Thomas Jefferson, the most liberal early American President, was a WARMONGER!

[MohRokTah]

For years, Thomas Jefferson railed against the powers presidents assumed they had and wanted to limit the presidential powers extremely.

All the way up until he became president. He then assumed more power than either Washington or Adams had before him and engaged France in the Louisiana Purchase. This was something Congress hated because Congress believed he usurped their powers.

He then threatened war against Spain unless they sold him Florida, all in vain.

He also engaged in the declared First Barbary War. He was a WARMONGER.

So if you hate that we engage in wars on foreign soil, blame Jefferson. He started that whole mess.

And yes, that war involved Muslims.

Presidents say a lot of things before they become president, but presidents for the most part have acted the same. There are rare exceptions, but our history is filled with presidents who did all they could to hang onto and expand presidential powers, regardless of any criticisms of presidential powers offered up before they assumed office.

[Capt. Obvious]

1. Rather ham fisted attempt on your part

Which is a shame because this topic had potential.

[MohRokTah]

2. I am making a point more about the office than the presidents themselves.

The office has always seemed to take over the person rather than the person taking over the office.

Look at FDR. He expanded presidential powers vastly.

Wilson is another good example.

No president expanded those powers more than Lincoln, though.

[LanternWaste]

3. As the OP was neither awkward or clumsy...

As the OP was neither awkward or clumsy, I'm led to believe you're unaware of what ham-fisted actually means...

[Capt. Obvious]

4. I'm led to believe you don't recognize awkward and clumsy...

[MohRokTah]

9. The OP went over their head.

They had little clue as to what the OP was about, apparently.

[brush]

5. For all his faults this president has, for the most part, tried to keep us out of wholesale wars . .

despite all the attempts to push us back into Iraq with divisions of troops.

[MohRokTah]

7. For the most part, yes. However, this president has expanded presidential powers via the drones.

The drone program represents an expansion of presidential power.

So often in so many ways, the office shapes the man and not the other way around. It's a burden I would never personally want.

[Hoyt]

6. Never cared for "founders." Most talked about freedom/liberty, then went home and beat their slaves.

Most politicians are like that. In fact, a whole lot of "average" folks are too.

[MohRokTah]

8. White slave owners who didn't want to pay their taxes.

Great Britain had just spent an inordinate amount of money sending troops and financing a costly war against France on this continent, after all, and only wanted to pay for it.

Scratch any revolution and you'll find the root is still money and power for the few.

[ieoeja]

11. Money taken by taxes was an itty, bitty, teeny, tiny factor in the American Revolution.

First, there was the reason for the taxes: paying for a military occupation. The northern colonies were founded by English seeking to flee the Norman empire. They did *not* want a British military presence. So it wasn't the money, it was the purpose.

Even though the southern colonies were founded largely by Normans seeking to expand the empire, they wanted to lead that expansion and to be granted lands and titles like their forebears in England. The professional British military took that option away. Furthermore, the occupation force, like occupation forces so often do, failed to differentiate between friend and foe. They ended up treating southerners just as bad as they treated the north.

Pontiac's Rebellion would not have been so bad had the British military not ordered the militia ranger units disbanded after the French-Indian War. British military efforts to suppress it failed spectacularly until the New York milita reformed and put the rebellion down themselves in short order. The the British military negotiated a settlement which gave children born of the women raped by Pontiac's troops to the Natives! Ripping children away from their mothers is unlikely to ingratiate you with the colonists.

White Pines act reserved every white pine in North America for the British navy. It was written when they thought North America was an island. They discontinued enforcing it when they realized otherwise. But it was still on the books, and King George III's administration was comprised of strict constructionists. The law is the law!

The Sugar Act prevented British colonists from buying French molasses to help the British sugar industry. France made it illegal to manufacture liquor in the colonies to protect the domestic liquor industry. The British did not. British sugar growers found liquor manufaturing to be more lucrative than selling the raw product. Their was very little British sugar to be had, and a glut of French sugar. So Britain stopped enforcing the law. But again, the law is the law!

The Stamp Act was the equivalent of a Notary Public law. But the Stamp wasn't a pad and ink thing. You needed the properly embossed paper which a single corporation back in Britain had a monopoly on production. They were already doing this for the British Isles. The new law extended it to the empire. Which meant they had to double production while establishing a distribution system 10,000 times larger than what they had. They were not given enough time. When companies were not ready for Obamacare (because they foolishly listened to Republican promises), Obama gave them an extension. But again, to a strict constructionist, the law is the law! So King George III's administration did not. And an economic depression followed.

John Adams first rose to fame fighting the appointment of a new Supreme Justice who kept trying to shut down public education. Sorry, Limbaugh fans, but either John Adams was a fictional character, or we have had public education (in the north) since before the United States even existed. The justice claimed the schools were failing, private enterprise and competition could do better, etc. All the same shit we hear today. Once all the principals were safely in the grave, private correspondence was made public showing they really feared public education was working too well and that people were no longer "listening to their betters".

The Boston Tea Party was not a protest against the tax. When nobody in Boston would purchase the tea, the Brisith government ordered the colony to buy it. The Sons of Liberty reasoned, "they can't make the colony buy what does not exist". That, not out of protest, is why they destroyed the tea. It backfired. The very same British judge who ruled the colony could not be forced to purchase the tea later ruled the colony could be held accountable for the safety of the cargo while in their harbor. So the Tea Party caused the very thing it was meant to stop!

Read the Declaration and the Bill of Rights. You will see the type of shit that was pissing off the Americans listed there. And taxes get very short shrift. This was the era of The Black Hole of Calcutta. A full 40% of the Bill of Rights is in reference to draconian law enforcement. You think there might be a reason for that?

[ieoeja]

10. There is nothing Liberal about Pacifism.

Progressive, yes. But not Liberal.

I hate when people equate Liberal with anti-war. Before the first President Bush, American wars were almost exclusively started by Liberal presidents. Who, any lurking Conservatives should note, won each and every one of those. When your overriding ideology is protecting traditions, you just might be lousy at fighting wars given that discarding traditions is an absolute necessity when doing so.


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You will notice that I do not include Reagan. Grenada is just too small to count. And Reagan pretty much ran away from everything else where war might have been an option. If you look at what they did, instead of what they said, Reagan is easily the least warmongering President the United States has had since before FDR.

FDR: would have taken us into WW-II a lot earlier if not for Conservative opposition.

Truman: Korea and the Cold War.

Ike: kept Korea going until the North and China accepted reality.

JFK: Vietnam and a few other small places. Though JFK apparently did not want to escalate Vietnam. Sending in the Marines to beat back invaders from the North is the kind of thing we do all the fucking time. And, I hate to break it to Pacifist DUers, we have done it successfully over and over again.

LBJ: fucked up by escalating Vietnam into a full blown American war instead of letting the experienced South Vietnamese veterans of WW-II and their war of independance build their own country.

Nixon: escalated Indochina even more.

Ford: disqualified as accidental President.

Carter: the only President to rival Reagan. Reagan had Grenada. But Carter had Yemen which was substantially bigger (and an absolute success; again, Pacifists, war has worked many, many times). Carter also refused to pay ransom to terrorists.

Reagan: paid off Iran as his very first Presidential action. Paid Jihadi's ransom for hostages on such a regular basis that it ceased being headline news. Sent Marines into Lebanon. Ran away at the first shot. Grenada was a war so pathetic that even Clint Eastwood couldn't make a decent movie about it.

Bush I: invaded Panama officially because the Panamanian leader violated US laws in their country which is a really bullshit reason. It was, of course, all about the Canal. Diplomatic error combined with Saddam sharing our Pacifists' mistaken opinion of Americans caused "the first Gulf War" (a misnomer). But he handled it well by kicking them out and immediately returning control of Kuwait to the Kuwaitis. Screwed up big time building US bases in Saudi Arabia. Continued Reagan's ransom-for-hostages policy. Also screwed up Somalia by switching to nation building with nothing on which to build.

Clinton: ended the ransom-for-hostage policy threatening to send in the Marines instead. Jihadi hostage taking immediately ceased (until the Iraq War). Continued the mistake of laying siege to Iraq. Bosnia. Serbia.

Bush II: sociopathic nut job. So one Conservative did manage to out do our Liberals.

Obama: how's that war on terrorism working for us?
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