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Originally Posted by JuliusSqueezer
Carter was weak. I agree. There is no absolute perfect system and not everyone can step in and clean up huge messes left behind. Viet Nam was an ugly war. It didn't get the same moral support here at home that WWII and Korea did. The baby boomers era and all that love peace and LSD didn't exactly make for a productive generation. You tie the hippy movement to the late 60s but these people weren't taking over corporate and working America till the 70s and that's the generation Carter had to work with. "We the People" does mean something...not sure what any more but it means something. A lot of those people grew up later in life and decided to be successful. (I think they all work for Microsoft now lol). It's really hard to say what would have worked better than what Carter tried but it's quite evident that Carter didn't pull it off. Carters bad times weren't anything near as bad as this mess we are in now though. We were all singing the blues back then because gas was almost 2 dollars a gallon...Interest rates were ridiculous. Heck...They were ridiculous long after carter. Regan never fixed that. Neither did Bush Sr. I was selling cars through all the Bush Sr years. Interest rates were high...They were excellent under Clinton.
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That was due to the slow "trickle down effect" after all...
And 2 dollars a gallon in 1970's money factoring in inflation and value differences of the dollar on the world market pretty much relate to what we are paying now plus or minus 20 cents a gallon.
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Originally Posted by JuliusSqueezer
Reaganomics was only slightly better than Carternomics. That whole trickle down thing never happened. Reagan did a great job of convincing poor and middle classed people that they would be trickled upon some day and even a lot of republicans snicker at that. Reagan gets the distinct record of having the most criminals on staff. What was it? Like over 200 top govt officials either on charges, resigning to avoid charges or sitting in front of the ethics committee at some point?
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In mass maybe, but in total over all corruption Regan's staff wasn't near being the worst on record for a president. That one goes to Warren G. Harding (1921-1923) and the "Ohio Gang" he brought with him. Mainly Harry Daugherty, Charley Forbes, Ned McLean, Jesse Smith, "Mort" Mortimer, and even Hardings own personal physician "Doc" Sawyer. These guys would sell appointments to office, immunity from prosecution, pardons and paroles, illegal consessions, and liquor withdrawal permits. And they didn't even try and hide it. And yes Harding was a republican who had no clue untill it was too late. As one written account goes a visitor to the White House had the misfortune of opening the wrong door and seeing President Harding with his hands around Charley Forbes neck while screaming "You yellow rat!! You double crossing bast...!!" Forbes later went to prison. And after Harding pulled in Jesse Smith for a "heart to heart" Smith promptly went home and blew his brains out. The only good thing Harding did was die of a blood clot on the brain before the scandal broke. And selling arms to Iran (huge mistake in the first place but hey we were helping them fight communism) and selling free get out of jail cards is a whole different ball game. Though come to think about it Clinton did hand out a ton of pardons and free passes when he was in office.
And also Harry S. Truman had scandal in his second term. A big one at that. And it was over deep freezers and fur coats. Some 166 IRS personel were fired or quit with many of them facing tax fixing and bribery charges. Matter of fact a certain business man who gained Truman's ear through General Harry Vaughan and gave Mrs. Truman one of these freezers was president of a perfume company that got special priority to fly into Europe as soon as the war ended to buy new perfumes. On his flight back he even "bumped" a wounded veteran from a flight so he could get back sooner.
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Originally Posted by JuliusSqueezer
Conservatives answer to everything seems to be to go blow someone up. I fail to see how a quick trigger finger rates as "conservative".
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Not so and history proves that. Abraham Lincoln didn't want a war between the states and tried everything he could think of to avoid it. And it was a democrat that got us involved in the entire Viet Nam mess. And also it was a democrat that got us involved in the Korean War also.
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Originally Posted by JuliusSqueezer
Democrats aren't perfect either...Their way does historically provide for a better economy (minus the carter years) but the war mongers typically find the dems boring. I guess it's who we are though. We are the only nation after all that mentions bombs in our national anthem.
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Which was written by a "pro-administration" party supporter which later became the "Federalist" party which was opposed by (get this one) the "Democratic-Republican" party which split 3 ways into the Republicans, Jeffersonians, Democrats. So there is no sure fire way to tell what Mr. Key was due to the mass confusion in the early years of our nations political growth.
