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Your prefered Historical Leader


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#1 the_colossus

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Posted 09 September 2010 - 11:42 PM


Which leader, past or present would you want to run your country or every country? You can use whatever criteria you want and this leader doesn't necessarily face re-elections. Most leaders in history were monarchs.

I was going to ask for going for the goal of immortality and most scientific one. If you want to you can, just I don't want to exclude someone else preferred choice and their is more to being a great leader then a love of science.

A leader who loves science but is terrible at economic would devote more in the short-term, but not in the long-term.

I have no idea, hence the reason for the thread.

#2 hotamali

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Posted 15 September 2010 - 09:49 PM

Ahmad Shah Massoud

#3 CuringTheSane

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Posted 22 September 2010 - 03:18 AM

Anyone who truly represents the people, and by that I mean, their country, and it's native culture.

In the past century:

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu
Muammar al-Gaddafi
Adolf Hitler
Evo Morales
Hugo Chavez

+ dozens of others

If any optimism can exist in the modern world, it would be the thought that there will be a return of real leaders who are not subject to the will of international financiers like the majority of those that exist today. Once the economies in the West crumble, I think we'll start to see who truly represents the people, and who doesn't. What's unfortunate is that such extreme scenarios are the only thing that appear to decolonize the minds of society.

Edited by CuringTheSane, 22 September 2010 - 03:18 AM.

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#4 chris w

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Posted 22 September 2010 - 06:53 PM

And you couldn't have picked some more figures like, I don't know, even Suharto would be fine, if you're that much into authoritarism or some other 3rd World libertador instead of, uhm, a genocidal maniac ( or do you subscribe to the theory that Hitler didn't plan and didn't know about Holocaust ? ) Truly a decolonisator of German minds, yeah. Too bad the war he waged ended in the biggest catastrophe happening to the Germans in their whole history, I don't know if that really qualifies a politician as a succesful leader of his nation, if sole moral repugnance doesn't cut it for you here.

And if you're worried about the mythical "international financiery", then again, instead of Hitler you should have gone with Strasser brothers if you really needed to be a nazi apologist, in this paper Troy Southgate will tell you that Adolf was actually pretty buddy buddy with the big Capital ( I especially picked an author that you perhaps might find reliable ).

To me your list would look like this, from the most unacceptable to the least unacceptable :

Hitler ( no need to explain )
Codreanu ( assasinations, a religious loon )
Quaddaffi ( Lockerbie, and a loon )
Chaves ( power tripping )
Morales ( he's just dumb, maybe too much koka chewing )

Personally, I'd give Ralph Nader a shot, but after he has gotten some anti anarcho-primitivist reeducation.

Edited by chris w, 22 September 2010 - 07:40 PM.

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#5 maxwatt

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Posted 22 September 2010 - 07:40 PM

Gengis Khan. He made the camel-trains run on time.

Which member of Congress would you like to see?

I'd like Alan Grayson, if he were to pick Ron Paul as his running mate, which he just might do. They've co-sponsored legislation, and have more in common than one might think.

Non members of congress in the US? Mike Bloomberg.

I bet 35% of the US population would pick Jesus.

Edited by maxwatt, 22 September 2010 - 07:41 PM.
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#6 Rational Madman

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Posted 23 September 2010 - 12:04 AM

Anyone who truly represents the people, and by that I mean, their country, and it's native culture.

In the past century:

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu
Muammar al-Gaddafi
Adolf Hitler
Evo Morales
Hugo Chavez

+ dozens of others

If any optimism can exist in the modern world, it would be the thought that there will be a return of real leaders who are not subject to the will of international financiers like the majority of those that exist today. Once the economies in the West crumble, I think we'll start to see who truly represents the people, and who doesn't. What's unfortunate is that such extreme scenarios are the only thing that appear to decolonize the minds of society.

Wow, I'm speechless. Seek professional help with all possible speed.

Edited by Rol82, 23 September 2010 - 12:16 AM.

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#7 e Volution

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Posted 23 September 2010 - 01:31 AM

None! I think knowledge is power and these guys mentioned thus far don't have the knowledge we have now, and if they did, who knows maybe they wouldn't be the people they became.

My vote for leader is DukeNukem :)

#8 niner

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Posted 23 September 2010 - 02:59 AM

Does my choice of leader get to be a dictator? If they were just President, it wouldn't matter how smart they were or how good their ideas were, because ideological knuckleheads would refuse to go along with his elite smarty-pants plans. Maybe we could transplant Craig Venter's brain into Ronald Reagan's body. That might work.
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#9 CuringTheSane

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Posted 23 September 2010 - 05:29 AM

Personally, I'd give Ralph Nader a shot, but after he has gotten some anti anarcho-primitivist reeducation.


No man is without fault, and I do not share the views entirely of these people, political, or otherwise. It was funny to see the knee jerk reactions though.

I voted for Nader, he's a noble guy, and supports his people, but he is not what I would consider a leader, and will never be able to gain enough power to make the type of change which forever solidifies such a person into the pages of history.
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#10 chris w

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Posted 23 September 2010 - 11:55 AM

My vote for leader is DukeNukem :)


Now, I don't know if you mean here director of the forum propagating Paleo diet or the blond son of a gun :cool: . 'Cause I could vote Scott, the latter seems like he might be a Republican type. Much unilateral.

#11 maxwatt

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Posted 23 September 2010 - 11:59 AM

Personally, I'd give Ralph Nader a shot, but after he has gotten some anti anarcho-primitivist reeducation.


No man is without fault, and I do not share the views entirely of these people, political, or otherwise. It was funny to see the knee jerk reactions though.

I voted for Nader, he's a noble guy, and supports his people, but he is not what I would consider a leader, and will never be able to gain enough power to make the type of change which forever solidifies such a person into the pages of history.


Nader already made the type of change forever solidified in the pages of history: he gave us George W. Bush, enabling his dubious win in Florida by five votes. The rest, as we say, is history: flawed 9/11 response, ruinous economic policy with swollen deficit, and the economic meltdown as his last gift to the nation before departing the stage.

On consideration, I propose Richard Nixon. In retrospect, he is looking very good.
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#12 Rational Madman

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Posted 24 September 2010 - 04:46 AM

Which leader, past or present would you want to run your country or every country? You can use whatever criteria you want and this leader doesn't necessarily face re-elections. Most leaders in history were monarchs.

I was going to ask for going for the goal of immortality and most scientific one. If you want to you can, just I don't want to exclude someone else preferred choice and their is more to being a great leader then a love of science.

A leader who loves science but is terrible at economic would devote more in the short-term, but not in the long-term.

I have no idea, hence the reason for the thread.


This is kind of a pointless exercise, because there is no reliable methodology for objectively measuring the relative historical accomplishments of "historical leaders," which is a description so vague that countless conclusions could be made by thread participants----but I presume you mean chief national executives. But I guess we could change the parameters of the thread topic a bit, and ask which past or present chief national executive do you identify most with---without consideration of the immeasurable weight of their comparative accomplishments? Still, my attempt to simplify this exercise does not liberate it of difficulty, because normative changes and knowledge of indignifying details about our revered historical leaders makes it a labor for me to deify them as so many do with little apparent effort or thought. That said, and if forced to choose immediately, I would say that the chief national executive that I find the most captivating, enchanting, and identifiable would be John F. Kennedy, whom I may start thread about at some point in order to bolster and protect his legacy on this forum. This interest is not meant to suggest that his reputation has ever been in peril here, but rather, I want to help diversify our discussion focuses a bit.

Edited by Rol82, 25 September 2010 - 08:37 AM.


#13 medicineman

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Posted 24 September 2010 - 03:42 PM

Nikholai Bukharin would have made an excellent leader. It is unfortunate where he ended up, and it makes me really sad when I think about it.

#14 chris w

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Posted 24 September 2010 - 06:49 PM

That said, and if forced to choose immediately, I would say that the chief national executive that I find the most captivating, enchanting, and identifiable would be John F. Kennedy, whom I may start thread about at some point in order to bolster and protect his legacy on this forum. This interest is not meant to suggest that his reputation has ever been in peril here, but rather, I want to help diversify our discussion focuses a bit.


I will eagerly read your take on that Rol82, as I've been under the impression that JFK is often regarded by American historians as being a sort of "shooting star" president, full of idealism and an inspirational speaker but not entirely an achiever if you look at hard facts ( like many critics would say about a certain other US chief executive ...), except the space program :

- Pig Bay Invasion - big time fail due to refusal to provide air support to Brigade 2506, which failure in turn contributed partly to

- Cuban Missile Crisis, but the fact the world didn't blow up should actually be attributed to both Kennedy's and Chruschev's sanity obviously

- I think I read that still as a senator he was unwilling to condemn McCarthy even when his paranoia was already becoming apparent, but I'm not sure about that atm

- During his time in office, Kennedy increased the number of U.S. military in Vietnam from 800 to 16,300, but then again one's assesement of that will depend on if somebody thinks this war made sense or not, but the subsequent decades proved the Domino Theory to be more or less false

- The bulk of the task of changing the racial relations in America was carried out by the somewhat less flaring Johnson.




BTW His handsomness - waaay overblown

Edited by chris w, 24 September 2010 - 06:52 PM.


#15 Rational Madman

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Posted 25 September 2010 - 07:55 AM

That said, and if forced to choose immediately, I would say that the chief national executive that I find the most captivating, enchanting, and identifiable would be John F. Kennedy, whom I may start thread about at some point in order to bolster and protect his legacy on this forum. This interest is not meant to suggest that his reputation has ever been in peril here, but rather, I want to help diversify our discussion focuses a bit.


I will eagerly read your take on that Rol82, as I've been under the impression that JFK is often regarded by American historians as being a sort of "shooting star" president, full of idealism and an inspirational speaker but not entirely an achiever if you look at hard facts ( like many critics would say about a certain other US chief executive ...), except the space program :

- Pig Bay Invasion - big time fail due to refusal to provide air support to Brigade 2506, which failure in turn contributed partly to

- Cuban Missile Crisis, but the fact the world didn't blow up should actually be attributed to both Kennedy's and Chruschev's sanity obviously

- I think I read that still as a senator he was unwilling to condemn McCarthy even when his paranoia was already becoming apparent, but I'm not sure about that atm

- During his time in office, Kennedy increased the number of U.S. military in Vietnam from 800 to 16,300, but then again one's assesement of that will depend on if somebody thinks this war made sense or not, but the subsequent decades proved the Domino Theory to be more or less false

- The bulk of the task of changing the racial relations in America was carried out by the somewhat less flaring Johnson.




BTW His handsomness - waaay overblown


The Bay of Pigs invasion, and the escalation of the US commitment to Southeast Asia were unfortunate byproducts of mass hysteria surrounding the growing strength of the international communist movement, and its implications for American interests, which gave rise to a voracious appetite for security in the minds of a shaken American public. To satiate this unruly appetite, the Kennedy campaign unveiled a bold new defense strategy that promised a radical paradigm shift from a New Look defense posture---that sought the achievement of only military parity, and relied on the threat of a retaliatory deployment of strategic nuclear weapons as a disincentive against crossing the sovereign red lines of important band-wagoning states---to a flexible response strategy that broadened deterrence to the threat of conventional military retaliation against the ostensibly global and monolithic campaign of communist aggression. Furthermore, the flexible response strategy aimed for the achievement of military supremacy instead of parity, and promised the provision of aid to band-wagoning states throughout the international system, not just to states where treaty obligations or private defense agreements compelled action. By making this audacious promise, Kennedy attacked Nixon (and the Eisenhower administration by extension) from the right, and helped to neutralize any doubts about his commitment to checking the red menace, which turned out to be critical to his ascension to the White House. But as a consequence, the adoption of such a strident position made it difficult for decisionmakers to change the trajectory of policy---even if clashed with their private sentiments. So, ironically, the flexible response strategy stripped policymakers of flexibility.

Since the interaction between domestic politics and foreign policy decision making is unavoidable in consolidated democracies, the pressure for action in Cuba and Vietnam was too difficult to ignore. This is not to mention the bureaucratic pressure that Kennedy was subjected to, and because of his initial insecurity, easily a victim to in spite of private reservations. But as his first term in the White House progressed, Kennedy's enthusiasm for both objectives became increasingly tepid. Evidence of his diminishing enthusiasm was palpable in the Bay of Pigs Invasion, which was developed and approved for execution by the Eisenhower White House, but repeatedly modified to lighten the US footprint and the risk of retaliation. Importantly, though, the CIA deliberately massaged intelligence assumptions in order to assuage the concerns of Kennedy, who they sensed to be ambivalent. Furthermore, neither the White House, nor the CIA were aware of the popular strength of Castro's government---since their ability to penetrate the country was limited, and because the veracity of intelligence assets would later turn out to be doubtful. Nor was the White House and other organs cognizant of the extent of the surreptitious Soviet commitment, and the compromise of the date, site, and details of the planned invasion by Soviet moles. So, the failure at the Bay of Pigs was understandable in the context of domestic political imperatives, bureaucratic models of decision making, the dangerous fog that impaired policy making decisions of the United States, and institutional hubris.

The Kennedy stance on Vietnam is one of the most controversial questions of his administration, and despite the impressive work of historians, remains shrouded with ambiguity. While Kennedy ordered the commitment of over 16,000 advisors, this was the predictable, and necessary consequence of his defense strategy and campaign promises, which he couldn't afford to betray if he wished to successfully pursue his broad and ambitious agenda over two terms. However, he became increasingly disenchanted with the enterprise as it became clear that the cognitive dissonance of the military and the intelligence community was leading to dangerously rosy assessments of a situation where the United States could have little traction. So, as a consequence of his changing attitude, efforts to reduce tensions between the two polar blocs were launched, and the American position in neighboring Laos was reassessed, ultimately leading to a serious de-escalation. In his final year, a previously unconscionable review of the situation in Vietnam was also begun at the great annoyance of some policymakers, and resulted in small, but meaningful changes that were meant to test the reaction of domestic political audiences, and determine the flexibility that the administration had for future changes before and after the election. The most important change, which was the withdrawal of 1,000 advisors, is of yet to be determined importance, because Kennedy's position was not without equivocation, and bore the hallmarks of a deeply conflicted leader terrified of divulging his innermost doubts. But, his doubts grew unabatedly, and became increasingly difficult to conceal. Although there is no primary source document that demonstrates his intention to withdraw from Vietnam, he did confide to one of his closest aides, and de-facto chief of staff, Kenneth O'Donnell, that he intended to begin the American withdrawal in earnest after the 1964 election. So, I believe he's undeserving of blame for hopelessly escalating the conflict, and in all likelihood, would have carefully ended our relationship in manner similar to Truman's abandonment of Nationalist China.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the relatively cooler temperaments of Kennedy and Khrushchev were indeed critical to the successful resolution of the crisis, but because of the presence of tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba (that didn't require authorization for use in the event of an invasion), and the risk that situational stress might contribute to catastrophic miscalculations of many of the players possessing the capacity to launch a preemptive or retaliatory launch of strategic nuclear weapons, their mutual refusal to succumb to the hard liners within their administrations is deserving of our utmost appreciation. But in situations of a heightened security dilemma, even a carefully crafted response can result in a miscalculation, and a spiraling escalation of conflict. During the quarantine, for example, an attempt by the USS Beale to alter the course of the Soviet nuclear submarine B-59 led the commanding officer to panic, and order a unilateral change in the combat status of one of the nuclear torpedoes at its disposal----an order which was forcefully belayed by the submarine's executive officer, and evidence of the precariousness of the crisis, and the acute risk of escalation.

The Kennedy family's association with Senator Joseph McCarthy was indeed troubling, but owing more to the Senator's romantic relationship with two of his siblings (Eunice and Pat), the popular hysteria over the burgeoning strength of the international communist movement, the latter Senator's employment of his ambitious younger brother, and the family's guilt over their support of a posture of appeasement during the crucial events that preceded the outbreak of the Second World War. This guilt was especially affecting for JFK, who made the rationalization of appeasement policy the subject of his undergraduate thesis---which much to his embarrassment, was proudly published by his unrepentant father. So, when elected to Congress, there was an understandable insecurity over the family's previous stance on the matters of war and aggression, and a commanding need to prove their zeal as warriors of the Cold War, which unfortunately manifested in their support for McCarthy's Chairmanship of the Committee for Government Operations. However, there is evidence that JFK was privately dismayed by the tenor of the committee's proceedings, and its indiscriminate targeting. But, the combination of the aforementioned reasons, and the pernicious influence of his father likely gave him some pause on the question of censuring McCarthy.

While the Civil Right Act and subsequent Voting Rights Act were enacted during the Johnson administration, the legislation was prepared during the Kennedy administration, but because the state of racial inequality did not rank high on the list of poll determined priorities of the American public, it was rightly decided to be ill-advised to force the legislation, and incur serious opportunity costs through the expending of a higher than needed amount of political capital. Rather, the groundwork was laid through White House directed pressure against Congress, an attempt to raise public awareness of the issue, and measures that helped to construct a bridge towards the introduction and ultimate enactment of the legislation: such as the Interstate Commerce Commission's order of the desegregation of public buses, an aggressive implementation of the Brown vs. the Board of Education decision, the use of federal agencies to support the voting registration of African Americans, and the deployment of federal resources to protect activists in the South against wanton acts of violence and harassment. Had Kennedy survived his tragic trip to Dallas in the Fall of 1963, there is a general agreement that the legislation would have likely proceeded on the same schedule, and with the same urgency that the Johnson administration placed on its enactment.

This is all terribly unfortunate, because the palpable change of many of JFK's positions may have yielded important dividends had his life not been terminated prematurely. And while its true that his legislative achievements paled in comparison to the Johnson and Roosevelt administrations, the progressive scope of his vision was a decade ahead of its time, and so eminently agreeable on every front---from foreign to domestic policy---that I have little trouble overlooking his many deficits, and am utterly convinced of his sincerity and willpower would have led to seismic changes that would have destroyed any doubts about his historical importance.

Finally, I don't think it was his handsomeness that contributed to his sex appeal, but rather, it was his formidable charisma and uncommon vision that seduced the minds of so many susceptible women. For many, Camelot constituted a break from the unrevolutionary 50s, and a cure to so many unattended wounds that were allowed to fester. His presidency was of an exceptional importance, that's not analogous to that of the Obama administration or any other, because his ascension marked the beginning of the most important and dramatic shift in culture and norms that our country has ever witnessed, and may never be replicated. While President Obama, like President Kennedy, succeeded in captivating the American public, the former's powers of persuasion only had a transient effect, and thus not worthy of comparing to the enduring effects of Camelot.

Edited by Rol82, 25 September 2010 - 09:30 AM.

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#16 Rational Madman

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Posted 25 September 2010 - 08:34 AM

And you couldn't have picked some more figures like, I don't know, even Suharto would be fine, if you're that much into authoritarism or some other 3rd World libertador instead of, uhm, a genocidal maniac ( or do you subscribe to the theory that Hitler didn't plan and didn't know about Holocaust ? ) Truly a decolonisator of German minds, yeah. Too bad the war he waged ended in the biggest catastrophe happening to the Germans in their whole history, I don't know if that really qualifies a politician as a succesful leader of his nation, if sole moral repugnance doesn't cut it for you here.

And if you're worried about the mythical "international financiery", then again, instead of Hitler you should have gone with Strasser brothers if you really needed to be a nazi apologist, in this paper Troy Southgate will tell you that Adolf was actually pretty buddy buddy with the big Capital ( I especially picked an author that you perhaps might find reliable ).

To me your list would look like this, from the most unacceptable to the least unacceptable :

Hitler ( no need to explain )
Codreanu ( assasinations, a religious loon )
Quaddaffi ( Lockerbie, and a loon )
Chaves ( power tripping )
Morales ( he's just dumb, maybe too much koka chewing )

Personally, I'd give Ralph Nader a shot, but after he has gotten some anti anarcho-primitivist reeducation.

What's so troubling is that the ideologies of the listed figures are irreconcilable, and by selecting them, the poster is not only demonstrating his hopelessly disordered mind, but a tenuous connection with reality. It's not my intention to be disparaging, or to cause a disturbance of feelings, but I have difficulty accepting that a sound mind could make this list, and can't ignore it as another polarizing posting.

#17 maxwatt

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Posted 25 September 2010 - 10:05 AM

Rol82 - when is your book coming out? You cannot possibly have penned that analysis off the top of your head. And be easy on Chris -- I suspect his list is intended to outrage rather than to make a serious case.

WRT Viet Nam: Theodore White, in his autobiographical In Search of History, cites a second-hand quote from (I think) Kennedy's press secretary. Two weeks before his death, Kennedy was asked what he was going to do about the situation in South Viet Nam. Kennedy allegedly said "Easy. We'll have a coup and put in a government that will ask us to leave." When Johnson ascended to the office, asked what he would do about Viet Nam, Johnson said he intended to continue Kennedy's policies. White's point was that Johnson was so outside the Camelot loop, he sadly didn't have a clue what those policies were. Johnson did strong-arm congress into passing the Civil Rights Act, something White doubted neither Kennedy nor Johnson could have done had Kennedy not been assassinated.

Did Johnson actually say when he signed the bill: "We (the Democrats) have lost the South for a generation."? It marked the beginning of the ascension of the Republican Party, and the Great Swap, trading the South for the North East.

#18 chris w

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Posted 25 September 2010 - 12:16 PM

And be easy on Chris -- I suspect his list is intended to outrage rather than to make a serious case.


*cough* *cough*, the original dictators list wasn't by me Max, all I did was to try to baptize it with some reality in my post, notice I wrote - from the most to the least UNaceptable, not that I have warm feelings for any of those individuals.

Besides, don't fall for that "too outraging to be serious" trap. Some people will claim Hitler was actually a worthy figure just to make a polarizing claim, but some will be entirely serious and I rarely take fascism apologism as a joke of sorts, I suspect CuringTheSane has the balls to actually mean what he wrote.

Edited by chris w, 25 September 2010 - 12:36 PM.


#19 maxwatt

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Posted 25 September 2010 - 12:27 PM

And be easy on Chris -- I suspect his list is intended to outrage rather than to make a serious case.


*cough* *cough*, the original dictators list wasn't by me Max, all I did was to try to baptize it with some reality in my post, notice I wrote - from the most to the least UNaceptable, not that I have warm feelings for any of those individuals.

sorry about that, I did't reading your post carefully enough to notice they weren't your choices.

#20 chris w

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Posted 25 September 2010 - 12:46 PM

Ok then

And thanks for your extensive reply Rol82, when I have a couple of minutes I'll definitely delve into that.

#21 CuringTheSane

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Posted 25 September 2010 - 02:17 PM

What's so troubling is that the ideologies of the listed figures are irreconcilable, and by selecting them, the poster is not only demonstrating his hopelessly disordered mind, but a tenuous connection with reality. It's not my intention to be disparaging, or to cause a disturbance of feelings, but I have difficulty accepting that a sound mind could make this list, and can't ignore it as another polarizing posting.


Spare me your limp wristed quasi-liberalist blather. My political and philosophic views were not bred in some cultural Marxist university like yours, so I understand it's hard to envision anyone falling outside of the rubber stamped respones that exist today in political thought. Initiating a dialectic with a cheapness such as yours would promise to be an utterly boring, and exhaustive exercise in futility. This system, and the minds that it has managed to produce, are worthless, as can easily be witnessed by the very design of your own short sighted logic. That pathetic essay you dragged out from your days as a sexless undergrad was thoroughly enjoyable though.

As much as I would like to, I've learned that your kind cannot be entirely dismissed, because much to my disappointment, you still have an unhealthy amount of sway.
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#22 CuringTheSane

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Posted 25 September 2010 - 02:19 PM

Nader already made the type of change forever solidified in the pages of history: he gave us George W. Bush


No, your broken democracy, and lack of a functional education system gave you George Bush.

#23 Rational Madman

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Posted 25 September 2010 - 03:20 PM

And be easy on Chris -- I suspect his list is intended to outrage rather than to make a serious case.


*cough* *cough*, the original dictators list wasn't by me Max, all I did was to try to baptize it with some reality in my post, notice I wrote - from the most to the least UNaceptable, not that I have warm feelings for any of those individuals.

Besides, don't fall for that "too outraging to be serious" trap. Some people will claim Hitler was actually a worthy figure just to make a polarizing claim, but some will be entirely serious and I rarely take fascism apologism as a joke of sorts, I suspect CuringTheSane has the balls to actually mean what he wrote.


Oh, to be clear, I was criticizing Curingthesane's post. By quoting ChisW, I was merely agreeing with his writing.

#24 Rational Madman

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Posted 25 September 2010 - 04:32 PM

What's so troubling is that the ideologies of the listed figures are irreconcilable, and by selecting them, the poster is not only demonstrating his hopelessly disordered mind, but a tenuous connection with reality. It's not my intention to be disparaging, or to cause a disturbance of feelings, but I have difficulty accepting that a sound mind could make this list, and can't ignore it as another polarizing posting.


Spare me your limp wristed quasi-liberalist blather. My political and philosophic views were not bred in some cultural Marxist university like yours, so I understand it's hard to envision anyone falling outside of the rubber stamped respones that exist today in political thought. Initiating a dialectic with a cheapness such as yours would promise to be an utterly boring, and exhaustive exercise in futility. This system, and the minds that it has managed to produce, are worthless, as can easily be witnessed by the very design of your own short sighted logic. That pathetic essay you dragged out from your days as a sexless undergrad was thoroughly enjoyable though.

As much as I would like to, I've learned that your kind cannot be entirely dismissed, because much to my disappointment, you still have an unhealthy amount of sway.


Well, I can certainly drag out essays from my graduate and undergraduate days, but my posting from late last night wasn't an example of such. And they weren't composed as a celibate, but I suspect your baseless speculation about my sex life is just a product of your towering logic and uncontaminated mind. But nice try anyway, and thanks for the morning laugh. I actually copy and pasted your postings, and sent them to some colleagues. To say the least, their responses ranged from utter horror to hysterical laughter, because it's so rare that we encounter a specimen like yourself. I mean, we know your kind exists, but we thought you confined yourself to apocalyptic cults and bigoted rallies that espouse long discredited ideas from the farthest reaches of the fringe. Really, you could sustain a living by charging an admission fee for the privilege of witnessing your rants, which would undoubtedly garner more interested spectators than an albino tiger exhibit at the zoo, or maybe a touring Picasso showing---especially since Guernica comes to mind when I muse about your writings.

Since I'm having difficulty rationalizing your worldview, let me try to construct your narrative, and please fill in the gaps. You were born in a remote concrete bunker somewhere in the wilderness of Montana, home schooled by your militant parents on subjects ranging from Scientology to The Turner Diaries, spent your formative years terrorizing immigrants whilst distributing national socialist literature on street corners, became incarcerated after sending letter bombs to prominent members of the intelligentsia, and most recently, composed an incoherent manifesto that attracts fawning praise only in the dark corners of cyberspace.

Please, please, write more.

Edited by Rol82, 25 September 2010 - 09:49 PM.

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#25 Rational Madman

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Posted 25 September 2010 - 04:52 PM

What's so troubling is that the ideologies of the listed figures are irreconcilable, and by selecting them, the poster is not only demonstrating his hopelessly disordered mind, but a tenuous connection with reality. It's not my intention to be disparaging, or to cause a disturbance of feelings, but I have difficulty accepting that a sound mind could make this list, and can't ignore it as another polarizing posting.


Spare me your limp wristed quasi-liberalist blather. My political and philosophic views were not bred in some cultural Marxist university like yours, so I understand it's hard to envision anyone falling outside of the rubber stamped respones that exist today in political thought. Initiating a dialectic with a cheapness such as yours would promise to be an utterly boring, and exhaustive exercise in futility. This system, and the minds that it has managed to produce, are worthless, as can easily be witnessed by the very design of your own short sighted logic. That pathetic essay you dragged out from your days as a sexless undergrad was thoroughly enjoyable though.

As much as I would like to, I've learned that your kind cannot be entirely dismissed, because much to my disappointment, you still have an unhealthy amount of sway.


Oh, and you're right, my kind does hold considerable sway, and we owe much of our stature to Jewish financiers, the Learned Elders of Zion, the Masonic Society, and a ruling body of reptilian humanoids.

Edited by Rol82, 25 September 2010 - 05:02 PM.


#26 Rational Madman

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Posted 25 September 2010 - 05:56 PM

Nader already made the type of change forever solidified in the pages of history: he gave us George W. Bush


No, your broken democracy, and lack of a functional education system gave you George Bush.


Ah-hah, an overlooked piece of the puzzle. So, where exactly are you from? And tell me, what's the genesis of your username? Perhaps a revelatory LSD trip that rendered you forever deluded?

#27 maxwatt

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Posted 25 September 2010 - 09:11 PM

I should as a moderator be slapping everyone on the wrists for this kind of exchange, but I haven't enjoyed a flame-war like this for a while. I'd just sit back and enjoy this battle of wits, but I'm afraid one side has run out of ammunition.

#28 chris w

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Posted 26 September 2010 - 12:27 AM

Name calling aside, I actually would like to hear on specific propositions from CuringTheSane on how to fix political systems of the Western world, other than stuff like "leaders should truly represent their nations" and "make education better", might be refreshing when all you hear is the awful liberal left Stone/Moore propaganda ;) .

#29 Rational Madman

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Posted 26 September 2010 - 12:52 AM

Name calling aside, I actually would like to hear on specific propositions from CuringTheSane on how to fix political systems of the Western world, other than stuff like "leaders should truly represent their nations" and "make education better", might be refreshing when all you hear is the awful liberal left Stone/Moore propaganda ;) .


As would I, because I'm laboring to understand what exactly his philosophy is, because who in their right mind would place Hugo Chavez in the same group as Adolf Hitler? Or Qadhaffi in the same group as Morales? His thinking does, however, bear a striking resemblance to that of Ahmadinejad, and makes me wonder if he's the product of a society where the state stifles certain forms of scholarship, and places a distorting emphasis on other forms of scholarship (if you want to call it that).

#30 Rational Madman

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Posted 26 September 2010 - 02:47 AM

Rol82 - when is your book coming out? You cannot possibly have penned that analysis off the top of your head. And be easy on Chris -- I suspect his list is intended to outrage rather than to make a serious case.

WRT Viet Nam: Theodore White, in his autobiographical In Search of History, cites a second-hand quote from (I think) Kennedy's press secretary. Two weeks before his death, Kennedy was asked what he was going to do about the situation in South Viet Nam. Kennedy allegedly said "Easy. We'll have a coup and put in a government that will ask us to leave." When Johnson ascended to the office, asked what he would do about Viet Nam, Johnson said he intended to continue Kennedy's policies. White's point was that Johnson was so outside the Camelot loop, he sadly didn't have a clue what those policies were. Johnson did strong-arm congress into passing the Civil Rights Act, something White doubted neither Kennedy nor Johnson could have done had Kennedy not been assassinated.

Did Johnson actually say when he signed the bill: "We (the Democrats) have lost the South for a generation."? It marked the beginning of the ascension of the Republican Party, and the Great Swap, trading the South for the North East.



Well that's an interesting quote with potentially important implications for the legacy of President Kennedy. But, I'm somewhat dubious, because Pierre Salinger wasn't exactly an administration insider or confidante, and only a handful of sources have privately or publicly confirmed Kennedy's sensitive, and not completely formulated plans for extricating the United States from South Vietnam. Anyway, although contemporary accounts have tried to salvage his legacy, Johnson was considerably more hawkish than his predecessor, viewed world politics through a zero-sum prism, had the terrible weakness of using absurdly strained historical analogies to justify his decisions, and had a John Birch Society-like understanding of Soviet intentions and capabilities("If we allow Vietnam to fall, tomorrow we’ll be fighting in Hawaii, and next week in San Francisco.") As a legislator, he did indeed have a brutish Tom Delay-like effectiveness, but I don't consider this to be a desirable attribute for a legislator, because it can have a polluting and polarizing effect on the legislative process---which I think is his greatest legacy---and sacrifice short term (and in some cases, long term successes) successes for long term legislative stalemates. This is not to say that his legislative accomplishments were not necessary or exceptional, but rather, that the style was short sighted and shouldn't be cited as a successful precedent. When considering the variable behind the passage of civil rights legislation, his legislative talent may have indeed played a role, but as the Kennedy administration was preparing for its legislative push, public opinion was already animated about the state of civil rights, and whatever limitations that Kennedy had as legislator could be compensated for with voter mobilization, which he was much more adept. In my opinion, though, the legislative skills of Johnson were secondary to the residual trauma that the Republicans endured after the Congressional elections in 1958, and the Presidential election of 1964, both of which forced a divisive period of re-discovery, and made them more pliant as the opposition party. The assassination theory, though, may have some explanatory power, but I haven't made an attempt to examine the polling data for this period. On a superficial level, though, it does appear that popular sympathy in the aftermath of JFK's assassination played an important role in the subsequent successes of the Democratic Party. But again, Goldwater/Rockefeller cage match+deeply affecting electoral defeats=a sure recipe for disaster.



When he succeeded Kennedy in high office, Johnson was indeed outside of the loop----because his chief value was electoral---but he was nonetheless deeply concerned about events in Vietnam, and the evident signs of a change in U.S. posture. Although he was initially cautious about the escalation for practical political reasons, there is no convincing evidence that he was deeply troubled by the moral dilemmas of escalation---save for the potential loss of American lives, and by sustaining a highly dubious and indiscriminate bombing campaign, he made it abundantly clear that the lives of Vietnamese civilians were of relatively little worth. So, it's my conclusion that if there was no domestic political conflict with a fervent implementation of his broad interpretation of the Truman Doctrine, then there would have been very little restraining him from disastrously committing US forces to multiple theaters.


I think it's immaterial whether or not Johnson actually voiced his fears that the prospects of the Democratic Party would precipitously decline in the aftermath of civil rights legislation, because that shift in loyalty was already inevitable, and because its progress was already apparent to Johnson before and after he launched his legislative agenda. And although the Republican Party certainly capitalized on this opportunity, I believe the rise of the Republican majority was owing more to the alienation of blue collar, tradition valuing, God-fearing, and jingoistic households, whom became deeply dismayed by the apparent rise of lawlessness, the uncomfortably rapid rate of political change, the increasing prominence of Democratic war-making contrarians (Kennedy, McCarthy, Muskie, and McGovern), growing economic strains, the rise of social liberalism, the weight of the ostensible federal burden, and Johnson's mismanagement of the Vietnam War (which Nixon dubiously promised to end with honor). Having an acute understanding of the political mood, and possessing the cynicism to comprehensively re-brand himself for political expediency, Nixon managed to help revive the fledgling fortunes of a still fractious Republican Party, and deliver a much needed success in the Presidential contest. The means used to achieve these ends had a scarring impact on our civil society, though, and greatly outweighs whatever noteworthy accomplishments that his administration can claim credit. In any case, although the change in Southern loyalty helped catalyze the temporary recovery of the Republican Party, I believe its electoral importance is less important than the Midwestern and Western states, which have greater electoral weight and malleability (Also, I no longer consider much of Florida as part of the South, and Texas, well that's the one of the few biggies).


Finally, as for the source of my analysis, much of it was indeed composed from the top of my head, since I write pretty informally on this board, and possess an exceptional memory that I ceaselessly endeavor to optimize. Further, I've been inundated with methodologies, data, trivial information, and theories throughout my education, which I suppose has improved my ability to render analyses without the assistance of literature for time sensitive assignments. However, I do double check some facts if I'm not completely sure, but fact checkers have rarely found any serious problems with my work. For my scholarly (meaning potentially publishable) work, though, the composition process goes much slower, because there's no room for analytical or factual errors, and the structure, clarity, power, and prose has to be as flawless as possible.




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