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Is Ronald Reagan the best President all time?

Was Ronald Reagan the best President of the all times?

  • I'm a right leaning American, yes

    Votes: 2 2.2%
  • I'm a right leaning American, yes and the United Statss needs a President like him now

    Votes: 9 9.9%
  • I'm a left leaning American, yes

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I'm a left leaning American, yes and the United States needs a President like him now

    Votes: 1 1.1%
  • I'm a right leaning American, no

    Votes: 23 25.3%
  • I'm a left leaning American, no

    Votes: 41 45.1%
  • I'm not from America, yes

    Votes: 1 1.1%
  • I'm not from America, no

    Votes: 14 15.4%

  • Total voters
    91
if reagan gets credit for ending it (via his proxy war funding of the mujahadeen), he also gets blamed for making OBL viable.


sure you want to put him down for that?

Sure,times change. Reagan didn't make OBL, he gave them weapons to fight the Russians. Foreign policy after Reagan is what pissed OBL off, that and the cozy relationship past administrations had with the Saud family. The thing that created OBL was the religion peace in the final analysis.
 
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There are several studies showing that defense spending is not an efficient way to generate jobs. Find evidence to dispute that

we have to consider how much more development could have happened if the funds were spent on something productive.

8/10 govt. AND private sector workers today owe their incomes to the defense spending of Ronald Reagan. The defense tech that is now in use in IT is tech that was developed through such spending. Many private companies today owe their existence to defense contracts from the Reagan era. The defense sector is actually a highly productive, if not the most productive and beneficial sector for the US economy both directly and indirectly.


Anti-war types and Liberals simply don't like this reality so they try to paint it as somehow invalid.



The average person though doesn't understand the hard bolts of politics and economics. They inject emotions into it where there should be none. They simply will never understand how the world actually functions on the ground and the poll is evidence of this. Most people do not understand the concept of cumulative results and direct and indirect impacts. Such concepts to the average person are mere conspiracy. They don't have the IQ's to process them.[/QUOTE]
 
Reagan was Reagan. He was indeed something special... not perfect (his presidency had several serious faults) but the right man at the right time.


If you didn't live through the Carter years, or you weren't old enough to understand what a bleak time they were and how hope for the future was dying like drought-withered grass, then you'll never understand what Reagan was or why so many people loved him so.



Perfect? No. Greatest Prez of all time? Probably not. The man we needed in the moment we needed him? Hell yes.

I was an infant when Carter was POTUS, but I respect your opinion.

Was Carter worse than Obama? Of course Im asking in your opinion.
 
I was an infant when Carter was POTUS, but I respect your opinion.

Was Carter worse than Obama? Of course Im asking in your opinion.


It is hard to say which was worse. Each was worse in some ways than the other. Neither is/was much of a president.

The Carter years though, were darker. I have trouble explaining just HOW dark to people who didn't live through it. I was young, a teenager, but I remember. I particularly remember the adults I looked to at the time, how grim they were, how worried and fearful, and how they struggled against despair. After the chaos of the 60s and the war and civil unrest, followed by the scandal of Watergate, things were looking grim. So many things came together at once (supposed energy crisis, Soviet expansion and threats from them and the Chinese, the nuclear Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads and doubts that Carter would retaliate leaving us looking weak, hostage crisis in Iran cannot be understated, the "Misery Index" and recession, and more) to rob the people of hope and optimism, and we had no leadership helping us get past that.

Every time our leaders appeared on TV, they looked grim and worn, and sounded overwhelmed and exhausted, shoulders slumped, and spoke as if America was already finished.


Then came Ronald Reagan, and he was standing up straight and proud and smiling... his tone, his face, his manner all projected a confidence that was nothing short of ASTONISHING in those VERY dark times, when most people were beginning to believe the End was upon us. He told us that No, this was not the end of America... just the beginning. "I have a vision of a shining city on a hill, where it is not sunset in America, but only morning."

He gave hope where hope seemed gone.


Read this speech and maybe you'll understand better why so many people loved Reagan... not because he was the perfect conservative President, but because he brought hope to a people who had all but abandoned hope.


11/3/1980 Speech
 
It is hard to say which was worse. Each was worse in some ways than the other. Neither is/was much of a president.

The Carter years though, were darker. I have trouble explaining just HOW dark to people who didn't live through it. I was young, a teenager, but I remember. I particularly remember the adults I looked to at the time, how grim they were, how worried and fearful, and how they struggled against despair. After the chaos of the 60s and the war and civil unrest, followed by the scandal of Watergate, things were looking grim. So many things came together at once (supposed energy crisis, Soviet expansion and threats from them and the Chinese, the nuclear Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads and doubts that Carter would retaliate leaving us looking weak, hostage crisis in Iran cannot be understated, the "Misery Index" and recession, and more) to rob the people of hope and optimism, and we had no leadership helping us get past that.

Every time our leaders appeared on TV, they looked grim and worn, and sounded overwhelmed and exhausted, shoulders slumped, and spoke as if America was already finished.


Then came Ronald Reagan, and he was standing up straight and proud and smiling... his tone, his face, his manner all projected a confidence that was nothing short of ASTONISHING in those VERY dark times, when most people were beginning to believe the End was upon us. He told us that No, this was not the end of America... just the beginning. "I have a vision of a shining city on a hill, where it is not sunset in America, but only morning."

He gave hope where hope seemed gone.


Read this speech and maybe you'll understand better why so many people loved Reagan... not because he was the perfect conservative President, but because he brought hope to a people who had all but abandoned hope.


11/3/1980 Speech

Now that was a speech. Its almost hard to imagine a POTUS is capable of sounding like this, (maybe Bush after 9/11 but not quite) it certainly does not sound like Obama.

But the similarities between Carter and Obama are striking.
 
Goshin's post accurately capture the sentiments of many people at the time. Reagan did nothing productive, but he did make gullible people feel like big daddy was now in charge and America was OK again.
 
Goshin's post accurately capture the sentiments of many people at the time. Reagan did nothing productive, but he did make gullible people feel like big daddy was now in charge and America was OK again.


I think that is an understatement of positively British proportions.

Leadership is a complicated matter, a mixture of many parts of which planning and administration are only two elements. A good leader is also part actor and psychologist; do not discount the status of "figurehead" as mere stagecraft. To lead it is not enough to simply think and plan and decide... you must reach the People and capture their imagination and restore their hope.


Hope, you see, is an odd thing. Given the exact same environment and circumstances, people WITHOUT hope tend to sit and await their doom, while people WITH hope tend to work hard toward a better future. Which benefits a nation? Sometimes even thin or false hope is better than no hope. Hope or its lack can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A nation's strength is not just the number of troops or tanks or warships; it is also the leader's seeming willingness to use them at need, and the morale and will of the military and the People. This is another way that leadership and the projection of a strong leader makes a huge difference.


Reagan truly believed we could turn things around, and made the people believe, and then we DID.


That was why he was so loved.
 
Goshin's post accurately capture the sentiments of many people at the time. Reagan did nothing productive, but he did make gullible people feel like big daddy was now in charge and America was OK again.

The economy improved. He won the cold war without firing a shot. Americans were proud and hopeful again.

I dont see how you could call that "nothing productive".
 
Reagan was Reagan. He was indeed something special... not perfect (his presidency had several serious faults) but the right man at the right time.


If you didn't live through the Carter years, or you weren't old enough to understand what a bleak time they were and how hope for the future was dying like drought-withered grass, then you'll never understand what Reagan was or why so many people loved him so.



Perfect? No. Greatest Prez of all time? Probably not. The man we needed in the moment we needed him? Hell yes.

I agree Reagan was a great leader. I said that earlier in this thread.

But the constant pointing at Carter 'years' as being awful and the reason Reagan's was needed is a bit unfair. Many of the things that were making Americans unhappy and questioning our place in the world happened during other Admins. Vietnam wasn't Carter's doing, nor was Watergate, nor the Oil Crisis.

The end of the Nixon Admin and Ford's time in the WH were damn bad, probably worse than Carter's.

Carter inherited a lot of BS, as has Obama.

I'm not saying Carter was a good president, he wasn't, but much of the darkness and despair wasn't his doing.
 
I agree Reagan was a great leader. I said that earlier in this thread.

But the constant pointing at Carter 'years' as being awful and the reason Reagan's was needed is a bit unfair. Many of the things that were making Americans unhappy and questioning our place in the world happened during other Admins. Vietnam wasn't Carter's doing, nor was Watergate, nor the Oil Crisis.

The end of the Nixon Admin and Ford's time in the WH were damn bad, probably worse than Carter's.

Carter inherited a lot of BS, as has Obama.

I'm not saying Carter was a good president, he wasn't, but much of the darkness and despair wasn't his doing.


Agreed. The problem was he didn't provide very good leadership through those problems and crises that came his way.

Don't get me wrong, I believe Jimmy Carter is a man of good intentions. It is just his ability to lead and make good decisions regarding national policy that appear to be non-existant.
 
Agreed. The problem was he didn't provide very good leadership through those problems and crises that came his way.

Don't get me wrong, I believe Jimmy Carter is a man of good intentions. It is just his ability to lead and make good decisions regarding national policy that appear to be non-existant.

Yes, Carter was NOT a good leader. And I guess being a good leader is an important part of being a president. I was just pointing out that much of what people criticize Carter for was actually other Admins fault. LBJ and Ford were pretty bad and caused a bunch of problems. Nixon was a good president, but his Watergate fiasco maybe was the turning point on when Americans really lost their trust in the Office of President. Even with Reagan the trust wavered at times.
 
Question cannot be answered.

We have no knowledge of times after this moment, in which a better president may exist, even by Reagan fanboy standards.


Which is of course not to say he WAS the best up til this point. And even then it depends on what parameters you're using to judge presidents by.
 
I agree Reagan was a great leader. I said that earlier in this thread.

But the constant pointing at Carter 'years' as being awful and the reason Reagan's was needed is a bit unfair. Many of the things that were making Americans unhappy and questioning our place in the world happened during other Admins. Vietnam wasn't Carter's doing, nor was Watergate, nor the Oil Crisis.

The end of the Nixon Admin and Ford's time in the WH were damn bad, probably worse than Carter's.

Carter inherited a lot of BS, as has Obama.

I'm not saying Carter was a good president, he wasn't, but much of the darkness and despair wasn't his doing.

I agree, but we perceived the Carter years as being very bad and the Reagan years as being very good . Niether of those perceptions really hold true to historical reality, but...

when leadership is the issue being discussed, perception matters more than reality.
 
I agree, but we perceived the Carter years as being very bad and the Reagan years as being very good . Niether of those perceptions really hold true to historical reality, but...

when leadership is the issue being discussed, perception matters more than reality.

Perhaps we can agree that Carter being perceived as a weaker leader, and Reagan as a stronger one was highlighted by the fact that one superseded the other. There are of course other reasons as well.
 
I agree, but we perceived the Carter years as being very bad and the Reagan years as being very good . Niether of those perceptions really hold true to historical reality, but...

when leadership is the issue being discussed, perception matters more than reality.

Most of politics is nothing but perception.
 
Perhaps we can agree that Carter being perceived as a weaker leader, and Reagan as a stronger one was highlighted by the fact that one superseded the other. There are of course other reasons as well.

That is the perception, but not the reality. Carter gave us four years of peace. As i documented in earlier posts on this thread, Reagan stole the election by bribing the Iranians to hold the hostages until after the election, armed Iran, illegally supported terrorist Contrast in Nicaragua with money from cocaine sales, and got us into a complete fiasco in Lebanon. The claim that he ended the cold war is complete BS, Gorbachev and his supporters did that.
 
Everyone has already forgotten that Reagan wasted billions of dollars, set air traffic safety back at least ten years and indirectly caused plane crashes by firing nearly all experienced air traffic controllers.
 
He was a RINO.
 
Everyone has already forgotten that Reagan wasted billions of dollars, set air traffic safety back at least ten years and indirectly caused plane crashes by firing nearly all experienced air traffic controllers.

Which plane crashes did Reagan cause?
 
In 1984 Ronald Reagan got the best result in history of the United Staates Of America. The Reaganomics were popular all around the world. Do you think that he was the greatest President of the United States?

He gave amnesty to nearly 3 million illegals which resulted in the 12-20 million illegals we now have in this country, Iran contra, he wiped his ass with the 2nd amendment with the Hughes amendment and created a list of those he ban from owning guns under the guise of the firearm owners protection act and I am sure if I dug deeper I can find other things Reagan did that ****ed up.
 
He gave amnesty to nearly 3 million illegals which resulted in the 12-20 million illegals we now have in this country, Iran contra, he wiped his ass with the 2nd amendment with the Hughes amendment and created a list of those he ban from owning guns under the guise of the firearm owners protection act and I am sure if I dug deeper I can find other things Reagan did that ****ed up.

Pioneered the first cap and trade system!

Massive increase in police-based authoritarianism. (but a lot of conservatives seem to favor this)

Reversed the trend of America paying off its debt.
 
That is the perception, but not the reality. Carter gave us four years of peace. As i documented in earlier posts on this thread, Reagan stole the election by bribing the Iranians to hold the hostages until after the election, armed Iran, illegally supported terrorist Contrast in Nicaragua with money from cocaine sales, and got us into a complete fiasco in Lebanon. The claim that he ended the cold war is complete BS, Gorbachev and his supporters did that.

Four years of peace? How about four years of not responding to acts of war?
 
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