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Fantasy US Presidential Election

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tommyedison

Fantasy US Presidential Election  

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  1. 1. Which person would you like to lead America in today's world?

    • George Washington
      19
    • Thomas Jefferson
      48
    • James Madison
      4
    • Abraham Lincoln
      6
    • Andrew Jackson
      3


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If these candidates had been nominated by different parties and were competing for presidency, which one would you have preferred as president in the world of today?

Assume that your choice would have enough political support to implement his reforms.

Try posting your reasons if you can.

Edited by tommyedison
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It was a close call between Washington and Jefferson, but I chose Jefferson in the end. After all, the man wrote the Declaration of Independence! If we're talking about being the President today, Jefferson's slave-holding issue (which is my only reservation about his moral character) is a non-issue-- I find it highly dubious that a man with all of Jefferson's convictions born today would consider advocating slavery, much less holding slaves personally.

However, I wouldn't at all mind having a candidate nowadays who has the kind of character (like Washington's) necessary to win a war against a tyrranical regime in the name of liberty and then, upon winning it, voluntarily step down from power when no term limits existed.

Felipe,

I honestly hadn't considered the need for a wartime president-- so you actually make a pretty good point. But for what it's worth, Jefferson did put the smackdown on piracy towards US ships, which if anything more closely mirrors today's terrorist situation than a domestic invasion.

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He did bring a can of whoop-ass with the navy John Adams built, but I say Washington would without hesitation rid of us of this pesky Islamic problem.

I think both candidates would do an effective, and more importantly uncompromising, job taking care of Islamic terrorists-- after all, all of our candidates would be using today's superior US military anyway, right? :D

(By the way, I get really excited about the Fathers, so don't mistake my enthusiasm for animosity!)

No problem-- I've always been meaning to study the Founding Fathers in more detail, since what little I know is from a crappy public school civics class and a significantly better college AmNatGov class. Since you're an enthusiast, do you have any recommendations on where to look for good biographies and other writings?

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Well, as some will tell you here, I'm rather biased toward John Adams and George Washington, so take my recommendations with that in mind. First I recommend John Adams: The Spirit of Liberty by C. Bradley Thompson. I haven't found a trustworthy bio on any of the other founders, but I generally like what Joseph Ellis writes. For example, Founding Brothers is a fun read. I still haven't read American Sphinx which is supposed to be about TJ.

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I have gone with Thomas Jefferson.

George Washington would be a very good president in war but at the same time he would not be as big a believer in small government as Thomas Jefferson.

In times like these we need a president who is eloquent and can effectively answer critics. Jefferson has that quality. Washington doesn't.

Jefferson would get rid of the Islamic threat very effectively if not as effectively as Washington.

If Washington was as ardent an advocate of small govt. as Jefferson, I would have undoubtedly gone for him. But as it turns out, he wasn't.

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Well, as some will tell you here, I'm rather biased toward John Adams and George Washington, so take my recommendations with that in mind. First I recommend <i>John Adams: The Spirit of Liberty</i> by C. Bradley Thompson. I haven't found a trustworthy bio on any of the other founders, but I generally like what Joseph Ellis writes. For example, <i>Founding Brothers</i> is a fun read. I still haven't read <i>American Sphinx</i> which is supposed to be about TJ.

Thanks Felipe-- a good biography on John Adams is exactly what I was looking for, since I know next to nothing about him.

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I accidentally hit Null Vote, but I would have voted for Washington. Though I hesitated when I saw Jefferson-- I just watched an episode of Bullshit where they had this great quote of Jefferson's:

"Government big enough to supply you everything is big enough to take everything you have.... The course of history shows that as government grows, liberty decreases". ~Thomas Jefferson

But as I said, I'd still vote for Washington.

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Thanks Felipe-- a good biography on John Adams is exactly what I was looking for, since I know next to nothing about him.
A great biography on JA is what you'll get by an O'ist historian. Let me know what you think of JA, and what people have done to his legacy, after you've read it.

Bah, please don't let the Jefferson romantics win this battle as they've done every single time since the founding. C'mon people, GW is the singularly most important figure in this country's founding.

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Bah, please don't let the Jefferson romantics win this battle as they've done every single time since the founding. C'mon people, GW is the singularly most important figure in this country's founding.

GW was the most important figure in this country's founding. However atleast in practice, when he held office, Jefferson favored more restraint on the government in comparision to Washington.

Edited by tommyedison
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A great biography on JA is what you'll get by an O'ist historian. Let me know what you think of JA, and what people have done to his legacy, after you've read it.

Bah, please don't let the Jefferson romantics win this battle as they've done every single time since the founding. C'mon people, GW is the singularly most important figure in this country's founding.

I voted for Washington, so I did my part! (That's sounds good saying to to myself, "I voted for George Washington!" :) )

I recommend the Dr. John Ridpath's lecture George Washington: Integrity and the Founding of America - it brought tears to my eyes both times I listened to it. Definitely inspirational!

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Felipe, this is a bit off-topic, but have you seen the movie, "The Crossing"? It is the story of Washington's crossing of the Delaware River and the surprise attack on the Hessians. The movie shows, in a very low-key, strictly factual style, just how close we came to losing the Revolutionary War, and just how much we owe to the integrity, courage and sheer will power of George Washington.

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  • 2 months later...
...don't let the Jefferson romantics win this battle ..., GW is the singularly most important figure in this country's founding.
Felipe (and others), If you had to recommend a single book about George Washington, which one would it be.
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  • 3 weeks later...

Write in for Alexander Hamilton. Out of the given choices, I would take Thomas Jefferson. However, Jefferson envisioned an agrarian America full of farmers who just minded their own businesss. Hamilton envisioned an industrial America...I like this idea better. I know he was never president, but I write him anyway.

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Although I was mainly leaning towards Thomas Jefferson, I ended up going with James Madison for one primary reason. The greatest weapon that the Islamicists have against America is the fact that our political and intellectual elites have the confounded idea that the US constitution applies to anyone who just happens to share this planet with us, including these physco-suicidal turbin-wearing Islamo-nuts. In addition to a military solution, the person who wrote the constitution would be vital in clearing out the intellectual bile that is allowing these sleeper-cells to infiltrate the US and plot terror attacks. Jefferson gave us intellectual independence from the intellectually-deteriorating European establishment, but Madison's constitution gave us the philosophical base by which we established our own identity as a nation, that is what we are losing today and are in dire need of reclaiming.

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George Washington is the best choice for numerous reasons. First of all, this is not to say that the others wouldn't also be preferable to today's leadership, but Washington trumps these other choices. He's the only one, aside from Jackson, with any strategic military experience (Jefferson in contrast nearly got himself captured during the revolution after the British sacked Richmond). He's an incorruptibly honest figure (unlike Jefferson, his main competitor in this election). Washington has an established record as being devoted to his country but uninterested in power. He presided over a nearly non-existant federal government which he only sought to establish as viable and respectable, to say he is less committed than Jefferson to republicanism and limited government is ridiculous. It is important to not confuse Washington and Adams with other Federalists like Hamilton, who was a true devotee of the British constitution and hoped to be able to craft an english-style state under the "shilly-shally thing of mere milk and water" that he called the constitution. Ultimately, I cannot forgive Jefferson for his very duplicitous behavior in the Washington administration and his ultimate failure to deal with slavery in his personal life, unlike Washington. His behavior towards Adams was also despicable, causing that venerable patriot to ignore Jefferson for over a decade. If you ever want to read some righteous indignation take a look at their correspondence and JA's writing in the "not talking to Jefferson" period of his life.

Felipe (and others), If you had to recommend a single book about George Washington, which one would it be.

This wasn't addressed to me, but as a graduate student studying the early republic I would go with either James Thomas Flexner's "Washington: The Indispensable Man" or Douglas Southall Freeman's "Washington." Both can be bought at nearly any borders or barnes and noble. Though if you can read David Hackett Fischer's "Washington's Crossing" and still vote for Jefferson over Washington, you have problems.

(Thanks for the references. I added links to the books in Amazon. - softwareNerd)

Edited by softwareNerd
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  • 2 weeks later...
He did bring a can of whoop-ass with the navy John Adams built, but I say Washington would without hesitation rid of us of this pesky Islamic problem. (By the way, I get really excited about the Fathers, so don't mistake my enthusiasm for animosity!)

So would Jefferson. :)

Jefferson was the most progressive President we ever had- and the most intellectual. A true Renaissance man, he also designed and built edifices.

However, either Washington or Jefferson would be a better president today than any president we've had in my lifetime (which began in 1948).

Footnote: I do think that George Washington was worth a celebratory holiday, and the renaming of his holiday as "President's Day" was a puzzling act of Congress.

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Jefferson was the most progressive President we ever had- and the most intellectual.
Bah, you've obviously never read any of his own writing besides the Decleration, nor any of John Adams's own writing, like A Defense of Constitutions of the United States of America. Jefferson was the best with pen, and the most astute politician (which is somewhat of a dubius title for those times) of the Founders.

If you get a chance, read some of Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, it's online.

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  • 7 months later...

(Mod's note: Merged with an earlier thread. - sN)

Well, I'm curious as to everyone's thoughts on this, especially since there are some people here who are pretty knowledgeable about history. Who, in your opinion, was the BEST president by your standards (which I will assume are, for the most part, objectivist)? Who has been the worst so far?

Edited by softwareNerd
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