What if?????

I light of Regan's death, I have thought of how, if he were president during the crisis that we have today (Iraq, Terrorism, 9/11) how he would have handled the situation compared to Bush. How would have Clinton? Carter? Bush Senior? Ford?




Any thoughts???

 

I think your intro pretty well sums it up!

 

I have thoughts on this, on how each president would handle it. My response is of course coming from a Bush supporter and life long conservative, but keep in mind I don't follow the party line on all issues.

I think that if Reagan were president all along that we would not have the problems we have today. I think the administrations less concerned about foreign policy and more concerned with domestic policy (yes I mean Clinton) harmed our country greatly. They allowed this anti-Americanism to build to where it was on 9/11.

What the USA does affects the world no matter if we like it or not. We are stuck being the world's policeman, and the world's older brother. I don't particularly like it, but look at the position in which the other nations have put us. Sixty years ago we defended France and repelled the Nazis. We didn't want to go to war; it was brought to us when they bombed the United States. 9/11 was a bombing just the same as 12/7. To say terrorists are not governments is specious. Governments support, often secretly, these terrorists. To suggest that Saudi Arabia has clean hands is nonsense.

Who doesn't hate the rich smart kid, and as the USA we are the rich smart kid, not necessarily a role we deserve when I see the lazy, fat, dimwitted masses that make up a great segment of our population these days. But if you are the smart, rich kid who can beat the crap out of the other kids, like we were in the Reagan years then you have an advantage. Clinton turned us into the smart rich wimpy kid with glasses that pees himself when someone yells at him. We need to get back to our former country as we were under Reagan.
No matter what we do people are going to hate us anyway. So we may as well carry a big stick and be prepared to use it.

We are the only nation on earth who has military bases in foreign countries (that were not former colonies): Cuba, Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Iceland, Spain, Japan, Italy, you name it and we have probably had a base there. Many of these countries are not remarkably pleased with us for taking what they call unilateral action on Iraq (which we know is not synonymous with Al-Qaeda). Well it is not unilateral action, the UN approved it years ago but we stopped when we thought reasonable reforms would be forthcoming in Iraq. Well we, and the UN, were wrong: genocide, mass murder, torture were the rule of the day.

It is our duty insofar as we are able to stop Human Rights abuses no matter where they occur. Iraq is not the only place where the US is working. Haiti, where I went two months ago as a representative of the US Public Health Service, the Sudan, Afghanistan, South Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo that’s where we are saving lives and offering a chance at freedom and self determination.


Hindsight is perfect, but the US does the best it can. We try to be all things to all people. We help the Iranians after earthquakes, we help others after bloody civil wars, we keep the peace and rid the world of genocidal maniacs. What more does the world want from us.

The only way we could perform better is if we had all of those presidents you mentioned, Dr.Gina, at once, if we ruled by a council of those fine men. Each had qualities that made them presidential and each had a positive impact upon the US. Reagan could have used his diplomacy and communications skills as well as his great resolve, Carter could have used his compassion and military knowledge, Ford could have used his economic and political savvy, Nixon (whom you didn't mention) could use his international relations and bridge building skills, Clinton could have used his everyman popularity, George HW Bush could have used his management skills and his son can use his determination. What a fantastic team they would be. This is an example of the total being greater than the sum of the parts.

What makes our system better than the others is that they could elect me president and I could do crossword puzzles for eight years and our country would continue right along. Sure there would be a few problems to fix for the next administration but as Americans it is more important who we are individually than collectively. The US does not enlist in the army, citizens do. The US didn't go to Kosovo to keep the peace, citizen soldiers did. USPHS did not hide behind a wall in Haiti during a shooting spree (which turned out to not really be shooting) I did. The US did not save that little girl in the well (who just started college) the firefighters and construction workers did.

No matter what your political views, no matter if you are a liberal or a conservative and I think few people can describe themselves as completely one or the other, there is no higher office in the United States of America than citizen. With that office we are given the power to change the world. Our president must first be a citizen; our congressmen and representatives must first be citizens. Hundreds of thousands of people apply each year to add citizen of the USA to their pedigree. Those of us who were born with it often take it for granted, but I am certain each person who worked for it never takes it for granted.

As citizens, the most powerful officeholders in our nation, we have the duty to responsibly execute our office. We must vote for whom we feel is the best candidate after careful consideration. We must act compassionately and we must work to bring the freedoms we enjoy, and often take for granted to the rest of the world. It is only through these actions that we truly are citizens, through these actions that we are truly free. Freedom is a burden placed upon each one of us. If freedoms are abrogated we must act swiftly and decisively to restore those freedoms or we risk returning to a culture of repression and servitude.

I know that this will probably generate responses but please don't respond if you are not a citizen or resident of the US. I don't comment on Canadian or Norwegian politics, and I would hope you could reserve comment to things in your immediate purview. Please also don't comment if you did not vote in the last election. If it is not important enough for you to vote, then I certainly don't consider your opinion important enough to consider.

 

Thanks. What an interesting and generous-minded post!

An interesting add-in to your mix would come from one of our least-regarded presidents from long ago: the sheer guts of Andrew Johnson.

 

I wish a post like this was included in the leading newspapers of the world from time to time. It would help to remind the world just who the USA is and what it represents to the nations of the world.

I am not an American, but the role of the USA needs to be acknowleged.

 

And I also think your greatest modern presidents were Reagan and Nixon.

 

OK, I'll let non-Americans post if they agree with me

Actaully anyone can post, but if you are Swedish or Bangladeshi I'll give much more weight to your comments about your country than to those about the States. I don't mean to be exclusionary except to those do can and don't vote.

 

Amused,

Franklin Roosevelt. You must have forgot about him. He was the first modern president( The use of radio as a tool...media as it were)

 

No, not impressed. Have read too much of Murray Rothbard to be 'impressed' with the New Deal that helped to prolong the Great Depression in America.

 

This is all so very confusing. So are we the smart rich kid who beats the crap out of everyone, or are we the fat lazy dimwitted masses? Or are we the smart rich kid who pees on himself? It's the individual citizen that's important, not the collective, yet the cadre of presidents would be greater than its parts?

What if we're just the smart rich kid? Or what if we're just rich and can beat the crap out of everyone? Can you be rich without the ability to beat the crap out of everyone? Can you beat the crap out of everyone and still be smart - or rich for that matter?

Everyone hates the smart rich kid who can beat the crap out of everyone. But which part of that causes the hatred? Is it ever justified - the hatred that is?

But the message seems to be everyone hates us anyway so carry a big stick and use it. This is good advice for a country - yet advice you wouldn't dream of giving to your fourth grader? Or maybe you would? Just don't tell your kid to beat the crap out of my kid, or I'll have to beat the crap out of you.

I do agree, though, we need to get back to beating the crap out of people. We do far too little beating the crap out of people, and most countries just don't appreciate what a burden it is to always have to beat the crap out of people. But, as you say, it is our duty to beat the crap out of people. I for one do miss it. It makes me long for Reagan. He was so good at ordering others to beat the crap out of stupid people, even though when his generation was beating the crap out of people, he was making movies. But he knew that Americans all over really longed to beat the crap out of stupid people, and it made him so popular, because he touched the crap beating chord in all of us.

It's hard to be the smart rich kid who can beat the crap out of people, especially when we're constantly forced into this role by the stupid poor weak kids.

 

The constant refrain of the world is 'Why is the US..' or 'Why isn't the US...' - starting a war, stopping a war, joining a war, feeding the world, etc.

 

Thanks for that it was very educational. I learned never to use an analogy on here ever again.

In fact I learned it is really pointless to attemp intelligent discussion on here. I guess we should just stick to berating one another's degree programs, worrying about someone else's dissertation and general kvetching. Intelligent discussion is apparently impossible.

I give up, you people win. Stupidity rules. The few are ruining this for the many just like AED.

If you want to know about distance learning and avoid flame wars, political grandstanding, academic penis envy, and battles about the usefulness of accreditation then buy the books of Dr. Bear et al. Local public libraries are also a fantastic authoratative resource.

If one of the administrators would be so kind as to delete my account so I can avoid near temptation of posting here again.

 

Stick around, mdoneil; you talk a lot of sense.

 

One caustic post from Tom57 and mdoneil runs off weeping?

Let's accuse Tom57 of being a USA hater. Then we'll feel better.

 

What if...Rothbard had stuck to economics? Alas!

 

Of course, as we all know, France, Germany and certain Middle Eastern countries constitute "the whole world", so the "whole world" hates us.

Tom57 states about Reagan, "when his generation was beating the crap out of people, he was making movies". He is right--three Reagan films were released during World War II.

Such bullies we are. We really should have kept our smart rich kid nose where it did not belong...like World War II. After all, was Hitler a direct threat to us?* Hitler did not even threaten our oil reserves.* However, at that time, France seemed quite agreeable to having us smart rich kids come and beat the crap out of the Third Reich. And Saddam was not such a bad guy, was he?* After all, why should we worry about Saddam's mass murder, torture, raping, history of invasion of other countries and the use of poison gas, etc., since "the whole world" might accuse us of being smart rich kids who want nothing more than to beat the crap out of everyone. I can certainly understand why Germany was so sore at Reagan and the U.S. After all, they lost a perfectly good wall.*

Isn't being liked by France, Germany, the U.N. and everybody else what our soldiers since the Revolutionary War have sacrificed their lives for? Isn't that what the U.S.A. is all about?

Tony (who usually shuns political posts, but couldn't resist this one)

* just in case someone chooses not to note my sarcasm and elects to take me literally, I reference it here.

 

I think Reagan would be less concerned with public and world opinion regarding "fighting by the rules."

Pug

 

World War II was a just war, if such a thing exists. However, can we please stop justifying every conflict since then on WWII? Does France really owe us anything because of WWII? Maybe they’re ungrateful (I suspect most are not). So what? Conservatives spend so much time denigrating them, why, then, do they care so much about their actions? Was the deal that they would have to agree with us on every political issue from WWII on? Was that the freedom we won for them? Same for the Middle East and Germany.

Six million Russians lost their lives in WWII. You don’t see Russia complaining about what an ungrateful lot the rest of the world is.

Perhaps conservatives could model themselves after Hollywood and organize an awards show every other week, so they could have ample opportunity to pat themselves on the back. “Greatest heroic country in the world, and the winner is: The United States of America.”

Most of us cynical liberal Commies really are patriotic (and please don’t smash my windows). A healthy dose of cynicism keeps the unbridled enthusiasm in check, and vice versa. I think that’s the kind of freedom that was fought for. Questioning authority is integral to our society. Ask Robert McNamara about this, as he does his conscious-clearing tour across America and talks of the mistakes of Viet Nam. Oh yeah, I know, McNamara’s just another guilty Berkeley liberal, blahbity, blahbity blahbity…

While we’re at it, maybe we can stop modeling foreign affairs and wars after simplistic playground dynamics. Bloody noses are not quite the same thing as exploded heads.

 

If FRD read a textbook on Austrian economics, then he wouldn't have had to read poetry to the American people in the midst of a government created tragedy.

 

Or, better yet, let's accuse him of being a terrorist, take away his Constitutional rights, and lock him up indefinately without filing charges or giving him access to an attorney.

Nevermind that everyone knows he is not actually a terrorist. We are in a war. A war on terrorism. Or a war on drugs. Or whatever. It doesn't matter. We are in a perpetual war, and we should not allow something as silly as the Constitution to stand in the way of "Protecting The Constitution."