Why do you rate Washington on the lower side?
Because he was on the wrong side of the slavery topic. As a general/commander, I think Washington was top notch. As a leader who signed a document that said āall men are created equalā that also personally owned slaves, I canāt bring myself to rate him more than so so.
If I were to rank him against all the other FFs though, Iād probably put him pretty near the top.
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True; however, the revolution may not have happened if Jefferson, Washington, Adams, etcā¦ put their foot down on the slavery issue in 1775-1776. The South would obviously not have supported rebellion if they had.
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Considering our choices this past election cycle, Iād say no. Our other option was Hillary. Clearly character was not on the ballot this past year. Every time Hillary hiccups another bone flies out of her mouth. She has more baggage than a container ship.
This election was lose-lose, most people voted on who sucked less.
Honestly, I have been fine with Trump policy wise, so far. I just wish heād shut up or I would even settle for speaking like a grown up. I am not going to get my wish. He is who he is.
He will get his chance to show up. Something major is bound to happen in the next 4 years.
All this petty squabbling butt smacking in Washington says to me that things are pretty good right now. When something happens that forces us to re-evaluate our priorities in life, something went wrong.
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I get why it was the lesser of 2 evils at the time, I just need a TON of reasons in the positive column to rank someone who owned human beings above those that didnāt.
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I understand. I just think context is very important when talking about this specific issue. The FFs may not have ended slavery like most people think they should have and many were obviously hypocrites as you noted, but they laid the foundation that led to the end of slavery. Slavery was the norm and the FFs ideas were already radical enough for their time.
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I would rank the FFs above virtually every other American of that time period. Strictly in the context of āBest POTUS,ā I think owning another human being is enough of a character flaw to drop them down under people who didnāt when comparing Presidents.
Had Washingtonās stance on slavery been the same, but he himself not personally owned any, thereās a decent chance my opinion would change. To me, him actually owning people is the part I canāt really reconcile with.
Adams specifically said that was the conundrum for independecy. They needed the south to declare for it and the south would not budge on slavery. So itās either remain British subjects, or free the slaves. You could not have both.
So they back burner-ed slavery in favor of independence.
What I do not understand is why they did not implement slave treatment laws. I am sure they could have passed some legislation that would lessen some of the tortures slaves endured and would be agreeable to the South. After all, not all slave owners mistreated their slaves and I am sure some protections could have been passedā¦
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Ya, possibly, but remember, for quite a while directly after the revolution the FFs were scrambling just to write the Constitution, create trade deals & alliances with other nations, and just generally figure out how to pay for things.
I remember reading about the difficulties Jefferson had in building a Navy to combat the Barbary pirates. Our militaryās size and strength is not something early America was blessed with.
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Ya, I get it, itās hard to get past. Itās just personal preference on an opinion rating anyway, lol. I just think it makes more sense to rank a person in accordance with the norms/context of their time not our own. We have the benefit of hindsight, they had to make decisions based on their reality.
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Hindsight is 20-20 as they say. Washingtonās best friend was his slave Billy Lee, but it was an issue he struggled with regardless. I believe we will one day view abortion in the same context, as an abomination sometime in the future (not in my life time). Those people grew up with it, it was around them all the time, it was normal. Itās hard to put yourself in the same place because we grew up with it being one of the worse atrocities committed by man. But back then, that wasnāt the case. Washingtonās slaves had gun and other āweaponsā and had they wanted to they could have taken out olā George, but they didnāt. He didnāt mistreat his slaves though and not everybody did. I would dare say, a lot more people didnāt mistreat their slaves than did. Property or not. I āownā things and I donāt beat the crap out of them or mistreat them because like other property, mistreated property doesnāt perform well. I beat the hell out of y car, it wonāt be a good car for very long. That in no way justifies slavery, it is the abomination we think it is. But we didnāt grow up with it, if we did it would be normal to us.
It makes me wonder what my opinion would have been if I hadā¦ I would like to think it was wrong anyway, but thatās tough know. People made pro-slavery arguments on behalf of the slaves. There were people who thought that slavery was actually good for the slaves and that āfreeingā them would doom them, be bad for them because they donāt know anything other than slavingā¦ History is fascinating.
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Indeed it is.
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Very well said Pat.
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Pat:
In many ways; it appeared to me that people voted for someone whom they could live withā¦because they hated the other personā¦and what they felt they stood forā¦so much more.
(Probably just semanticsā¦and we are saying the same thing?)
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Great idea for a thread. Iād be down to try, but Iām not sure I could rank all 44 due to being unfamiliar with a number of them beyond the very bare superficialities. I could get down with a top 10 or 20 as a bit better.
Anyone with a brain and intellectual honesty to himself would see that this book is rubbish.
Before trying to argue politics with that guy and to untangle the nonsense he built for himself remember that this guy takes crystal meth as a pre workout and who knows how much steroids.
Saved you some time.
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Heās trolling and you just fed him.
This thread he OPād is a troll. Almost nobody has said Trump is the greatest (except Trump).
He picked the LEAST credible anti-obama book for fun.
He doesnāt take crystal meth for PW.
Donāt believe everything you read on the internet.
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I donāt believe he is a troll. A good portion of republicans think like that.
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Improving markets means āhands off.ā You canāt plan a market and when you try they are rife with unintended consequences. Maybe the conservative historian scholars are basing their opinion more on esteem and less on economic data.