Jimmy Carter

Carter was right that there was a malaise in American society, and that malaise has led us directly to where we are now. Which is not a good place.I understand your opinion of Carter--you've made it clear. Like others here, I think you've bought the narrative that turns a good, ethical leader into a wimp, as though we'd have been better off with a nastier man. We tried that; it didn't work.It is difficult for me to understand how someone can be cognizant of Reagan collaborating with Iran to lock up the election, and then term him a strong leader and Carter a weak one. Like Obama, Carter had the potential to be a great president; like Obama, he ran into opposition that favored party over republic.If you are waiting for leadership that can simply brush off the antics of the GOP, you'll wait a long time.

So there were big positives to Reagan's presidency that I missed? Pray tell.

You must be amazed to encounter our itchiness to express our disagreement on a debate site. For some reason.Go figure. Perhaps Rrhain, RAZD and I are polarized political extremists--true believers, haters, part of the problem--unable to see the subtle shades of gray by which you discern Carter a failure and Reagan a success.Or perhaps you are merely wrong.At any rate, you clearly have no appetite for this particular debate, since you are willing to engage it only with Wiki links and offensive descriptions of those who disagree with you.I've lost my appetite for it as well. I expected better than bare links and insults.

Percy, when you reach the point where you are characterizing a challenge question as the exemplar of "making extreme claims and extremely biased statements (e.g., "So there were big positives to Reagan's presidency that I missed? Pray tell.", et al.)", you should at least feel a bit of stretch. Didn't you?One major accomplishment would have been a far more effective reply.And I didn't characterize you as an outlier; I characterized you as wrong about Reagan. Lots of people are wrong about Reagan. I expressed my disagreement with your more positive outlook, and you explained how people like me are fundamentally fucking up the world.In the event, neither of our opinions about Reagan matter much. I am puzzled that we both turn from this exchange feeling mischaracterized, but I guess that's politics.

Excellent question--but I'd remove the ABE clarification.The notion of "war crimes" is the product of attempts to mitigate the consequences of warring nation-states. But as long as we have a world of self-interested, unconstrained sovereign nations, we will have war. As long as we have national wars, "Everything is fair...in war" will prevail over risking a high-minded defeat.When you swear a leader to absolute fealty to the nation, then that leader will make decisions based on the perceived best interests of the nation; the rights and interests of other peoples are secondary, at best.Given our history--the genocide of native people, expansion, colonization, civil war, regional wars and world wars--it is difficult to imagine any president clearing the bar. Human nature and nation-state structures produce the same result globallyI cannot recall a time when moral considerations guided our alliances and strategies. "He's a bastard but he's our bastard" has always applied.We won't change human nature. We can hope to survive long enough to evolve socially beyond nations, but we're running out of planet.