Friday, January 21, 2005
Presidents
The History Channel is running this special in which they're reviewing all the Presidents of the United States. I happened to catch from Clevland to FDR. Overall, it's very interesting to an historical illiterate (public school education) such as myself.
I would like to say a few things about the reviews:
1. We are really no different than we were a century ago. We're still arguing over much the same things.
2. We are basically a very conservative country that likes to stay to ourselves. We had to make adjustments in response to certain events (the great depression, WW I and II) but our core beliefs are still the same.
3. Democrats and Republicans have basically switched hats on a lot of things. Democrats are now the reactionary isolationists with Republicans having the Wilsonian foreign policy aspirations.
4. The History channel put a lot of weight in how good a president was by how much he did. So Coolidge got pooh-poohed and the Roosevelts could do no wrong. However, I believe that what a president doesn't do is far more important than any government growing exercise they enact.
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I would like to say a few things about the reviews:
1. We are really no different than we were a century ago. We're still arguing over much the same things.
2. We are basically a very conservative country that likes to stay to ourselves. We had to make adjustments in response to certain events (the great depression, WW I and II) but our core beliefs are still the same.
3. Democrats and Republicans have basically switched hats on a lot of things. Democrats are now the reactionary isolationists with Republicans having the Wilsonian foreign policy aspirations.
4. The History channel put a lot of weight in how good a president was by how much he did. So Coolidge got pooh-poohed and the Roosevelts could do no wrong. However, I believe that what a president doesn't do is far more important than any government growing exercise they enact.
# posted by Joe Florida @ 6:51 PM 
