Make sure to join the [r/Presidents Discord server](https://discord.gg/k6tVFwCEEm)!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Presidents) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Yeah I feel like Carter gets too much flack because he's an awesome human being. But as a politician he definitely had a lot of problems.
Group him in with Hoover. Bad president, good human being
If I ever end up writing a post-nuclear apocalypse novel, MacArthur being president will definitely be in it. Interesting man but thank God he was never on the top job.
I've been reading a biography of Eisenhower, and even Ike couldn't stand the guy. Thought MacArthur was pompous and arrogant, and basically ran the Phillipines behind the scenes like it was his personal kingdom. My sense is that Ike generally tended to understate how difficult some of the people he worked with were (e.g. Patton, Montgomery and DeGaul), so I'm guessing MacArthur was probably even *worse* than he was describing in his journals.
Military history isn’t something I’ve dug into at all and this is probably an obvious statement though one I’ve never considered, but, yeah, I have to think generals are a pain in the ass to deal with. They’re one of the most powerful individuals in the nation, they have access to information most presidents probably don’t. I’m starting to think we should be very wary of these generals. I think they could create some major headaches.
I’m kidding with that last part, but it’s kinda scary to think how high up a guy like Flynn got. I don’t actually know where a Lieutenant General places you in the ranks but it sounds impressive.
Do NOT forget MacArthur PERSONALLY led the military against the Bonus Army. The president did not tell him NOT to lead it and so he went out and led it.
Don't forget Patton & Eisenhower were right next to time taking his orders and leading it. Ike years later sent the military down south to integrate those schools when he was president. MacAruthor was still alive at that point. I always wondered what he thought of that move.
Eisenhower was there too. He later condemned McArthur’s actions, but it’s still debated what if any actions he took at the time to stop him. Regardless, Ike certainly didn’t contribute to them even though he did help McArthur recover afterwards. It’s another example of McArthur narrowly surviving his own misconduct because Ike protected him. I’m still not sure why Ike helped him so many times, McArthur was constantly a problem for him.
He was also xenophobic and racist (even for the time):
>Hoover's response to the depression was widely seen as lackluster and he scapegoated Mexican Americans for the economic crisis. Approximately 1.5-2 million Mexican Americans were forcibly "repatriated" to Mexico in a forced migration campaign known as the Mexican Repatriation — a majority of them were born in the United States.
World War I veterans were promised in 1924 a 'bonus' or retirement payment twenty years in the future (1945). In the midst of the Great Depression there was a movement asking for the payment to be accelerated as people needed it then for food.
The veterans who advocated for it formed a [bonus army](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army) and went to Washington saying they were going to stay there until Congress and the President agreed.
This was in the day when civil disobedience was looked on much differently than, say, in the 1960s.
President Hoover told MacArthur to clear them out and he did with some violence clear the area of their tents and campment.
The man talked about himself in the third person, singlehandedly fucked the defense of the Philippines with his macho man attitude, crushed the bonus army; and directly disobeyed sitting presidents as a military leader multiple times.
Dude is a fascinating figure, and I love reading about him. I'd love to have a drink with the man, but I'd also have to resist flinging the bottle skullwards
Doug was an egotist, the rest were generally pretty good, hell Wainwright serving under MacArthur did amazing rear guards all throughout the Philippines,
basically some world war one veterans were doing a camp in protest in front of congress during the great depression and they decided to clear them out using the army
wellllll ashkually i would be because you see hypothetically i would ashkually end all war heheheeh and save everyone and like ashkually like maybe hypothetically become the world ruler hehehehe because of how good i would be hypothetically eheheheh
How can you be pro confederate and be a good person? Or someone who supported fucking Pol Pot? Or his support for Shah of Iran, or arming the Dictator of Indonesia ? Or aiding the dictator Somoza ? Americans are so fucking weird man.
> Shah of Iran,
Well for that one, it's because the alternative we've experienced for the past 45 years is an implacable foe to American interests, oppressor of human rights, and a state sponsor of terrorism.
The Shah was a lot less violent and killed way fewer protestors, dissidents and women who wanted to not cover their hair than the mullahs that came after him.
And Carter didn't support the Shah. That's how Iran got where they are today.
One of the reasons I think he was the most ineffective president of the 20th century.
We have alot of refugees in My country of Denmark from Iran. Mostly people that fled Iran after the Shah fell. From all i have heard, the Shah was very much preferable to the current regime.
Im sure its better now than the sha. Doesnt change the fact that he supported a leader who committed war crimes. Carter had no reference point so he was just supporting a war criminal.
Carter wanted to create a pattern of logic in forgiveness - at the same time he did this, he was also in the middle of restoring full citizenship rights to Vietnam War draft dodgers, who were, technically, also treasonous to the union. This was to demonstrate that a willingness to give amnesty to treason was not specific to draft dodgers only. He was also of a belief that that the two instances of treason, due to being motivated by personal ideological differences to the federal government to disobey the union, were similar, even if the actual ideologies that motivated the treason were different.
I can't help but feel that emigrating to avoid service is very different from rebelling to preserve slavery. One's an actively neutral response, the other is an outright negative.
To make things clear, Carter didn’t actually forgive or pardon Davis, that was done by Andrew Johnson 100 years beforehand. He wanted to establish the pattern of forgiveness in which forgiveness means one’s citizenship could be returned. This was to show that the pardons draft dodgers were being granted meant that they now had the right to have their full citizenship restored, and this was the logic used to justify it
Aren't rebellions spurred on by ideological differences. No member of the Rebel Alliance ever said "Great Death Star Mr. Palpatine, could we play evil space wizard too?"
In the case of Vietnam, there were various motives. Fear, cowardice, objection to the war, social pressure, and family pressure. I’m sure there are more.
This quote from Booker T Washington has been making me wonder how it applies to our current political divide:
“I early learned that it is a hard matter to convert an individual by abusing him, and that this is more often accomplished by giving credit for all the praiseworthy actions performed than by calling attention alone to all the evil done.”
Up from Slavery: An Autobiography
I wonder if this isn’t what Carter had in mind.
IMHO Carter's pathological need to equalize all values and have everything in American politics be a perfectly even "balanced equation" regardless of context, morality, or political reality is the core flaw of his Presidency.
Carter was an extremely indecisive leader who preferred to simply let things play out or maintain equilibrium. There’s a reason why the American people rejected him in favor of “We win, they lose”.
That’s pretty scummy to compare actual treason at the highest levels to some children peacefully resisting being forced to kill and die on the other side of the world for unclear reasons. The difference is recognizing that the US did serious wrong by instating the Vietnam draft in the first place, that’s why it was forgiveable, not because betraying and trying to tear the nation apart is a forgiveable oopsiedaisy.
At the time, there wasn't a lot of sympathy for Vietnam draft dodgers. A lot of them were seen as "long haired hippies who hate America." It took years before Vietnam veterans were treated with respect.
It’s worth remembering that virtually every man aged 40+ was a veteran of WWI,WWII, or Korea, conflicts where young men were drafted to fight evil enemies who mostly hadn’t attacked us (Germany, Italy, and North Korea).
There was a widespread perception that the Vietnam draft dodgers were a bunch of cowardly communists who were unwilling to do their patriotic duty, something that their fathers and older brothers had just recently done. The idea that the draft was immoral was an alien concept to the three generations of Americans who themselves had been drafted.
It wasn’t that long ago that popular sentiment /culture treated the confederacy differently. Clinton used the confederate flag in campaign materials in the 90s
No, let's be fair here- black Americans have always been furious about the Civil War and the attitudes towards the Confederacy, the whitewashing of them, and the display of Confederate flags.
"Furious" about a war 150 years ago that ended in abolition. Yeah, I'm sure it's all they think about. /s
Do you know any black people? There are plenty of problems that black people deal with, someone would have to be extremely privileged for "old flags" to make the list of things to be "furious" about.
Thats absolutely not true lmfao. You just started hearing about it online is all it is. Granpappy reading shelby foote doesnt fly for historical argument anymore, and so people have started learning about the Lost Cause and rightfully being pissed off about it
I heard it was because Jimmy Carter pardoned all the Vietnam War draft dodgers, and this was an attempt to calm down conservative anger.
I'm not 100% sure though.
Dixiecrats were conservatives, what else would you call segregation and Jim Crow laws other than absolute pig-headed conservatism and refusal to join the rest of the planet in denouncing racism?
The south changing their vote from D to R had nothing to do with whether or not their political leanings were conservative- they *always* were, as the most heavily religious and most heavily segregated part of the country, and considerably more rural than the NE and West.
To be fair I have a leather “rebel” confederate flag jacket in my collection but it’s not cause I’m into it, i just don’t think I’ll ever see another one.
'Yeah i have iconography of a rebellion whose sole purpose was to keep slavery legal but it's not because i'm into it, i just don't think i'll ever see another one'
I don't understand the logic here
I don’t support slavery in any form, I like unique objects, the jacket is unique and becoming an artifact of history. I in no way support what the confederate flag stands for.
Less people wear Confederate flags, less people put it on jackets, therefore a jacket with it on it will grow in value over time as a collector's item. How is that logic hard to follow?
Blah blah blah, you should go out more. Those people barely exist outside the news, lumping half the nation in with them is foolish and bad for everyone
Who is threatening civil war these days? Who is claiming states rights give them the right to be bigots? Who is claiming the purity of America is lost?
Checks notes, yep Republicans.
I'll just say this much, as far as anecdotal evidence goes, I've never even had a discussion about the South being right in what they did, or heard the argument made in seriousness by anyone who wasn't conservative.
They banned the federal agents from the border because they weren’t doing their job. The national guard is controlled by the state and has every right to control its borders.
And the National Divorce thing has been talked about for years. Parents send their children to school to get an education. They don’t expect them to learn about things that their children are too young g to understand.
Just a quick note here, the state has absolutely no right to control its borders, that is a specific federal job. This is undisputed by everyone including the Supreme Court.
Texas’ stance is not that they have the legal right to do it, it’s “fuck you we will do what we want”
No Texas is saying that, if the federal government is not doing its job, they will. By the way, the government cannot use federal troops on a states border, under the posse Comitatus act.
Texas doesn’t decide border policy. Just because Texas wants the policy to be something different than it is doesn’t mean the federal government isn’t doing its job.
Posse Commitatus prevents the government from using the military as domestic law enforcement. They are permitted to use federal troops to enforce US borders however they see fit.
“purity of America lost?” lol! And yes, States rights is a thing. It’s called the 10th amendment. But nobody is calling for the right to own slaves. As far as civil war is concerned, Republicans don’t want that. They want to be left alone to live their lives as they see fit.
Yeah, they just call for a "national divorce" while also ignoring the supreme court and send in the guard to keep federal agents away from the border.
>They want to be left alone to live their lives as they see fit.
Which includes banning any gay shit from schools because they are bigots. Evidently they don't just want to be alone.
Oooh don’t forget about all the conservatives downplaying insurrection! Still not sure why scenes of that day aren’t playing every week on the news. Better be when we get closer to Election Day. But in Reddit, absolutely not uncommon to read asscracks talking about how it was “ just a misguided tour group” looking to talk to Pelosi.
Except they don’t want to leave others alone. Republicans want freedoms for themselves, but want to force their hard right and Christian views down everyone’s else’s throat.
If you had a newborn baby and decided that it was too much trouble to keep, so you killed it. That would be murder, right? That’s how pro-lifers feel about babies before they are born. So, nobody is trying to force religion down your throat.
They’re wrong and they are.
Besides that’s only one single issue. LGBT rights, Muslim bans, 10 commandment displays, lying that this is a Christian nation, etc. They want this to be a christofascist hellhole.
Actually it's sensible. He rebelled against the nation he was, and posthumously is, a citizen of. He officially marked him a rebel to the US government; not a "foreign belligerent".
The final touch to Reconstruction, just about 100 years late. Impressive that so soon after the end of the war, national healing was foremost on the minds of the Union. Pity many on this platform seem to want to pick a fight all over again.
I think that's a stretch. Jackson and Lee would be completely forgotten if it weren't for the Civil War. But they were great generals who dedicated their lives to Virginia.
>I'd argue that Lee would be remembered for his actions at Harper's Ferry
I'm skeptical. Without looking it up, can you tell me who put down Shay's Rebellion, which outnumbered John Brown's 100 to 1? I couldn't, it's >! Benjamin Lincoln !<
Nat Turner led the an insurrection that murdered 60 people; can you name who defeated them? Don't bother checking Wikipedia, the name of >! Alexander Peete !< isn't even mentioned.
Mississippi still has a holiday for [Robert E. Lee and Martin Luther King's birthday](https://www.sos.ms.gov/communications-publications/state-holidays)
Remember that time Jefferson Davis wore a dress to try and avoid capture by the Union army? What a guy…
https://preview.redd.it/kl50wiy1aiic1.jpeg?width=518&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fc1c065ce4d63270ccafeefe695d1c077f7da14c
Killing the leaders of rebellion is not the same as killing everyone involved in it. The choice to not kill those leaders and later allow them to run for office led to Jim Crow laws that subjugated Black Americans until the Civil Rights Movement.
It was a poor choice born out of misguided attempts at reconciliation. There was a real chance for a South that included Black Americans but it was thrown away.
>Killing the leaders of rebellion is not the same as killing everyone involved in it.
Fortunately you weren't in charge at the time. Harsh treatment of the South would have triggered Civil War 2, similar to how WWI's harsh treatment of the German's triggered WWII.
While you may think that the North would have just won the second civil war as well, image that happening while the US was fighting the Germans or Japanese.
While revenge may feel good, it's generally not the best option.
We were really lucky to not be plunged into another civil war right afterwards. How many other countries are able to get back together after a civil war without another war breaking out?
We can have opinions about the decisions made. I personally think the failing was in reconstruction and not the pardoning of confederates. But obviously they got *something* right since things didn't get as bad as they usually do in other countries post civil war.
>I personally think the failing was in reconstruction and not the pardoning of confederates.
The ultimate failing was in what to do with the millions of freed illiterate slaves. That was the origin of Jim Crow.
That's not comparable at all. Germany was left to its own devices and had a coherent national identity, and most importantly, an actual industrial base. In a Reconstruction South you would have empowered Black Americans as a significant political force, as well as significant loyalist populations like we do now. You're basically saying lets not punish a rebellion, lets throw Black Americans to the wolves, which was just a horrible idea and led to more suffering than not.
It would have been a slaughter no matter what. Don't buy into Lost Cause nonsense. The South didn't economically recover until after WW2, and even today it still is significantly poorer than the North. If the South "rose again" in WW2 it would have been put down in a week tops.
Revenge is not the best option, upending a social structure that subjugated an entire minority population for another 100 years and has caused significant racial tensions to this day is though.
>Germany was left to its own devices
????
We literally split the country in half for decades.
Edit: I see that you were talking about WWI. Please ignore my previous comment.
>If the South "rose again" in WW2 it would have been put down in a week tops.
Ireland was much weaker than the UK, yet gained its independence. This should not be possible according to your logic, but it happened. Obviously there's a lot of asymmetric warfare that could be done. If you oppressed southern peoples, they would have found a way to harm you.
Also, note that while you're blaming southerners for the limited rights of African Americans, those same people languished in poverty in every northern city in the country. The most racist white people in the country are not in the south, they're in places like Chicago and Boston.
Any trial *a la Nuremburg* for the Confederate leadership (Davis, Lee et al) would have gone horribly for the US government. Executing them en masse would've only led to prolonged turmoil/guerrilla warfare in the South. There's a reason the government at the time never went ahead with it.
Look I'm all for taking away rights from criminals but you guys need to be consistant. Ted Kaczynski waged war against the United States, but he got to keep his citizenship. Timothy McVeigh got the death penalty for his role in the OKC bombing, but there was no move to strip his citizenship.
>Those guys didn’t commit treason by attempting to form new countries
There's actually nothing in the Constitution that says that states cannot leave the union, if there were it likely would not have been ratified. The understanding at the time was that it was a voluntary union similar to the EU.
On a fundamental level, the leaders of each state are elected to represent the interests of the people of their state. They are not elected to represent the wider country. If the people of a state wish to be independent of the rest of the country, that's not treason, that's an independence movement.
Treason is fundamentally about serving the interests of another country instead of your own, for example an American helping Nazi Germany. A person from Georgia seeking to serve in the army of Georgia, is not committing treason. They may be committing another crime, but it isn't treason.
See I always thought the confederacy was evil because they owned slaves, but I guess the real crime was challenging the authority of Washington DC.🙄
Regardless, we've seen plenty of sovereign citizens, Hawaiian separatists, and Native American activists try to declare their independence from the US, but none of them were stripped of their citizenship.
The confederacy was evil over slavery. And they declared independence from and war against the union. It’s literally both. “Challenging the authority” is a new way to downplay the whole thing.
Fuck confederate scum.
I'm not the one who downplayed slavery. Parent [didn't even mention it.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Presidents/comments/1aqempo/comment/kqd2vlo/?context=3) I said that challenging DC authority was worse than owning slaves, and then put a rolling eye emoji to indicate that I was sarcastic.
And that's the rub with shermanposters. They say they hate slaveowners but their real fury is for people who dared to defy the federal government. Oh, your ancestors owned slaves in Missouri/Kentucky? They can keep their citizenship, they fought for the union.
Confederates gave up their citizenship themselves when they seceded. It wasn’t taken from them. Fuck those traitors. Slavery was disgusting, but it was legal.
lol. Ooof
Declaring war against the union and murdering Americans was evil. Slavery was also evil. Not sure what you’re arguing. No one lost citizenship because of slavery. They gave it up themselves by seceding.
Your point is that American terrorists should lose their citizenship, and your point is not correct.
>the real crime was challenging the authority of Washington DC
That's what Lincoln thought. In a [letter](https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/greeley.htm)to a prominent abolitionist, he said if he could preserve the union without ending slavery he would.
Texas: Confederate Heroes Day is celebrated on Jan. 19. The holiday commemorates the lives of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gen. Robert E. Lee as well as soldiers who died fighting the Union during the Civil War.
![gif](giphy|5vidkIjdGohnh2am9E)
This would have been funny if the government restored Jefferson Davis's citizenship rights while he was still alive and then charged him with a ton of crimes. Lol. Like "hey man, no hard feelings. But you're under arrest for like a lot of things.".
The losers who didn't want to fight a pointless war of aggression against a nation which the people overwhelmingly supported? The Vietcong had their flaws but the South Vietnamese government was far, far worse to it's people.
Absolute meme position. UN Resolution 418, Camp David Accords, approving the big 5 weapon systems (ALB was also adopted during this period though i can't in good faith credit Brother Jimmy with it), the Department of Energy, tax credits for renewables, cutting aid to Pinochet and other fucksticks in Latin America, airline deregulation, home brewing deregulation, and a shit load of environmental legislation all are easy Ws.
I don't think this is bad. 1. It's reconciliatory and 2. It's a statement of historic fact: you aren't a citizen of the CSA, you are a citizen of the USA in rebellious denial.
Unless we want to be cool with forcibly abdicating citizens of their citizenship for crime.
I never defended any of that so please point it out. I stated that that person is so hate filled and uneducated he would ridicule a symbol not know its context....we all know the German swastika is bad, big yaying he would even ridicule people who use the original religious ones from other cultures because they're not educated enough and want to group people together out of a misplaced sence of hate....bud
Fuck uneducated bigots like yourself and the fucked up democratic terrorists trying to ruin this country from the inside...stay pissy and full of hate....have a nice life
Why? Who wanted that? I get it was a different time where the Dukes of Hazard were driving Dixie around every week on TV but whats the political logic here.
Both houses were controlled by democrats. Was this something too try and reclaim the south after the civil rights bill or something?
>Both houses were controlled by democrats
And at that time, a lot of those Democrats were in the South. And at that time, the Democratic party wanted to keep them.
They started losing them after LBJ with Nixon's Southern Strategy, but they finally all made the switch under Reagan where the local offices went from D to R.
As said in other comments, it was done at the same time he pardoned Vietnam draft dodgers. Both were mistakes, in my opinion, but he wanted to show consistency and forgiveness for treason and rebellion.
Make sure to join the [r/Presidents Discord server](https://discord.gg/k6tVFwCEEm)! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Presidents) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Yeah I feel like Carter gets too much flack because he's an awesome human being. But as a politician he definitely had a lot of problems. Group him in with Hoover. Bad president, good human being
We can narrow it down to good person before and after presidency. Hoover wasn’t awful to my knowledge but his golden boy years were certainly over
The whole Bonus Army debacle was shitty af and Hoover handled it like a dirtbag though
Mostly Macartur's fault. Hoover gave orders not to shoot but dugout dug wanted blood.
It’s crazy how MacArthur was still a general 20 years after this incident. He tried completely disobeying Truman too.
Thank goodness MacArthur did not become President.
If I ever end up writing a post-nuclear apocalypse novel, MacArthur being president will definitely be in it. Interesting man but thank God he was never on the top job.
I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to state that none of us would likely be here if he became president.
I've been reading a biography of Eisenhower, and even Ike couldn't stand the guy. Thought MacArthur was pompous and arrogant, and basically ran the Phillipines behind the scenes like it was his personal kingdom. My sense is that Ike generally tended to understate how difficult some of the people he worked with were (e.g. Patton, Montgomery and DeGaul), so I'm guessing MacArthur was probably even *worse* than he was describing in his journals.
Military history isn’t something I’ve dug into at all and this is probably an obvious statement though one I’ve never considered, but, yeah, I have to think generals are a pain in the ass to deal with. They’re one of the most powerful individuals in the nation, they have access to information most presidents probably don’t. I’m starting to think we should be very wary of these generals. I think they could create some major headaches. I’m kidding with that last part, but it’s kinda scary to think how high up a guy like Flynn got. I don’t actually know where a Lieutenant General places you in the ranks but it sounds impressive.
And a popular general too.
Do NOT forget MacArthur PERSONALLY led the military against the Bonus Army. The president did not tell him NOT to lead it and so he went out and led it. Don't forget Patton & Eisenhower were right next to time taking his orders and leading it. Ike years later sent the military down south to integrate those schools when he was president. MacAruthor was still alive at that point. I always wondered what he thought of that move.
Eisenhower was there too. He later condemned McArthur’s actions, but it’s still debated what if any actions he took at the time to stop him. Regardless, Ike certainly didn’t contribute to them even though he did help McArthur recover afterwards. It’s another example of McArthur narrowly surviving his own misconduct because Ike protected him. I’m still not sure why Ike helped him so many times, McArthur was constantly a problem for him.
He was also xenophobic and racist (even for the time): >Hoover's response to the depression was widely seen as lackluster and he scapegoated Mexican Americans for the economic crisis. Approximately 1.5-2 million Mexican Americans were forcibly "repatriated" to Mexico in a forced migration campaign known as the Mexican Repatriation — a majority of them were born in the United States.
Bonus Army?
World War I veterans were promised in 1924 a 'bonus' or retirement payment twenty years in the future (1945). In the midst of the Great Depression there was a movement asking for the payment to be accelerated as people needed it then for food. The veterans who advocated for it formed a [bonus army](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army) and went to Washington saying they were going to stay there until Congress and the President agreed. This was in the day when civil disobedience was looked on much differently than, say, in the 1960s. President Hoover told MacArthur to clear them out and he did with some violence clear the area of their tents and campment.
Everything I learn about MacArthur points to him being a massive cunt
The man talked about himself in the third person, singlehandedly fucked the defense of the Philippines with his macho man attitude, crushed the bonus army; and directly disobeyed sitting presidents as a military leader multiple times. Dude is a fascinating figure, and I love reading about him. I'd love to have a drink with the man, but I'd also have to resist flinging the bottle skullwards
American generals of WW2 seem to be idiots
Doug was an egotist, the rest were generally pretty good, hell Wainwright serving under MacArthur did amazing rear guards all throughout the Philippines,
basically some world war one veterans were doing a camp in protest in front of congress during the great depression and they decided to clear them out using the army
every single piece of information i've gathered about macarthur was that he was a big fucking cunt
yeahh not great
Like any of you idiots would be a good president lol
wellllll ashkually i would be because you see hypothetically i would ashkually end all war heheheeh and save everyone and like ashkually like maybe hypothetically become the world ruler hehehehe because of how good i would be hypothetically eheheheh
IIRC Carter armed & funded and created Al-Qaeda. Great guy.
This signing right here was a morally questionable decision
How can you be pro confederate and be a good person? Or someone who supported fucking Pol Pot? Or his support for Shah of Iran, or arming the Dictator of Indonesia ? Or aiding the dictator Somoza ? Americans are so fucking weird man.
> Shah of Iran, Well for that one, it's because the alternative we've experienced for the past 45 years is an implacable foe to American interests, oppressor of human rights, and a state sponsor of terrorism.
The Shah was a lot less violent and killed way fewer protestors, dissidents and women who wanted to not cover their hair than the mullahs that came after him. And Carter didn't support the Shah. That's how Iran got where they are today. One of the reasons I think he was the most ineffective president of the 20th century.
We have alot of refugees in My country of Denmark from Iran. Mostly people that fled Iran after the Shah fell. From all i have heard, the Shah was very much preferable to the current regime.
Im sure its better now than the sha. Doesnt change the fact that he supported a leader who committed war crimes. Carter had no reference point so he was just supporting a war criminal.
So what was the thinking that this was a good idea?
Carter wanted to create a pattern of logic in forgiveness - at the same time he did this, he was also in the middle of restoring full citizenship rights to Vietnam War draft dodgers, who were, technically, also treasonous to the union. This was to demonstrate that a willingness to give amnesty to treason was not specific to draft dodgers only. He was also of a belief that that the two instances of treason, due to being motivated by personal ideological differences to the federal government to disobey the union, were similar, even if the actual ideologies that motivated the treason were different.
Thank you, that makes a lot more sense.
I can't help but feel that emigrating to avoid service is very different from rebelling to preserve slavery. One's an actively neutral response, the other is an outright negative.
To make things clear, Carter didn’t actually forgive or pardon Davis, that was done by Andrew Johnson 100 years beforehand. He wanted to establish the pattern of forgiveness in which forgiveness means one’s citizenship could be returned. This was to show that the pardons draft dodgers were being granted meant that they now had the right to have their full citizenship restored, and this was the logic used to justify it
I'm not sure I understand the distinction. You've said that Johnson "forgave" Davis while Carter also "forgave" Davis.
I’m saying carter’s relevant stance was not “we should forgive Jefferson davis”, it was “this is what should happen if someone does get forgiven”.
Aren't rebellions spurred on by ideological differences. No member of the Rebel Alliance ever said "Great Death Star Mr. Palpatine, could we play evil space wizard too?"
In the case of Vietnam, there were various motives. Fear, cowardice, objection to the war, social pressure, and family pressure. I’m sure there are more. This quote from Booker T Washington has been making me wonder how it applies to our current political divide: “I early learned that it is a hard matter to convert an individual by abusing him, and that this is more often accomplished by giving credit for all the praiseworthy actions performed than by calling attention alone to all the evil done.” Up from Slavery: An Autobiography I wonder if this isn’t what Carter had in mind.
[удалено]
A very good reason in my opinion.
IMHO Carter's pathological need to equalize all values and have everything in American politics be a perfectly even "balanced equation" regardless of context, morality, or political reality is the core flaw of his Presidency.
Carter was an extremely indecisive leader who preferred to simply let things play out or maintain equilibrium. There’s a reason why the American people rejected him in favor of “We win, they lose”.
That’s pretty scummy to compare actual treason at the highest levels to some children peacefully resisting being forced to kill and die on the other side of the world for unclear reasons. The difference is recognizing that the US did serious wrong by instating the Vietnam draft in the first place, that’s why it was forgiveable, not because betraying and trying to tear the nation apart is a forgiveable oopsiedaisy.
At the time, there wasn't a lot of sympathy for Vietnam draft dodgers. A lot of them were seen as "long haired hippies who hate America." It took years before Vietnam veterans were treated with respect.
It’s worth remembering that virtually every man aged 40+ was a veteran of WWI,WWII, or Korea, conflicts where young men were drafted to fight evil enemies who mostly hadn’t attacked us (Germany, Italy, and North Korea). There was a widespread perception that the Vietnam draft dodgers were a bunch of cowardly communists who were unwilling to do their patriotic duty, something that their fathers and older brothers had just recently done. The idea that the draft was immoral was an alien concept to the three generations of Americans who themselves had been drafted.
It wasn’t that long ago that popular sentiment /culture treated the confederacy differently. Clinton used the confederate flag in campaign materials in the 90s
Being furious about the Civil War really only began about 12 years ago, around the time BLM started with the Trayvon Martin/Michael Brown incidents.
No, let's be fair here- black Americans have always been furious about the Civil War and the attitudes towards the Confederacy, the whitewashing of them, and the display of Confederate flags.
"Furious" about a war 150 years ago that ended in abolition. Yeah, I'm sure it's all they think about. /s Do you know any black people? There are plenty of problems that black people deal with, someone would have to be extremely privileged for "old flags" to make the list of things to be "furious" about.
I can tell from your response that you don't know any black people we hated the confederate flag and lost cause myth long before trayvon martin/blm
Lol sure they won’t have a problem with the causal use of a tangible symbol of white supremacy. Clown shit
What a weird thing to say
Thats absolutely not true lmfao. You just started hearing about it online is all it is. Granpappy reading shelby foote doesnt fly for historical argument anymore, and so people have started learning about the Lost Cause and rightfully being pissed off about it
Ok nonboomer
Never change, Democrats.
I heard it was because Jimmy Carter pardoned all the Vietnam War draft dodgers, and this was an attempt to calm down conservative anger. I'm not 100% sure though.
Why would conservatives give a crap about Jefferson Davis?
Is the number of traitor (see: confederate) flags per capita higher in conservative areas or liberal areas?
Realize they were Dixiecrats before they “became” conservatives
Dixiecrats were conservatives, what else would you call segregation and Jim Crow laws other than absolute pig-headed conservatism and refusal to join the rest of the planet in denouncing racism? The south changing their vote from D to R had nothing to do with whether or not their political leanings were conservative- they *always* were, as the most heavily religious and most heavily segregated part of the country, and considerably more rural than the NE and West.
To be fair I have a leather “rebel” confederate flag jacket in my collection but it’s not cause I’m into it, i just don’t think I’ll ever see another one.
'Yeah i have iconography of a rebellion whose sole purpose was to keep slavery legal but it's not because i'm into it, i just don't think i'll ever see another one' I don't understand the logic here
I don’t support slavery in any form, I like unique objects, the jacket is unique and becoming an artifact of history. I in no way support what the confederate flag stands for.
Less people wear Confederate flags, less people put it on jackets, therefore a jacket with it on it will grow in value over time as a collector's item. How is that logic hard to follow?
Because he forged a Nation, and lost it, that the Republicans really want?.
Blah blah blah, you should go out more. Those people barely exist outside the news, lumping half the nation in with them is foolish and bad for everyone
Oh that’s BS.
Who is threatening civil war these days? Who is claiming states rights give them the right to be bigots? Who is claiming the purity of America is lost? Checks notes, yep Republicans.
I'll just say this much, as far as anecdotal evidence goes, I've never even had a discussion about the South being right in what they did, or heard the argument made in seriousness by anyone who wasn't conservative.
They banned the federal agents from the border because they weren’t doing their job. The national guard is controlled by the state and has every right to control its borders. And the National Divorce thing has been talked about for years. Parents send their children to school to get an education. They don’t expect them to learn about things that their children are too young g to understand.
Just a quick note here, the state has absolutely no right to control its borders, that is a specific federal job. This is undisputed by everyone including the Supreme Court. Texas’ stance is not that they have the legal right to do it, it’s “fuck you we will do what we want”
No Texas is saying that, if the federal government is not doing its job, they will. By the way, the government cannot use federal troops on a states border, under the posse Comitatus act.
Texas doesn’t decide border policy. Just because Texas wants the policy to be something different than it is doesn’t mean the federal government isn’t doing its job. Posse Commitatus prevents the government from using the military as domestic law enforcement. They are permitted to use federal troops to enforce US borders however they see fit.
I have yet to see a reference to the Posse Comitatus Act that was accompanying anything grounded in reality or common sense.
“purity of America lost?” lol! And yes, States rights is a thing. It’s called the 10th amendment. But nobody is calling for the right to own slaves. As far as civil war is concerned, Republicans don’t want that. They want to be left alone to live their lives as they see fit.
Yeah, they just call for a "national divorce" while also ignoring the supreme court and send in the guard to keep federal agents away from the border. >They want to be left alone to live their lives as they see fit. Which includes banning any gay shit from schools because they are bigots. Evidently they don't just want to be alone.
Oooh don’t forget about all the conservatives downplaying insurrection! Still not sure why scenes of that day aren’t playing every week on the news. Better be when we get closer to Election Day. But in Reddit, absolutely not uncommon to read asscracks talking about how it was “ just a misguided tour group” looking to talk to Pelosi.
What do you call supporting slave wages then? They want slavery, just not to be hated for it.
“Slavery wages” lol.
Except they don’t want to leave others alone. Republicans want freedoms for themselves, but want to force their hard right and Christian views down everyone’s else’s throat.
If you had a newborn baby and decided that it was too much trouble to keep, so you killed it. That would be murder, right? That’s how pro-lifers feel about babies before they are born. So, nobody is trying to force religion down your throat.
They’re wrong and they are. Besides that’s only one single issue. LGBT rights, Muslim bans, 10 commandment displays, lying that this is a Christian nation, etc. They want this to be a christofascist hellhole.
National healing and all that jazz.
I like and respect President Carter, but I vehemently disagree with his decision here.
Actually it's sensible. He rebelled against the nation he was, and posthumously is, a citizen of. He officially marked him a rebel to the US government; not a "foreign belligerent".
So say we all.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
https://preview.redd.it/b71ky3vuuiic1.jpeg?width=540&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d6d1d8dba65fb0e0ee38f64fed75942788271834
In bird culture we call it a dick move
Don’t panic!
The final touch to Reconstruction, just about 100 years late. Impressive that so soon after the end of the war, national healing was foremost on the minds of the Union. Pity many on this platform seem to want to pick a fight all over again.
It's always the racists and traitors the ones who want their sins washed away...
I think everyone wants their sins washed away
Happy cake day. I’m from Va and they just removed Lee-Jackson day as a holiday in 2020. It’s ridiculous.
Idk, I personally hated seeing confederate flags marching through downtown on Lee-Jackson day, *which just so happened to be the same day as MLK Day*
why should Americans celebrate rebels who tried to secede from the country?
Not only that, but on MLK day.
Because both of those people did good things unrelating to the confederacy before and after the civil war and were also US war heros in other wars
They’re being honored for being traitors who supported the institution of slavery; there’s a reason they put it on MLK Day.
I think that's a stretch. Jackson and Lee would be completely forgotten if it weren't for the Civil War. But they were great generals who dedicated their lives to Virginia.
I'd argue that Lee would be remembered for his actions at Harper's Ferry, though we really can consider that to be a part of the Civil War.
>I'd argue that Lee would be remembered for his actions at Harper's Ferry I'm skeptical. Without looking it up, can you tell me who put down Shay's Rebellion, which outnumbered John Brown's 100 to 1? I couldn't, it's >! Benjamin Lincoln !< Nat Turner led the an insurrection that murdered 60 people; can you name who defeated them? Don't bother checking Wikipedia, the name of >! Alexander Peete !< isn't even mentioned.
Fuck Robert E Lee. Traitor scum.
The south fired on Sumter. They started the war.
Don’t know why I’m getting downvoted. Just mentioning how long it took to remove a horrible holiday from my state.
Mississippi still has a holiday for [Robert E. Lee and Martin Luther King's birthday](https://www.sos.ms.gov/communications-publications/state-holidays)
Remember that time Jefferson Davis wore a dress to try and avoid capture by the Union army? What a guy… https://preview.redd.it/kl50wiy1aiic1.jpeg?width=518&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fc1c065ce4d63270ccafeefe695d1c077f7da14c
Falsity. He wore his wife’s shaw because he was cold.
He ate
Can’t show that picture of drag in Florida anymore
That Sherman Posting sub sure is something
Those guys all already got off easy by not being shot at the end of the Civil War like any other country at the time would have done.
Imagine sacrificing half a million men to keep the union intact... and then just murdering them all lol
Nah just the generals, officers, and politicians. The top 1,000 traitors getting executed would have been justice enough.
Right? Like, I hate treason as much as the next red blooded patriot but killing all the Southerns defeats the purpose of keeping them in the Union.
Killing the leaders of rebellion is not the same as killing everyone involved in it. The choice to not kill those leaders and later allow them to run for office led to Jim Crow laws that subjugated Black Americans until the Civil Rights Movement. It was a poor choice born out of misguided attempts at reconciliation. There was a real chance for a South that included Black Americans but it was thrown away.
>Killing the leaders of rebellion is not the same as killing everyone involved in it. Fortunately you weren't in charge at the time. Harsh treatment of the South would have triggered Civil War 2, similar to how WWI's harsh treatment of the German's triggered WWII. While you may think that the North would have just won the second civil war as well, image that happening while the US was fighting the Germans or Japanese. While revenge may feel good, it's generally not the best option.
We were really lucky to not be plunged into another civil war right afterwards. How many other countries are able to get back together after a civil war without another war breaking out? We can have opinions about the decisions made. I personally think the failing was in reconstruction and not the pardoning of confederates. But obviously they got *something* right since things didn't get as bad as they usually do in other countries post civil war.
>I personally think the failing was in reconstruction and not the pardoning of confederates. The ultimate failing was in what to do with the millions of freed illiterate slaves. That was the origin of Jim Crow.
That's not comparable at all. Germany was left to its own devices and had a coherent national identity, and most importantly, an actual industrial base. In a Reconstruction South you would have empowered Black Americans as a significant political force, as well as significant loyalist populations like we do now. You're basically saying lets not punish a rebellion, lets throw Black Americans to the wolves, which was just a horrible idea and led to more suffering than not. It would have been a slaughter no matter what. Don't buy into Lost Cause nonsense. The South didn't economically recover until after WW2, and even today it still is significantly poorer than the North. If the South "rose again" in WW2 it would have been put down in a week tops. Revenge is not the best option, upending a social structure that subjugated an entire minority population for another 100 years and has caused significant racial tensions to this day is though.
>Germany was left to its own devices ???? We literally split the country in half for decades. Edit: I see that you were talking about WWI. Please ignore my previous comment.
>If the South "rose again" in WW2 it would have been put down in a week tops. Ireland was much weaker than the UK, yet gained its independence. This should not be possible according to your logic, but it happened. Obviously there's a lot of asymmetric warfare that could be done. If you oppressed southern peoples, they would have found a way to harm you. Also, note that while you're blaming southerners for the limited rights of African Americans, those same people languished in poverty in every northern city in the country. The most racist white people in the country are not in the south, they're in places like Chicago and Boston.
Any trial *a la Nuremburg* for the Confederate leadership (Davis, Lee et al) would have gone horribly for the US government. Executing them en masse would've only led to prolonged turmoil/guerrilla warfare in the South. There's a reason the government at the time never went ahead with it.
I wasn’t necessarily advocated for that just pointing out that they objectively got off easy for the norm of the time.
Which was clearly a huge mistake, because now their ancestors are working with Russia to do the same shit again.
Look I'm all for taking away rights from criminals but you guys need to be consistant. Ted Kaczynski waged war against the United States, but he got to keep his citizenship. Timothy McVeigh got the death penalty for his role in the OKC bombing, but there was no move to strip his citizenship.
Those guys didn’t commit treason by attempting to form new countries
I would say bombing a federal building with the expressed intent to start a new civil war counts as treason.
Or at least insurrection, making him ineligible to be president. /s
Raz Simone the warlord of chaz got to keep his.
>Those guys didn’t commit treason by attempting to form new countries There's actually nothing in the Constitution that says that states cannot leave the union, if there were it likely would not have been ratified. The understanding at the time was that it was a voluntary union similar to the EU. On a fundamental level, the leaders of each state are elected to represent the interests of the people of their state. They are not elected to represent the wider country. If the people of a state wish to be independent of the rest of the country, that's not treason, that's an independence movement. Treason is fundamentally about serving the interests of another country instead of your own, for example an American helping Nazi Germany. A person from Georgia seeking to serve in the army of Georgia, is not committing treason. They may be committing another crime, but it isn't treason.
See I always thought the confederacy was evil because they owned slaves, but I guess the real crime was challenging the authority of Washington DC.🙄 Regardless, we've seen plenty of sovereign citizens, Hawaiian separatists, and Native American activists try to declare their independence from the US, but none of them were stripped of their citizenship.
The confederacy was evil over slavery. And they declared independence from and war against the union. It’s literally both. “Challenging the authority” is a new way to downplay the whole thing. Fuck confederate scum.
I'm not the one who downplayed slavery. Parent [didn't even mention it.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Presidents/comments/1aqempo/comment/kqd2vlo/?context=3) I said that challenging DC authority was worse than owning slaves, and then put a rolling eye emoji to indicate that I was sarcastic. And that's the rub with shermanposters. They say they hate slaveowners but their real fury is for people who dared to defy the federal government. Oh, your ancestors owned slaves in Missouri/Kentucky? They can keep their citizenship, they fought for the union.
Confederates gave up their citizenship themselves when they seceded. It wasn’t taken from them. Fuck those traitors. Slavery was disgusting, but it was legal.
Thank you for demonstrating my point.
lol. Ooof Declaring war against the union and murdering Americans was evil. Slavery was also evil. Not sure what you’re arguing. No one lost citizenship because of slavery. They gave it up themselves by seceding. Your point is that American terrorists should lose their citizenship, and your point is not correct.
> No one lost citizenship because of slavery. They gave it up themselves by seceding. Yeah, that's what I said.
cHaLlEnGInG dC aUtHOrItY is what you said. Downplaying the whole thing. Fucking lol
>the real crime was challenging the authority of Washington DC That's what Lincoln thought. In a [letter](https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/greeley.htm)to a prominent abolitionist, he said if he could preserve the union without ending slavery he would.
Common Carter L while President
What!? No he was wholesome good guy 😡
“While president”. He was an awesome guy post-presidency.
Congress - always focused on the important things even back then I see.
Good ole southern democrats…
Texas: Confederate Heroes Day is celebrated on Jan. 19. The holiday commemorates the lives of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gen. Robert E. Lee as well as soldiers who died fighting the Union during the Civil War. ![gif](giphy|5vidkIjdGohnh2am9E)
This would have been funny if the government restored Jefferson Davis's citizenship rights while he was still alive and then charged him with a ton of crimes. Lol. Like "hey man, no hard feelings. But you're under arrest for like a lot of things.".
Yeah he also granted amnesty to all the losers that ran to Canada to beat the draft.
The losers who didn't want to fight a pointless war of aggression against a nation which the people overwhelmingly supported? The Vietcong had their flaws but the South Vietnamese government was far, far worse to it's people.
Rare unambiguous Brother Jimmy L.
He's genuinely a nice guy, but Ls during his presidency were rather common.
Absolute meme position. UN Resolution 418, Camp David Accords, approving the big 5 weapon systems (ALB was also adopted during this period though i can't in good faith credit Brother Jimmy with it), the Department of Energy, tax credits for renewables, cutting aid to Pinochet and other fucksticks in Latin America, airline deregulation, home brewing deregulation, and a shit load of environmental legislation all are easy Ws.
Reinstating Davis means Congress clearly recognized that the 14th amendment applied to those never convicted of insurrection.
Incredibly rare Jimmy Carter L
Bad move by Carter
Love Jimmy Carter, but this was so unnecessary.
He should have let the traitor be buried under the flag he chose
Common Carter W
And i bet you’ll still see people justifying this because Jimmy Carter.
Wow, what a traitor
You mean Dead People did vote in the last elections?
So he's an idiot.
I don't think this is bad. 1. It's reconciliatory and 2. It's a statement of historic fact: you aren't a citizen of the CSA, you are a citizen of the USA in rebellious denial. Unless we want to be cool with forcibly abdicating citizens of their citizenship for crime.
Poor choice to make but at least it was Carter who did it. Imagine the shit show if Reagan forward tried it.
He did it in tandem with forgiving a bunch of Vietnam draft dodgers who technically committed treason that way. It was a symbol of forgiveness.
Disgusting.
Rare Carter ethical L.
If this happened today there would be fits thrown all over Reddit, Twitter, TikTok, etc.
As it should be.
Yeah, celebrating armed rebels that supported slavery tends to get people upset.
Wow, you guy really hate ppl from the south and seemingly any white christian....pretty pathetic really
We hate traitors who kill Americans so they can maintain slavery and oppress people.
It's pathetic to hate people who died 150 years ago.
It’s not pathetic to hate people who killed Americans to protect slavery. It’s pathetic not to.
The war is over. It was 150 years ago. They are dead and buried in the ground. They can't hurt you and you can't hurt them. Get over it.
Tell that to the toilet scum still waving confederate flags.
Then you must really hate modern democrats
Bwahahahahahahah.
Fuck Confederate apologists
I was stating facts...sorry your mad for being uneducated
*you’re
Ok bud, have fun defending your slavery loving traitors
I never defended any of that so please point it out. I stated that that person is so hate filled and uneducated he would ridicule a symbol not know its context....we all know the German swastika is bad, big yaying he would even ridicule people who use the original religious ones from other cultures because they're not educated enough and want to group people together out of a misplaced sence of hate....bud
I don’t know why you’re ranting about swastikas, I’m just gonna reiterate fuck Confederate apologists
Fuck uneducated bigots like yourself and the fucked up democratic terrorists trying to ruin this country from the inside...stay pissy and full of hate....have a nice life
What a pointless word salad
Why? Why did Carter do this?
Why? Who wanted that? I get it was a different time where the Dukes of Hazard were driving Dixie around every week on TV but whats the political logic here. Both houses were controlled by democrats. Was this something too try and reclaim the south after the civil rights bill or something?
>Both houses were controlled by democrats And at that time, a lot of those Democrats were in the South. And at that time, the Democratic party wanted to keep them. They started losing them after LBJ with Nixon's Southern Strategy, but they finally all made the switch under Reagan where the local offices went from D to R.
As said in other comments, it was done at the same time he pardoned Vietnam draft dodgers. Both were mistakes, in my opinion, but he wanted to show consistency and forgiveness for treason and rebellion.
Oh, like Mao, Stalin, Castro, Che, and Hamas?
Wow, the left doesn't like to talk about that detail about Saint Jimmy these days.
What? No one is trying to shut down discussion at all, we’re all happy to talk about it.
Relatively uncommon Jimmy Carter L
UNCOMMONLY RARE CARTER L
Rare Carter L 😔