in the presence of LEOs is enough for them to detain you and demand ID, even though there is no report or evidence of a crime being committed.
They had Dobes listed as #5 smartest, I’m biased but they belong top 3. Once you get a breed that smart and who loves to work right beside their people you’ll never get another breed again. Plus, worse case scenario, they’ll eat someone for you if needed.
This link may impose some light on the subject of dogs, and TV, as well as intelligence levels being a bit biased by what a dog is NOT breed to be.
Read the article, and you realize why many dogs will watch TV, or chase cars, or fetch balls, or not.
Mutts are really the best (lack of) breed dog to have since they get the best of many pure breeds, there is no bad in any breed. Best dog I ever had was a female of Boxer-mother, and German Shepard-father mix.
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s953902.htm
@#17: Yes, the depression-ending, WWII-winning nightmare that was the Roosevelt administration. Clearly, the man was history’s worst monster.
Re: the Wire clip, it’s completely telling how the cops familiar with the players (McNulty and Daniels) know that Stringer and Avon are unlikely to be armed, but the SWAT guys want their shootout nonetheless. Eerie reminder of the PG sheriff dept.’s refusal to consult the Berwyn Heights force, who would have let them know the mayor was not a drug kingpin.
Wilson is the worst President in the history of this country, and it’s not even close. What people are willing to close their eyes to when they think of him as a great President…
I too have known an occasional Lab that wasn’t too bright. But for the most part, most Labs I’ve known have been rather intelligent.
Personally, I think a lot of what determines a Lab’s intelligence is in the ‘breeding’… or lack thereof.
I’ll bet dollars to milkbones that your average Lab one might pick up from a shelter or a friend’s litter is ten times smarter than an AKC royal-lineage Lab.
I’ve owned many Labs over the years, none of them “full blood” to my knowledge, and every one had high intelligence.
I agree that a good bet for a smart dog is to get a mutt coming from “the smartest breeds.”
I have two Lab/Border Collie mix dogs that show impressive cognition. Also having an astounding ability to quickly remember cause and effect situations. Example: Quickly learning the angle at which a ball bounces off a wall (it’s hard to explain… me being full blood Irish, I guess. ;))
My AKC registered Dane (rescued, of course), on the other hand…. not so much. The lovable oaf that he is.
As far as the dumbest dog I’ve ever seen… My friend’s full blood “show quality” Briard.
http://www.briard.com/
I guess once the AKC gets a hold of a breed… All bets are off.
Cheers.
Woodrow Wilson did two good things in his term, neither of which are credited by his left wing idolaters.
1. He radically liberalized trade by slashing the tariff schedule in 1913. The significance of this event is difficult to understate too because it was the first major deviation from heavy protectionism in over 50 years. I’ll add a caveat too, as the free trade issue was pushed more by VP Thomas Marshall than Wilson himself.
2. He vetoed the Volstead Act. Unfortunately it was overridden.
Other than those two things though, he was a terrible president.
No, dachshunds are Germans: they reject your authority because they are certain you’re inferior, and you’re standing in the way of their rightful place (which is ruling the world).
We have a standard poodle who brilliant, and a border collie mix who is less so. And then there’s the great dane/bloodhound cross, who is 125 pounds of “duuuhhhh!”, but who is still a great dog.
The borzoi and afghan hounds aren’t surprising, because all sight hounds are notoriously difficult to train. They’re not unintelligent, they just don’t care. They’re very cat-like.
I had Dobes growing up (two, in fact). Both ended up being aggressive towards my family members, except me. Both were rescue dogs and both got given away before we had them 2 years. I was the only person in my family who could feed the first one. He would growl at everyone else. For me, however, he would sit with his ears back, like I was going to beat him or something, and he was always scared/respectful of me (I was about 12 at the time). The other one we had to give away because my brother “swang” into him accidentally while on a hammock and the dog almost bit his arm off. If I hadn’t been there, I’m sure my brother would’ve been seriously hurt (I was about 14 at the time, he was 11). They were smart dogs, but they ended up being too aggressive for us. I think it’s because they were abused before we got them.
You forgot the worst of Wilson’s offenses, Radley: he signed into law the destructive Federal Reserve Act in 1913. You will gain more disdain for this if you read about the history of money, the history of central banking in the USA (what we have is the 4th iteration of central banking in this country).
The best president? #9, William Henry Harrison.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Presidents_who_died_in_office
In office only 31 days, thus his ability to destroy was cut way short.
Worst presidents:
1. Obama
2. FDR
3. LBJ
4. Carter
5. Wilson
6. Grant
7. Lincoln
8. Bush Jr.
9. Clinton
10. Adams Jr.
Best Presidents:
1. Cleveland
2. Cleveland (he served twice!)
3. Tyler
4. Coolidge
5. Jefferson
6. Washington
7. Monroe
8. Arthur
9. Polk*
10. Jackson**
* Overlooking his notorious expansionism, he was very pro-market, anti-taxes, anti-federal banking, and for free trade
* He gets credit for abolishing the bank of the U.S. His mismanagement of the tariff during nullification and his atrocities against the Indians are duly noted though.
I’ll put my Brittany up against any of those other dogs… She’s doing differential equations right now while lying on the couch dreaming of chasing quail.
The only issue she has is that she surrenders way too quick… Must be that French upbringing.
#26 | John Cain | December 1st, 2009 at 1:03 pm
@#17: Yes, the depression-ending, WWII-winning nightmare that was the Roosevelt administration. Clearly, the man was history’s worst monster.
Taking the sarcasm out, and your utter ignorance of history, I agree with your last statement.
Regarding Wilson, the US entry into WWI was the precursor to WWII. Had the US not entered WWI, the negotiated peace between the Allies and Central Powers would have been more equal, thus eliminating the underlying causes of WWII, which were primarily the draconian terms of the Treaty of Versailles.
It is therefore reasonable to pin WWII on Wilson too. Truly a monster that dwarfs Roosevelt, even with his imposition of National Socialism on the US by executive fiat.
Oh, and Roosevelt PROLONGED the depression, he did nothing to end it.
Yeah that raid scene on The Wire was great. I think the only better one was in season 2, when they raided the brothel.
An eager young SWAT officer reminds Bunk that they’re supposed to take down the door and go in quick, and Bunk asks if the guy expects them to flush a dozen hookers down the toilet when he knocks.
Radley should start posting this video along with the botched raid stories:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZegOl6Uj1no
The idea that FDR ended the great depression is just insane. As Cynical stated, he prolonged that disaster far beyond what it needed to be. I guess we might as well give credit to Nixon for ending Vietnam by making it worse too. The only reason we saw an economic boom after WWII was that the other major industrialized nations were in ruins, Japan, Germany, Britan, and France.
#25
Thanks for the link!
To be clear, her intelligence is apparent because of how she watches TV, not that she watches tv.
I have a Shar Pei. Goes by the name of Lazlo. About 10 months old. He very quickly learned what buttons to push and what got him in serious trouble. The breed has progressed well from the early years of importation into the country. We had one back in the early 90′s and his name (Godzilla) fit.
Intelligent dog, regal bearing, lord and master of all he surveys and so damned ugly, he’s cute.
So Tiger Woods is getting a $164 fine for the crash, but no criminal charges. That is how it should be. And that is direct evidence of why it is smart not to talk to the police about anything.
It was clear from their statements over the weekend that the Florida police were hoping for something more than a simple traffic ticket offense. They wanted to interview Tiger to fish for self incriminating evidence – evidence that they did not have without him interviewing.
He very prudently denied them that opportunity so all they could do was write him a ticket, and that’s that.
Lesson: NEVER talk to the police.
The great depression in Japan was over by 1933. By that measure, the economic results of FDR’s policies were very much inadequate. Takahashi Korekiyo, Japan’s Finance Minister, appears to have been a Keynesian. (strong fiscal stimulus, deficit spending…)
I read the piece on The Family and find it interesting that once again, NPR wants us to think that people with a libertarian view on economics somehow always are behind some nefarious plot. My guess is that the people associated with The Family are as interventionist on economic policy as the next set of Republicans.
Granted, the government-linked corporatisim that currently is draining us hardly fits the description of laissez-faire, but that is what the people at NPR want us to believe. I have no idea if The Family is behind any lawmaking (if you can call it that) in Uganda, but the idea that free markets somehow are a totalitarian plot to subjugate us is a joke, but a typical one promoted by National Government Radio.
There is so much wrong in those two sentences that I have to ask…are you stupid?
Let me see:
Roosevelt massively increased the size and scope of the government. His threat to pack the Supreme Court was nothing but a naked grab for power. This incident plus his creation of Social Security paved the way for Medicare, these two programs alone are so out of balance when it comes to their promised payments they could mean the end of the U.S. as we know it. We have a government that just can’t seem to get its fiscal house in order. My guess is that the government will just keep digging us deeper and deeper into the hole until the sides cave in.
I’m not alone in this view point either. Robert Higgs has written a blog post that pretty much sums up my views,
Keep in mind that Roosevelt firmly believed that one of the reasons for the Depression was competition. Competition was destructive and had to be reigned in. So he advocated creating large government overseen oligopolies so that prices could be artificial raised. The idea was to then pass on some of the profits to workers in the form of higher wages. To see the sheer boneheaded nature of this consider the following:
1. Higher wages mean more people enter the labor market looking for jobs paying those higher wages.
2. Oligopolies raise prices by restricting output. Less outputs means you need fewer inputs, one of which is labor.
3. With a reduced need for workers, you get unemployment.
4. People who are employed and unemployed also now face higher prices.
So, the Roosevelt policy would actually add to unemployment and reduce the ability to consume, all at a time when unemployment was at amazingly high levels and people were already suffering from privation.
But us free market types are labelled as facists. So, I ask again John Cain…are you stupid? Because your comment sure looks stupid to me.
PW,
I think I got that point finally across to my son, who is 11 by the way. Which just goes to show how fucked up this country is when a father has to say to his 11 year old son, “Never, ever trust the police. If you ever find yourself dealing with them you just say, ‘I want my father,’ over and over. Say nothing else.”
I rented the movie “In the Name of the Father” last weekend and it was interesting, thoughout the movie my son would ask, “Is this where they [the police] realize he’s innocent?” I had to keep telling him, “They knew he was innocent all along, buddy. Those police men are evil.”
You got me. LOL. They are quintessentially German intellectuals.
#26 John Cain…your views are standard for those who attended government-run education programs, but they do not reflect the reality of history. There are numerous criticisms of FDR…go find some. FDR is the epitome of everything I fear and dislike about the State.
Let’s put Jefferson at #1 and Washington at #2. I can’t name a third best…and there was plenty not to like even about those two.
C’mon Boyd, why are you playing those statist gotcha games?
The real answer is there are NO good presidents. Some of them may have been decent men, but once they take the mantle of statist power, they are all the same, every damn one of them.
/anarchist pride
Got a Sheltie, and a spaniel mix. They’re both smarter than me. In addition, the Sheltie needs about 14 hours of exercise per day, or she gets ….. creative.
I love all dogs, all breeds, all mixes. Each pup has its own personality.
FDR is definitely a top-3 worst president and no one here has even mentioned Operation Keelhaul where US and British troops were forced to repatriate not only Russian captives but also Soviet prisoners of war previously liberated by the Allies and all eastern European refugees. Many were executed within earshot of Allied troops. Many more were sent to prison camps and gulags.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Keelhaul
Even so, it’s hard to see how anyone can even be considered a close 2nd when compared to Lincoln (closest the US has come to a dictator). He imprisoned tens of thousands of northern citizens without due process (many were water-boarded), shut down hundreds of newspapers and/or arrested their editors (the most famous being the grandson of Francis Scott Key, who was editor of the Baltimore Exchange and dared allow his paper to print an editorial criticizing Lincoln for imprisoning without due process Baltimore’s mayor, 20 members of Maryland’s legislature and Congressman Henry May) and even had a Democratic Congressman from Ohio exiled. Of course, that’s in addition to the blood on his hands and and his politics of protectionist tariffs, corporate welfare, and nationalizing the money supply. Of course, he went to war to free the slaves (just like Dubya went to war to free the Iraqi people) so I guess that keeps him out of the top spot. ;)
I agree with Cynical that you can’t make a list of “best” presidents although you might could make a “least bad” list of presidents.
I have two sets of brothers. The first set is half German Shepard, half Siberian Husky; the second set of brothers is half Border Collie, half Siberian Husky.
One of each set is incredibly smart and eager to please. One of each set is more instinctive. All are really bright. It’s hard to train four dogs very well, but they have the basics (and learned ‘em quick) – all are pretty sneaky about food, though, so I have to watch what I leave out. Wish I could post pics to this site – though I doubt Radley has the bandwidth to support all the pics from proud dog owners (and the ensuing debates).
Anyway, I think Bulldogs are the dumbest breed, and I love my mixes. They learn super fast. The youngest one is typing this post – I dictate.
#38 A lot of departments would have to work hard to get up to the level of Springfield.
two people noted that Lincoln was among the worst presidents , and promptly got voted down, that says as much or more about Gov. school propaganda than all the FDR love IMO .
for those that doubt the evils of his admin. , I suggest you check out : Lincoln unmasked by Thomas Dilorenzo , for those not inclined to purchase the book and read it , heres a short Vid. that sums him up nicely I think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyEryL4PLik
Remember the bushwackers !
Had the US not entered WWI, the negotiated peace between the Allies and Central Powers would have been more equal, thus eliminating the underlying causes of WWII, which were primarily the draconian terms of the Treaty of Versailles.
It is therefore reasonable to pin WWII on Wilson too.
I’m going to have to disagree with you on this one, Cynical in CA. Wilson wasn’t pushing for heavy reperations like France was. He basically conceded to the other Allies’ demands so long as he could have his Fourteen Points, but it wasn’t as though he was the catalyst of punishing Germany into the ground and the Treaty of Versailles would have been the same if Wilson wasn’t there.
Lincoln was bad for liberty. Very bad. There is no doubt about that in my mind. I rate him better than FDR a couple of reasons though.
1. In my mind FDR is just as culpable for the oppression and enslavement of practically half of Europe under the Soviet fist as Lincoln was for the oppression of the south. FDR had a relationship with Stalin that was at best naive, at worst something outright malicious. His actions at Yalta, his conscious decision to halt American advances into Germany so the Russians could claim Berlin, his sanctioning of Keelhaul, and his callous disregard for the Holocaust refugees before the war were just as bad as anything Lincoln did.
2. FDR went much further than Lincoln in disregarding checks and balances (and neither of them had much respect for the concept as it was). Lincoln clashed with the courts, and he got slapped down a few times by the courts (most famously the posthumous ruling of Ex Parte Milligan) but it is difficult to see Lincoln ever entertaining something like the court packing scheme. It is also difficult to see Lincoln shunning Washington’s 2 term limit precedent, though FDR didn’t think twice.
3. FDR’s actual spending and social programs exceeded anything of Lincoln’s wildest dreams to the point that a comparison is not even possible.
4. Though occupied with the civil war at home, Lincoln generally refrained from meddlesome foreign policies and did what he could to defuse international conflict even when some in his own party were clamoring for it (i.e. the Trent Affair and the Alabama incident). FDR on the other hand got himself involved in practically every international conflict that came along, leading up to and culminating in his strategy for WWII.
And I rate Obama worse that Lincoln or FDR because (1) he’s taken the mess they created and turned it into a beast hundreds of times larger than either of them ever dreamed in only a matter of months, and (2) unlike Lincoln (more of a right wing tyrant) or FDR (a Keynesian mainstream left tyrant), Obama actually exhibits a personal ideological affinity for hard core far left wing marxism.
Even if he hasn’t fully acted on it yet, that marxist ideology is far more dangerous than either Lincoln or FDR at their peaks in the same sense that Lenin pre-1917 and Hitler pre-1933 were both more evil than anything that preceded them in power even though they had not yet committed the worst of their atrocities.
Or to put that all another way, Obama is the worst president because we know what he wants to do, and we know what he would do if he had the opportunity and means to do it.
What he wants to do is make government far larger, far more taxing, and far more intrusive than anything we’ve ever had yet.
If government is, as Mises told us, the antithesis of individual liberty then that makes Obama the worst president we’ve yet.
#53 – Wilson was a dangerously naive man. That much is evident by simply reading his academic work on the “science” of administration.
His problem was not a malicious intent but rather that he seems to have genuinely believed all the “science” of creating “good government” crap he was spouting in his academic papers from Princeton. And when you believe that, you start to use the government to try to do things you think are “good” only to find it impossible due to the inherently corrupt nature of government.
Most of the bad things Wilson did were done for a claimed good intention – creating the Fed, implementing the first income tax (which was intended to dismantle the protective tariff system), entering WWI, proposing the League of Nations. Then human nature kicked in and they all became the beasts that we know.
That’s what naivety gets you in government. And if you mix that same level of naivety with a far worse ideological commitment to an authoritarian marxist belief system, you get Barack Obama.
Mike O:
“I’m going to have to disagree with you on this one, Cynical in CA. Wilson wasn’t pushing for heavy reperations like France was. He basically conceded to the other Allies’ demands so long as he could have his Fourteen Points, but it wasn’t as though he was the catalyst of punishing Germany into the ground and the Treaty of Versailles would have been the same if Wilson wasn’t there.”
My point actually comes a bit earlier in the sequence of events, Mike. The contention is that if the US had not entered WWI, then the tide of American soldiers fighting in the summer of 1918 would not have inflicted defeats on the German Army that led to the armistice. The stalemate would have persisted and the war would have eventually been settled on relatively even terms.
It was the US entry in WWI, engineered by Wilson in direct contradiction to the platform on which he ran for a second term (“He kept us out of war”) that precipitated the Treaty of Versaille as written, the draconian terms of which are widely regarded as paving the way for the rise of Hitler.
A cousin of mine once bored me with a recounting of a graduate school group project he participated in, the purpose of which was to identify the qualities that make the best President of the US. After much explanation of the criteria, the group’s conclusion was:
Woodrow Wilson.
Need I say more?
Kino, I hit that link and when I saw ‘invaded’ I pretty much knew what was coming.
*sighs, limbers up a bit*
Alright, history time. The issues that led up to the Civil War were seeded well before Lincoln, dating all the way back to Andrew Jackson and his threat to hang ‘nullies’ (secessionists). As well, the Founding Fathers’ attempt to strangle slavery through the 3/5ths compromise. This was not exactly a ‘coming out of the blue’ problem.
Lincoln’s predecessor, Buchanan, was about as useful as suspenders on a snake. Weak-willed and milquetoast, he left Lincoln with tremendous tension between the North and South that had not been defused. Lincoln’s own debates with Stephen Douglas battered at some of those tensions further.
And here we come to the bitter cup, the one that most folks hate to admit. No matter how born-again Southerners like to wrap themselves in the cloak of ‘states’ rights’, the Confederacy was formed to implicitly protect their ‘peculiar institution’. In fact, the Confederate ‘constitution’ specifically banned the abolition of slavery and for states to secede from the Confederacy. States’ rights, indeed.
And I’m sure I’ll hear from those about Lincoln saying ‘If I could hold the union together without freeing the slaves, I would do it’. True. But hindsight is a privilege we have. Look back 150 years or so — the U.S. was not the world-shaking superpower it became. It had painfully repulsed the British not fifty years before (the war of 1812). If the U.S. had balkanized, how long until France, Spain, or England would have absorbed it a piece at a time?
So is Lincoln the best president? Hardly. His disregard for habeas corpus got his wrists slapped, and I have to wonder why he tolerated the parade of incompetents that passed for Union generals before finally tapping Grant to take care of business.
But don’t sell me a line on how those mean ol’ Northerners didn’t respect the South. The South had, by its embrace of slavery, pissed all over the ideals our Founding Fathers had striven for. There were good men in Rebel gray, but that doesn’t excise their error in defending the indefensible.
so where does Wilson’s wife rank in listing of good/bad presidents?