Regardless of what they told you in school, FDR sucked

Newt Gingrich once said that FDR was his favorite president of the twentieth century, and perhaps of all American history. Newt says he is conservative, so that be would like somebody saying they are Christian, but their favorite angel is Lucifer.

Even if I didn’t know anything else about his history that alone tells me everything I need to know about Newt.  Newt is a historian. He’s not stupid. He knows better.

EDIT: This was just pointed out to me, that the soundbyte I heard was Newt talking about “Most Effective Leader” as opposed to “Best”.  Fair enough. That said, FDR still sucked and the post stays. 🙂  Looking online for actual clip now.

Bingo.  http://tv.breitbart.com/newt-fdr-was-the-greatest-president-of-the-20th-century/ 

Yep. Post stays. 

However most people don’t know any better. I hate when people who know jack squat about history tell me how awesome FDR was. I can see why though. Any high school history textbook has FDR down as Super President. All students know was that FDR was that nice old man in a wheelchair that had fireside chats, who then kicked Hitler’s ass.  Of course, academics are usually on the left, so why would they malign one of their folk heroes with pesky things like reality?

FDR was not a great president. The legacy he left behind was one of bloated nonsense that we are still suffering from today. Like our current president (FDX), he moved in on a crisis, and used it as an excuse to have the country take a massive left turn.

The Great part of the Great Depression was a result of his policies. Everyone else in the world came out of the depression before we did. The Weimar friggin’ Republic came out of it faster than we did. Remember the place with the wheelbarrows of Retenmarks to buy a loaf of bread? Yeah, that place pulled up faster than us. America’s government meddled too much in industry and finance to let a natural recovery happen.  We were too busy fixing prices, burning crops, and spending money on make-work projects. (you should have heard my grandpa go off on the W.P.A. It was many years before I learned that it didn’t actually stand for We Poke Along). 

FDR was so in favor of freedom, justice, and the American way, that when the Supreme Court began striking his socialist policies down as unconstitutional, he attempted to destroy the separation of powers by stacking the Supreme Court with more of his handpicked justices. The whole purpose of three branches of government was to keep one from becoming tyrannical. Think about that. FDR tried to destroy one of the fundamental elements of our constitutional government.

His foreign policy sucked. Period. FDR personally thought Mussolini was a swell guy. He handled Japan about as well as Obama is handling Iran.

On a personal level, FDR was such a loathsome human being that he couldn’t even keep a running mate, but he was fairly loyal to his mistresses. But on that count, I can’ t really blame him, because from all accounts his wife was a frigid ice queen that was “disgusted by the touch of a man”.

He was known for giving good speeches. Keep in mind that this was at the dawn of radio and he was the first president to ever take advantage of that medium. Americans were so excited by radio that FDR could have read out of a phone book for ten minutes and everyone still would have tuned in to listen.

I’ve written two books set in an alternative 1930s, so I’ve had to do a lot of research into that time period. The worst, most soul sucking, obnoxious part of that research has been listening to or reading anything by FDR. Knowing what we know now, and the results of his experiments in social engineering, make me grind my teeth.

When I mentioned my opinion of Newt’s pick for favorite president on a web forum earlier, someone pointed out that Newt specified that he liked FDR more in some periods than in others…  What, the early parts where his big government programs ruined the economy, or the middle part where his foreign policy didn’t do crap to prevent the biggest war in history, or the later part where he threw over a hundred thousand Americans into concentration camps?

Concentration camps.

But remember kids, it is Republicans that are racist and don’t care about civil liberties. Sure, the Democrat’s greatest hero took something like a hundred and forty thousand men, women, and children, ripped them from their homes with no due process or evidence of guilt, confiscated all their homes, property, and businesses, and then interred them in desolate camps in the desert for several years.

The same media that has an absolute come apart over civil liberties because the Bush administration water boarded a couple of terrorists, picks FDR as their Man of The Century.

 I used to live next to Topaz Mountain. The site of the old concentration camp is nothing but a barren patch of scrub desert now. It is cold there. Nasty, horrible biting cold. In the winter the wind rips right through you. I can’t even imagine living in a government supplied shack during a winter there. You stand in the middle of this barren patch of sand, and the realization hits you that our government imprisoned innocent Americans here, it punches you in the gut. We did this thing, and it was evil.  

If Newt was really a conservative, and he’s as educated and intelligent as he says he is, then there is no way that he would say FDR was a great, let alone the greatest, president. 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a product of the philosophy of his time. The traditional American idea was that people own the government. FDR believed that the government owns the people. FDR’s fundamental beliefs are the antithesis of what made America great.  

Screw FDR.

Monster Hunter Vendetta was one of the highest rated audiobooks of 2011
Dead Six just got reviewed on Big Hollywood

147 thoughts on “Regardless of what they told you in school, FDR sucked”

  1. FDR was a pox not just on Americans, but on mankind.

    He was the worst president ever.

    He deserves to have his corpse dug up and his skull shat in.

    (…yes, my opinions are somewhat out of step for the state of Massachusetts).

    1. I think Andrew Jackson may tie with him actually. Just like FDR, he tried to usurp the Supreme Court and let’s not forget the Trail of Tears.

      My pick for best would probably be James Madison, but that’s more for his writing the majority of the Constitution than for anything he actually did as President.

      BTW, I’ve heard nothing but good things about those books Mr. Correia mentioned. just ordered Hard Magic off Amazon yester day, and I can’t wait to dig into it.

    2. I figure Buchanan or Wilson to be the worst.
      Buchanan set such an example of fecklessness that the rebels thought they could get away with insurrection that cost over 700,000 lives.

      Wilson: segregated the federal government, and made sure we began WWI nearly unarmed. HIs socialist policies of mass ineffectiveness were part of the reason why we suffered over 100,000 combat deaths, and another 800,000 deaths from disease. The accident of having P14 enfields in production is the only thing that let us ship our soldiers over to Europe with (Mostly) P17 rifles. The rest, the artillery, aircraft, machineguns were all borrowed from the British. And then he threw it all away at the peace conference.

      1. Buchanan? No Lincoln was the worst. He started a war that cost 700,000 instead of letting a people govern themselves. He ended a great check on power (the states), and violated all parts of the Constitution (throwing press and Congressmen in jail).

    3. You really need to do some looking at Woodrow Wilson’s term in office. Really, you won’t belioeve you were in America.

      1. Dave, you realize I’m a history geek, whose favorite time period is 1900-1940, who hates statists, and who has written two books so far set in that period, with research done for 3 more? Yeah… Not a big Wilson fan.

    4. Don’t you all realize that NEWT GINIGRICH started off as a DEMOCRAT and only changed sides to get elected. He is a rabid statist Progressive (even worse than Obama). He must not be allowed anywhere near the Presidency. Also he has NO prayer of getting the nomination. I don’t think anyone will give him thier delegates expect his fellow traveler Ricky(I am not REALLY a Facist) Santorum who is even worse than Obama and Gringrich by the way. I think everyone else even all of the Delegates will get dumped to the second place person if Gingrich is in the lead. But I don’t think he will be. This a battle between Paul and Romney. So we are pretty much screwed. I am voting for Paul and hoping for the best.

      1. Actually, I think an idiot would be somebody who, eschewing argument or reason, asserts an opinion without establishing their bona fides as an authority. I s’pose in some circles ad hominem argument is not fallacious, but such circles are intellectually jejune.

    5. wow.let me guess you are all tea party guys or rich.he was called a traitor to his class,rich people.idiots

  2. Seeing what we’ve got to choose from the republican party all I can say is…..we’re screwed. I’ve gotten to the point that none of them would I trust to run a lemonade stand let alone be president.

    1. I got one hilarious review for Spellbound, where the reviewer said that the whole idea of FDR rounding up people who are scary and different and putting them in camps was just a rip off of the X-men… Well, uh… actually at the time I was thinking more about how FDR actually rounded up people that were scary and different and put them in camps, but maybe that was just me. 🙂

  3. Out of curiosity, how do you feel about JFK?

    FDR has slowly fallen in my ratings as I learned more about him, but JFK tends to remain stable or go up as I learn more about him. Can’t say that about too many presidents, much less 20th century ones.

    1. If you looked at what he pushed for, he’d probably be considered a moderate now. Which is pretty telling if you think about the overall shift we’ve gone through. I’m sort of ambivelent on JFK. After he got killed, he was pretty much sainted, and is now considered incapable of having done any wrong. The interesting question is if he hadn’t gotten shot if he would’ve been reelected.

      1. JFK was in way over his head on Foreign Policy and his fecklessness resulted in the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Vietnamese War’s metastasizng. On the economy his lowering of the top tax rates would, these days, make him a wild-eyed radical right-wing Republican.

        Still, he may well have been the greatest Democrat president of the last 100 years.

      2. Given JFK’s health issues I don’t think he could have held up to run for a second term. It’s likely he would have died in office of natural causes or from the complications of all the drugs he as taking just to function.

      3. Actually he was being investigated for his affairs with other women and his business with the FBI and some other nefarious deals. Had he not been shot, he would have been impeached.

      4. I have actually had the same question regarding JFK being reelectedt had he not been assassinated. I asked my dad who at the time was in his early twenties. He told me that to his recollection that JFK was not very popular. He was often considered to be a womanizer and was, as stated above, in over his head in many areas. I believe my dad’s actual words were that right before he was shot, JFK “couldn’t have been elected dog catcher.” From what I could gather, it wasn’t that he was universally despised, he was just not respected as a leader and many people felt they had not gotten what was advertised during his election campaign.

      5. JFK was an OKAY President. Started the movement away from ridiculousness in the tax code (though Democrats and some Republicans insist on keeping it complicated), and had lots of moderate streaks.

        Foreign policy wise, a total newbie. Gets canonized for diffusing the missile crisis, but really almost made that situation blow up. Obviously it ended well, but Bay of Pigs sure didn’t.

  4. As much as i might disagree on some points, you are right on most of the others. But with that said, like any president, it is a joke to lay all the blame at his feet.

    He became president in 33, not 29. And the dust bowl was already in full effect before 29. He didn’t encourage the banks to evict the farmers and force them to hope from place to place and then end up as slave labor for corporations that felt they could pay them meager sums of money.

    He also had a congress that was more than happy to support him. Teddy was the one who discovered that the congress had more power than him. Few president’s since Teddy have really had as much sway as FDR, but all have been allowed to be figure heads.

    Also, keeping mind that we weren’t like most of the European countries. War was in full swing by the mid thirties. And as most economists will tell you, war is good for business. If Japan hadn’t attacked Pearl, we would probably have needed to find a reason to enter the war like in WW1.

    But the great question for me is, what would you have done differently. Corporations felt no need to better the lives of their employees. After all, there was a mass of labor available to them. Much like the last decade, people will do what they can to keep food on the table,

    I am not questioning the fact that he made more than a few mistakes. Nor that he created some policies that our country would be better without. But i am saying that he wasn’t some man attempting to bring about the end of the American government or people.

      1. If there is a myth I’d love to see done away with, it is “war is good for business”. Bullshit. But, one may say, WW2 spured the recovery of the American economy! Yes, in that pretty much every other country in the world that manufactured things had their factories bombed and burned except the US.
        Instead, look at what happend to Imperial Russia or Germany during WW1, or better yet, post WW2 England with it’s rationing and austerity.

      2. War isn’t particularly good for arms manufacturers either when the income tax rate is at 90%. Jack Northrop was able to start his company, but after the war there were so many DC-3 planes out as surplus that the company almost folded, the workers suffered massive layoffs. Only the few companies with continuing defense contracts based on new technology (jets, flying wing, nuclear weapons, air refueling) survived, and they had tough times despite superior technology.

    1. Dan, the fact that you begin your points with stuff about banks evicting farmers and forcing them to be slave labor for corporations tells me a lot about your world view.

      Is it cold down at Occupy Wall Street right now? 😀

      1. Steinbeck. Grapes of Wrath. Good reading, check it out.(Actually, i hated the book, but wouldn’t you know that my high school teachers felt it should be required reading.)

        And never lump me with that OWS trash. Felt a part of me throw up at the implication.

      2. Dan – Steinbeck was an active Communist (probably a useful idiot but possibly an acting agent) and his Grapes of Wrath was full-throated propaganda. To cite Wiki (not exactly a right-wing source):

        Steinbeck’s contacts with leftist authors, journalists, and labor union figures may have influenced his writing and he joined the League of American Writers, a Communist organization, in 1935. Steinbeck was mentored by radical writers Lincoln Steffens and his wife Ella Winter. Through Francis Whitaker, a member of the United States Communist Party’s John Reed Club for writers, Steinbeck met with strike organizers from the Cannery and Agricultural Workers’ Industrial Union.
        [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck#Political_views ]

        His memoir about crossing America accompanied by his dog — Travels With Charley has pretty much been proven … well, let’s quote Wiki again:

        Bill Steigerwald, a former staff writer for Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and an associate editor for Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, followed the route as it is laid out in the Travels with Charley and wrote about it in the Post-Gazette and published an article “Sorry, Charley” (April 2011) in Reason magazine. Steigerwald concluded that Travels contains such a level of invention, and Steinbeck took such great liberty with the truth, that the work has limited claim to being non-fiction.
        [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travels_With_Charley:_In_Search_of_America#Veracity_of_Travels ]

        So please, take anything Steinbeck wrote with a heaping pinch of salt.

    2. Hoover made the error of taking the advice of his opponents, employing policies which FDR put on steroids. Sorta the way George W Bush got screwed using trifling tax refunds as economic stimulus at the urging of Pelosi & Reid … and Obama doubled and redoubled down on those same errors.

      1. Hoover was an engineer.

        He just had to find a way to fix things. If he had taken Coolidge’s route, and just kept his hands off, the depression would have recovered by the end of his term.

        If he wanted to “do something”, he could have punished the officials at the Fed for not allowing other banks to prevent the stock market crash. The Fed flexed it’s new regulatory powers, and forbade other banks from selling the Bank of America short term loans during their depositor panic. This bank run was probably the kickoff for the stock market crash.

    3. Dan, small point. The Dust Bowl began in 1932, at least in the region considered the core of the Dust Bowl (western KS, the northern TX Panhandle, eastern NM, the OK Panhandle). The agricultural depression began in 1919, when prices for grains, cattle, pigs and cotton collapsed for a number of reasons. There was a severe drought in the Southern Plains in 1926-27, then average to good harvests through 1931 before the drought returned for the next four-five years. In terms of lack of moisture, the 1950s were drier but the dust did not blow as far.

  5. Any book suggestions for someone who wants to learn more about the period, and the bs FDR pulled? It’s hard to find anything but praise for the man.

    1. I’m going to have to go back and look. I got most of my stuff through interlibrary loan. I read about 40 different books before starting work on Grimnoir though, so they are kind of running together. I wish I could recall the name, but there was a great one that was all actual letters written by regular people during those years… Ugh, what was that called. I read it in 2008.

      1. Amity Shlaes recently wrote a superb book titled “The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression”. And there was “New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR’s Economic Legacy Has Damaged America” by Burton W. Folsom (who has written several other books demythologizing FDR.)

        Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism” also does a good job covering the ground FDR trod underfoot, although he does so en passant en route to treating a century’s worth of bad policy.

      2. “New Deal or Raw Deal” was an excellent read, I did that one last summer. It not only talks about the New Deal, but also goes through FDR’s upbringing and early years, so you understand how he got into thinking the way he did.

        (I.E, why he was wrong.)

    2. For a slightly different side of FDR, try “FDR and the Environment.” It is a collection of essays about who and what influenced FDR’s approach to what became the CCC, Soil Conservation Service, Relocation Service, and other similar things.

  6. I was always abivalent towards FDR, neither for nor against, until I read what he did to Poland during WWII. The Allies screwed Poland over, but it was FDR who personally nailed the “Royally” in front of “screwed”. If he can do that to an Ally (especially when it was done to appease Stalin), what else is he capable of doing?

    1. I hadn’t even thought of that. It seems that selling out Poland seems to be a meme with these guys. How’s that ballistic missile shield going? 🙂

      1. Amen. *removes hat out of respect*

        Yalta Conference. Poland was given to Uncle Joe without even a quick pause to refill their wine glasses. Churchill, at least, had the decency to feel bad about it later on, but went along with the big boys anyway.

      2. Wanna see something scary? Look up Vasili Blohkin, Major-General NKVD, who personally executed over 7000 men at Katyn Forest. Ten hours a night, one prisoner every three minutes.
        You can’t make things like this up- nobody would believe them.

  7. Yes! I totally agree. FDR was horrible as a president in so many ways. Maybe you’ll get linked by instapundit again and bring the trolls back? That would be fun.

  8. Just saying he interfered with us supplying weapons to anyone fighting the axis in WWII. I believe that was key in helping us pull out of the depression.

  9. I think it does a disservice to employ the same term for America’s Japanese internment camps and the Nazi’s concentration camps. Which is not to defend the policy (although Michelle Malkin has written well in defense of the policy.) It is one thing to understand the promptings of a policy and another to excuse the abuses perpetrated in execution of that policy.

    Still, it is as wrong to equate the Japanese internment camps with the Soviet gulags or the Nazi camps. That said, the internment camps were probably about 7.5 on a scale of 1 – 10, with the gulags rating 9.2 and the Nazi camps 10 … and the Nazi’s camps addressing their Final Solution come in about 11.2 or so.

    No discussion of FDR’s camps should ignore the looting of California’s Japanese-American citizens by Gov. (and later Supreme Court justice) Earl Warren and his cronies.

    1. In no way am I equating the two as equals. Stalin and Hitler took the cake on pure evil. That doesn’t make what we did good though, only in comparision far less nasty.

      1. Chairman Mao is going to feel left out. He made Stalin and Hitler look like wannabes.

        I see your 6 million Jews and raise you 70-100 million Chineese! Even the Japaneese couldn’t accomplish that during the occupation.

        And you have my sincere appreciation for having the balls to bring up Unit 731. I hope you inspire some idiots of the left to google “unit 731”

    2. “Michelle Malkin has written well in defense of the policy.”

      It was indefensible. Though it doesn’t surprise me that Malkin would think otherwise.

      They imprisoned people of Japanese ancestry who no longer spoke Japanese, people of non-Japanese ancestry because all those slanteyes look the same, and confiscated quite a bit of property that was never returned. There were also some of German and Italian ancestry toss in there for good measure. The conditions were unsafe, unhealthy, and inadequately addressed.

      Any pretense of a “good” side is hindsight propaganda.

      1. I grew up with folks who’s parents were born in the camps. When we arrived in California in 1972, there were still quite a few “Japanese” gardeners keeping suburban yards neat – because they or their father had lost everything to the “relocation” during the war, and there weren’t much of any jobs open to “Japs” without professional credentials after the war. Some of those high school graduates managed to save up enough money to open a grocery store or a nursery, but many did not.

        Nobody really talked about what had happened to their grand parents, or uncles, etc. who lost everything (yes, it was a man supporting his wife & kids back then, very few jobs for women before 1973) – or worse, the ones who committed suicide when they came back from the camps to find that their “friends” had looted their property, and the government and banks had cleaned them out of money.

        Some of those guys were hauled out of Berkeley & UCLA & Stanford & USC – some of them were able to complete their degrees, but many couldn’t.

        They didn’t say much of anything to their kids or grandkids – who played with us, their neighbors just as kids.

        So, most of the families eventually recovered, but there were some very sad, tired, older folks who got shafted… by their own government.

        FDR went along with the strident voices – Hears and Earl Warren, and lots of other hysterical folks. Put whole families in the horse stalls at the racetracks first, then deported them by rail or truck convoy to some forsaken holes…

        Most of the few accounts by guys who were drafted to guard the camps tell of incredible embarrassment at being ordered to restrain fellow citizens for no good reason… I think that there were a few weddings after the war between GI guards and “Nissei” girls…

        OK, I’ve gone and got myself depressed over this mess… I’ve walked the grounds at Manzanar, and driven past Topaz – truly wretched places to stick innocent people.

      2. Putting your own people into concentration camps is a bit like rape. Pointing out that you didn’t also torture and murder your victims like the other guys did doesn’t make you any less wrong or less guilty.

    3. So far as I know, the term “concentration camp” was coined by the British, to describe the internment failities where they “concentrated” Boers while pacifying those uppity Dutchmen in South Africa.

      The term “concentration camp” is 100% correct for the Japanese-American internment facilities. A suspect population was rounded up, and “concentrated” in camps for security reasons. (Never mind the fact that the suspicion was overblown hysteria flavored with a heavy hand of racism, and the security thus gained was mostly illusionary.) Oh, I’m sure that at least a couple of Japanese immigrants who might have been willing to do the Emperor’s bidding got locked up — but probably not NEARLY as many European-Americans with pro-Axis sympathies who DIDN’T get locked up, nor anywhere near the number of (fairly openly) Communists who were willing to assist Germany (during the period of the Nonagression Pact, when Hitler and Stalin were happily splitting Poland) and the Soviet Union.

      The proper term for the Nazi, Soviet, and Japanese camps where they interned suspect populations is “death camp”.

      1. The Japanese camps were wrong,  but they were not based only on hysterical racism. They were an equal-opportunity wrong as evidenced by the internment of 110,000 Americans of German descent and the shipping of over 4,500 persons of German descent from Latin America to the U.S. for internment at the request of the U.S. Government. Yes, the FDR administration pressured foreign countries to round up their own citizens and ship them to the U.S. to be put in camps simply because of their (white btw) ancestry.
         
        More info here http://www.gaic.info/internment_camp.html and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_American_internment
         
        Doesn’t make what we did to the Japanese any better, but let’s not pretend it was just because people did like slant eyes back then. It was just easier for the German and Italian people being rounded up to change their names and try to blend in.

      2. Uh, Corey? You seem to have added a zero to your German figures — 11,507 German internees (German POWs and honest-to-God German nationals – i.e., “enemy aliens” — don’t count, there were 1,100,000 enemy aliens in the US when we entered the war). Probably 1/3 of teh US population was of German descent — especially if the standards that were applied to US CITIZENS who had Japanese descent (under the regulations, “Japanese” was defined as as little as 1/16th Japanese ancestry. . . which would be a fourth generation American — and these regualtions were applied to orphans who had never been raised by anyone of Japanese descent.)

        150,000 would be about right if you add ALL the civilian internments of US nationals of foreign descent — including 110,000 Japanese (ALL of the Japanese from the mainlaind Pacific Coast, for instance).

        Almost ALL of the Italians who were interned were, in fact, “enemy aliens” (Italian citizens living in or visiting the US, NOT US citizens of Italian decent, not even Italian immigrants who were naturalized US citizens). Almost ALL of the Germans who were interned were interned based on actual security reports (albeit, many false or overblown).

        The Japanese-Americans, on the other hand, were detained based SOLELY on their genetic background, with US senior officials and politicians defending teh Japanese internments on teh basis that, no matter how acculturated a person (even a native born US citizen) might be, the very fact that he had Japanese ancestry made him a probable traitor — a SPECIFIC case of “attainder of the blood” more blatant in US history would be hard to find.

        Locking up foreign nationals who are citizens of a country with which you are at war is not unusual – locking up your own native-born citizens, even those who have had ZERO contact with the country of their ancestors, nor even any cultural heritage (remember the definition of “Japanese” — an orphan who had a SINGLE biological great-great-great-grandparent who was of Japanese heritage was just as suspect as a German citizen who was LITERALLY a card-carrying Nazi) is unusual.

      3. Sorry, typo while doing this from my phone. Agreed that locking up foreign nationals from the country you are fighting against during a war is pretty much par for the course while locking up your own citizens because of where their ancestors came from is whole other issue.

        My point was that most people get locked into the racist! mindset when it comes to the Japanese internment program but an amazing number of people don’t even know that citizens of German and Italian ancestry were locked up as well. There was also more politics involved, people of Japanese ancestry happened to own a lot of prime land in California and a few other places at the time and so the interment became good excuse for a little “wealth redistribution”.

        Further, people of German ancestry who were citizens of, and living in, various Latin American countries not involved in the war were rounded up by their governments at the request of the U.S. and shipped to the U.S. for internment. That one just goes over the top for strangeness.

        I was trying to point out that the Japanese Americans were not unique in their experience, just the most obvious and most well known today.

    4. By that scale, the Japanese POW camps in the Pacific hover somewhere between a 12 and a 14.
      Viktor Frankl saw what those camps were like and said the Nazis were more humane.
      Indeed many people who liberated those pow camps offed themselves. The former “guests” were not the suicidal ones.

    1. He could have just sat back and let the allies buy what they needed. Same as what we did during the first part of the first world war.

      US banks would have probably lended the UK the cash needed, at normal interest.

      1. “He could have just sat back and let the allies buy what they needed.”

        No, he couldn’t. One thing I haven’t seen mentioned here yet is the Neutrality Acts of the 1930s. In particular, the Neutrality Act of 1937 forbade selling weapons or issuing loans to belligerents in any international conflict. The sole exception was if the purchaser paid immediately, in full, in cash. One reason the British Empire went bust after the war was the cash they spent buying war materiel from us in the years before Lend-Lease.

        Say what you like about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, good or bad (and I entirely agree there’s plenty of bad) … but he was probably the best politician to occupy the Oval Office since Lincoln, and none better has occupied it since. When you look at the way he took a fiercely isolationist nation and manipulated it into joining the war in Europe, you can’t help but admire the skill he brought to the task.

        (Yes, I said ‘joining the war in Europe‘. United States men, ships, and aircraft were taking part in the Battle of the Atlantic almost six months prior to the Day of Infamy.)

      2. Well, there are ways to get cash in the hands of someone you wish to buy weapons from you, but whom you are forbidden by law to offer credit to. . . without eating up their cash reserves.

        Bases for destroyers, anyone? You could be even more generous, if you want — there is NOTHING in the Neutrality Act that required the US to BUY land at lowball prices: “Say, Winnie, I’ll buy that one acre sandbar for $1,000,000. . . coincidentally, that’s the same price as 5,000 Thompsons *. . . ”

        * Presuming they bought the Tommy guns direct from Auto Ordnance at retail — if they bought them “at cost” from the US Government they’d have paid a LOT less; General Thompson (USA, Ret.) had sweetheart prices for Uncle Sam, while foreign purchasers paid about three times what the War Department paid. Which is also one reason that a metric butt-tonne of military rifles and handguns in non-US calibers were marked “US Government Property”; The US was the immediate contractee, and these brand new guns were “surplused” (“excess to government needs, secondary standard”) to the UK immediately.

      3. “(Yes, I said ‘joining the war in Europe‘. United States men, ships, and aircraft were taking part in the Battle of the Atlantic almost six months prior to the Day of Infamy.)”

        Minor point of fact: earlier than that. I’ve got a great-uncle who’s told me stories of depth-charging U-boats in summer, 1940 – right, four zero – in the Carribean.

        Well, it wasn’t *intentional*, you know, but hey, look, that kinda looks like a submarine up there? Golly, I hope not, cause look at the clock, it’s time for a depth charge drill, that might cause a problem for that unknown nation’s submariners…

      4. Wasn’t aware of the Neutrality Act.

        It sounds like an evil law. If someone wants to loan a government that has not declared war on the US money, they should be free to do so.

      5. Oh and Randal, by that measure of “political skill”, Adolph Hitler was a better politician thatn FDR. Hitler Gained total control over Germany as the head of a minority party.

        FDR had a solid majority, yet could not quite finish the transformation of the US into a socialist nation.

        It is, perhaps, fortunate for us that FDR was not as skilled at politics as Hitler.

      6. Neutrality act was passed to prevent foreign influence in US politics, as was thought to have happened in WWI. Many US companies (Remington, Colt, Winchester) had contracts with Britain and Russia, and they pushed hard to get the US involved. After the war, the allies asserted that they had paid in blood, and didn’t want to payback. The US which had also lost almost a million (from combat and influenza) figured they had paid plenty in blood, and as IIRC Coolidge said “They rented the money didn’t they?”.
        The US was pretty cheesed off with Wilson’s war. So were the Brits, and AA Milne (author of Winnie the Pooh) wrote “Peace with Honor” asserting that people should accept death at the hands of an aggressor rather than defend their country. Hitler mostly lied his people into war, and organized his people in the east for mass murder to fully exploit his victories, rather than lose the peace as Brits and France had.

  10. Another positive- he didn’t go all nitpicky micromanager with the running of WW2. Contrast that to Hitler’s “that’s not a fighter, that’s a bomber!”, Churchill’s non-stop flow of goofy ideas, or Stalin’s parinoia of his troops loyalty.
    FDR picked top guys and let them take care of business. Maybe because he was too busy buddying up with Stalin or planning his new United Nations…

    1. Nyahh – FDR didn’t spend his time designing the UN. He delegated that to a State Dept. flunky, most notably the Special Assistant to the Director of the OSPA (Office of Special Political Affairs), some guy named Hiss, Alger Hiss.

      1. Funny how his military wound up being one of the best in history, and how he screwed up just about everything else.

      2. Because FDR had approximately dick-all to do with the creation of the US military. He pretty much ignored the military until it looked like war was coming (like pretty much most presidents), and then the professionals built a large short term military built around a solid cadre of long-service professionals (as they pretty much did every single prior war).

        We do things a little differently now. However, in the build-up days before America’s entry into WWII as a formal combatant, the long-service Regular Army, Navy, and Marine Corps took masses of civilians and molded them into soldiers, sailors, and Marines by teaching them they were going to do things, “The ARMY (or Navy, or Marine Corps) way, or you’ll have my boot up your ass!”

        The US military had a few advantages over most other combatants in WWII — in a war of heavy mechanization, we had a recruit base from the most mechanized nation on the planet (even British and German military historians who were NCOs or officers during WWII have noted the fact that when something broke, their guys generally had to call a mechanic — but in a Yank unit, chances were one or more of the soldiers could fix it; per capita, we just had more cars and tractors); we had the manufacturing edge on ANYONE (While Germany and Britain were running at over 100% prewar production and almost exclusively military, the US still had production capacity for consumer goods — if not as much as we had prewar); and our production capacity and replenishment population was pretty much immune to significant enemy attack. There were other US advantages, including Hitler (“the greatest Allied general ever”) and the oft-debated “intangible advantages” which may or may not have really existed (for example, I have my blue rope and deep abiding faith in the superior spirit of the American Fighting Man. . . but maybe those Scots, Welshmen, Gurkhas, etc. have some faith in their superior fighting spirit, too. ).

  11. I grew up by Manzanar, the internment camp in california, It was brutal, 120 in the summer, families living in steel quansit huts. Winter was bitterly cold at about 4000′ on the east slope of the Sierra Nevadas.

    That place gave me the creeps

  12. I’m voting Ron Paul. Sorry, but some of his ideas are wacky, but at least he isn’t a soul sucking leach like the others.

    1. Ron Paul was my Rep in Texas. He is just as big a leech as anyone. It was a big joke for us, he would put his earmarks in bills that were sure to pass, so he could vote against them. To pay for that, he voted with the Democrats on many issues (that didn’t have his earmarks in them). He always had some disreputable racists around him, and in southern Texas, the racists are very disreputable.

      1. Voting one party is stupid. The govt has an obligation NOT to let one side have all the cheetos…as for his earmarks; I have looked into some..and they were more in line with putting back what was in the original bill.

      2. Jeez, this earmark thing again? He put in earmarks because it was his own constituents money, so even if they were illegal taken from them, he might as well give it back to them. He voted against them because they were unconstitutional, but he knew they’d pass so he’d at least help out his constituents.

        And there is ZERO evidence that he is a racist, or has racists around him.

  13. You should read the book that I just finished:
    December 1941: 31 Days that Changed America and Saved the World

    It has a lot of reflections of the policies of FDR in it, and they are not flattering

  14. I grew up in Arizona about two hours south of the largest Japanese Internment camps. This is Phoenix we’re talking about so brutally hot in the Summer. The winter won’t seem cold to Utahans but its plenty cold, especially without the necessities of life, clothes, food etc.

  15. Don’t forget that both Stalin and Mussolini had to order their press to tone down their fawning over Roosevelt lest it lead unfavorable feelings towards him during the next election.

    Also, Roosevelt learned his manipulating abilities from Wilson when it came to getting the isolationist US ready for war as he was appointed Asst. Secretary of the Navy by Wilson in 1913.

    The Forgotten Man is a terrific book on the history of the period.

  16. He also greatly expanded the eugenics programs, to sterilize “inferior” genes. Then there was tagging the FBI to spy on waitresses who talked to servicemen in case they were German spies or prostitutes.

    How was he different from Cousin Adolph again?

    Oh, right–our Constitution worked. Barely.

  17. ” Newt says he is conservative, so that be would like somebody saying they are Christian, but their favorite angel is Lucifer”

    You know, I wouldn’t be suprised if Lucifer WAS Newt’s favorite angel

  18. eleanor wasn’t a “frigid ice queen”, she was a lesbian. she wrote some quite passionate love letters to her girlfriend, lorena hickok.

    1. To be fair, from FDR’s viewpoint the difference probably wasn’t significant. I wonder how many guys, when imagining girl-on-girl porn, envision Eleanor as one of them?

  19. Since we still see and feel the effects of FDR’s policies…policies that he continued to advance even when they were clearly not working…I’d say the quote “most effective Liberal Democrat President” in American History to be completely correct. Stalin and the rest of the villains mentioned in comments were pretty damn effective as well. Statements like that don’t mean agreeance with the policies.

    Ghengis Kahn was probably the most effective (greatest) leader in the history of the World (Alexander coming a close second but he died too young).

    And let’s not forget what caused the Weimar Republic to pull out of the Depression before the US. Under Kurt von Schleicher It stopped paying it’s loans, it stopped paying reparations, and started massive infrastruture works with that money. After the elections of 1932, Hjalmar Schacht, the architect of Germany’s economic stabilization in the 20’s and a leading economic adviser in the early 30’s to Hindenburg, along with William Kepler and other industrial leaders, nominated this new fellow to be Chancellor. The new Chancellor then appointed Schatt to be both the Minister of Economics and President of Reichsbank (again). Using advice from Schacht Germany avoided the worst of the central European money crisis in 1935-36.

    Later Schacht regretted his support for the new Chancellor when that fellow wanted to expand Germany beyond the areas the Germanic people lived and got ousted. His book “The Magic of Money” explains how he stopped the hyper-inflation of 1922-23. The Allies forced the Reichsbank from out of control of the Republic.

    “…ever-growing extent the Reich had to resort to the Reichsbank if it was to prolong its existence, and because the point at issue was the survival of the Reich, the Reichsbank did not regard itself justified in refusing, even after the passing, in 1922, of the law which gave it formal autonomy. The legislation of 1922, which was intended to free the Reichsbank from the claims of the state, came to grief at the decisive moment because the Reich could not find any way of holding its head above the water other than by the inflationary expedient of printing bank notes.”

    Which was the _Papiermark_ which Germany introduced in 1914 when it got off the gold standard.

    In answer Schacht issued the Rentenmark. 1 trillion Papiermark = 1 Rentenmark in 1923 It stopped the hyperinflation, could not be used internationally and was never hauled about in wheelbarrows to buy a loaf of bread. The hyperinflation of the Papiermark was not contiguous with the Great Depression…however Germany’s economy languished under the Rentenmark (despite the new Reichsmark of 1924) until 1932 because of the restrictions that having a currency that could not be used outside of Germany had on trade. The new Reichsmark was on the Gold Standard…Germany didn’t have a lot of gold and so a currency that could be used internationally was limited.

    Schacht was a ruthless economist and banker, the sudden transition to the Rentensmark destroyed fortunes and caused starvation for over a year. When he needed a stronger hand to help him he reached out to Hitler and got him the Chancellorship more then any other German actor. And so, the Weimar Republic emerged from the Great Depression before the US did. For just a small price.

    1. Quilly, please forgive me for using the wrong name for German currency during my rant. (yeah, pretty familiar with this stuff too. Highest traffic blog post I’ve ever had in one day was when I talked about the Weimar Republic’s hyperinflation a couple of years ago)

      Original point stands, the country that sucked so recently before, still came out of their economic mess faster than we did.

      As for Hitler being the result, maybe Newt will praise him as “an effective politician” too. 🙂

      1. Larry, I think there’s a lesson here which I didn’t emphasis. The first is: look at what happened to Wiemar when they printed PapierMarks to cover debt. Sound familiar?

        Second: When national policy has to be given to Bankers to keep things together…When a “strong hand” is needed at the tiller of the ship of state.

        These aren’t necessarily good things for freedom and democracy. As an historian I try and not let my passion for my politics interfere with my attempts to be objective. Because the real truth is how we learn from history. If we muddle it with passion the lessons don’t get learned. We _are_ going down the path of the Wiemar if something doesn’t change soon.

        And lastly Schacht, who was an original funder of I.G. Farben’s retooling, holding huge influence in all aspects of German Economy, couldn’t pull back Hitler. That Schacht secretly colluded with the anti-Hitler forces in Germany is the only reason he didn’t dangle.

        FDR was a great leader (as in practitioner) who did bad things to the country. Saying anything else diminishes the threat leaders like Obama FDR are.
        (I’m reminded of the crap Tom Kratman got when he stated how proficient the SS was. Evil in outcome, yes, but also as proficient as hell. Does that make me or Tom Nazis?)

        1. Oh yeah, Quilly. Preaching to the choir. Current fiscal policy makes my head hurt. I said two years ago that the scary thing to me about Weimar is how I think some current politicians think a similar rebbot of the currency is just what we need now. Sure, they backed theirs with confiscated assets, but we won’t let that hold us back. 🙂

      2. Germany came out of recession very fast, but then again…hitler had started mass build-ups. Ultimately, to lead to a lemminglike follow the leader or die mentality.

  20. Wow, I googled the monster hunter series because I was trying to find out which book came first in the series and was hoping to read a couple of good reviews on it before i decided to buy it or not. Instead I find a right wing blog and a piss poor history lesson to boot. Much like most Republicans you take bits and pieces out of history and then twist them so it fits your world view, very nice, I see why you write fiction most often. I used to call myself a Republican but people like you who would rather spout propaganda then facts are why I no longer call myself such. Our country has shifted so far to the right that many older Republicans find that their views are moderate now.

    How can you possibly blame Japan’s attack on Pearl harbor or the Great Depression on FDR? First off no one expected the Pearl Harbor attack at the time and on top of that WWI had just ended and the country was leaning more towards isolationism once again. As for the economy, the Great Depression officially started in 1929, in the USA, but it was coming well before that time ( ever heard of hoovervilles or the Bonus Army of the early 1920s?) and FDR came into power in 1933. Without many of the measures FDR took in the new deal, such as make work projects, TVA and a plethora of other reforms the country could have easily remained in a depression. Not everything FDR did was great, he mishandled Stalin and the USSR (but what could he have done differently while trying to fight the Tripartite Pact (axis powers)? No historian actually thinks that the Japanese concentration camps were a good thing, but many many Americans did during that time period and you are simply using hindsight as a tool for your rant. And yes social security is not working anymore and is need of serious modernizing but you give the man absolutely no credit. And if you want to talk about presidents “stacking the supreme court” you need to look at both parties. Both parties put people who think like their party does onto the supreme court, but as for one branch trying to be tyrannical look no further than Bush’s administration (W that is). Patriot act my ass, that piece of legislation which encourages wiretapping and harms American civil liberties is one of the most tyrannical pieces of legislation seen in the 20th century.

    1. I never said FDR started the depression, he just made it a whole lot worse for a lot longer, kind of like Barack Obama now.

      I never said FDR was responsible for Pearl Harbor, but his foreign policy sure did suck leading up to it.

      And as for “stacking the court”, there is no need for the quotes. He didn’t just replace justices as they died or retired, which is what I think you are going for when you mention both parties, he literally tried to pack the court with new justices so he could cram through exactly what he wanted. One of the most blatant assaults on fundamental Constitutional principles in American histroy.

      I am rather aware of the Bonus Army, which took place in 1932. I wrote about it in a book. (it was a rather pivotal event for one of the main characters) But you’ll never read it, because you are turned off by my blog. (How dare a writer have an opinion that differs from group think ! Burn him!) Really too bad, because all of those reviews you were searching for, yeah, it got awesome reviews. 🙂

      Oh, and somewhere along the line after reading my blog for one day, you assume that I don’t rip on Republicans too. I pretty much hate big-stupid government, regardless of who pushes it. You cite the Patriot Act? What? Like I’m supposed to be a defender of that or something? Dude. Please. I used to own a machinegun store. You’re not going to find a lot of people with that background who are fans of the Patriot Act.

      1. Larry..don’t forget that boycotting Japan of oil and other strategic resources pushed the militants in japan to take power.
        Due to shortsighted policies in Britain and the United States.
        I am not saying we wouldn’t have fought Japan sooner or later…but that was what tipped the cow over.

    2. Dumb – you don’t Google to find out what order a series of books came out, use Wikipedia.

      As for taking “bits and pieces out of history and then twist[ing] them so it fits your world view” … actually, that IS what historians do, and based on the arguments presented it is what you do, too. For example, assuming Correia is Republican??? Based on what evidence? He sure reads more like a Libertarian to me, but I can’t recall him ever stating a party affiliation.

      You also sot the facts wrong on the Patriot Act, conflating it wiretaps authorised under FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) which was passed in 1978, when, if memory serves correctly, Carter was president and the Dems had significant majorities in both houses of Congress. See, that’s the kind of thing you Google.

    3. “First off no one expected the Pearl Harbor attack at the time” Nonsense, Admiral Bull Reeves was called out of retirement at the age of 69 in Hawaii in 1940. He was recalled to help assess how Naval Aviation would be affected in a Pacific war. Reeves, essentially, created US Naval Aviation. He was worried by Japan. He and others worried about an attack. He was _there_ when it happened. Shortly thereafter FDR transferred him to DC ot oversee the Lend Lease program.

      I can give you many other examples. Need ’em?

      1. Billy Mitchell had warned of an air attack on Pearl Harbor, but he died before it happened.

        The warnings from intelligence were interpreted as risk of sabotage, so the Army lines up their planes wingtip to wingtip, and doubled the guard. When the Navy spotted the first submarines and shot one of them, the Army didn’t know. When the Army radars spotted the planes inbound, they were unable to (1) recognize what they were and (2) were unable to get people’s attention.

        The US had 7 aircraft carriers in 1941 (including Langley) and was well behind the 10 that Japan had.

      2. Great book – “Long Days’ Journey into War” – also goes into how the embargoes and other U.S. policies set into motion events which telegraphed the desperation of Japan. The signs were *all* there to see, even if now we talk about them in hindsight, there *were* indications that Japan would lash out at the one country they felt was most associated with their difficulties (and which they thought they could bully into neutrality, if not acquiescence).

    4. Matt:
      FDR damn well knew his actions were going to start a war with Japan. He may not have known exactly where or when, but there weren’t a lot of choices to pick for first strikes, and Japan hit them all.
      The reason was, we supplied 80% of Japan’s oil. FDR not only cut off all oil, he froze their bank accounts here. They had 18 months worth of oil in storage (IIRC), to run their country and military. FDR gave them a choice, collapse, or go to war against us and others. They were already grabbing land and other resources they needed from the Asian mainland, but they knew if they moved against the Dutch oilfields we would get involved. So, they went pre-emptive against us.

      I’d say it was pretty clear that FDR wanted us involved in the European war, and also wanted to curb Japan’s expansion. He just didn’t expect the Japanese to be so effective and formidable!

      1. If that’s true, I hate FDR even more. Must ask gov teacher about this. She’ll prolly have some sort of rebuttal. I suck at debates!

    5. “ever heard of hoovervilles or the Bonus Army”

      This was so ironic I couldn’t help but laugh. Clearly Matt instead of googling for reviews you should actually read a couple of Larry’s books to get an idea of what kind of author he is. You might try a couple of history books too while you’re at it to find out just how effective the New Deal actually was, and what kind of leader FDR was.

      And yeah as Larry said, Bonus Army was in 1932 not the early 20s.

  21. FDR was pretty bad, but I reserve my deepest loathing for Lincoln. Before the Lincoln War, my favorite Prez was Madison; from then until now, Cleveland, or maybe Taft.

  22. Item the first:
    Whatever else you say about Theodore Roosevelt, he had the courage of his convictions. He resigned his position to lead troops during the Cuban conflict, feeling it was nessecary since he’d beaten the drum for imperialism so loud. Seen any of Bush or Obama’s stuffed shirts getting shot at in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya?

    Item the second:
    Some of you fellows need to read your Bible more. The name “Lucifer” is used as a reference to the king of Tyre, It wasn’t attached to the fallen angel Satan (as referenced in the Gospels and Revelation) until the Middle Ages.

    1. That initial bit about Lucifer came from a 140 character twitter post that I used to make a point. I’m really incredibly sorry that while it made perfect sense to the vast majority of readers and got my point across exactly as intended, and ended up getting linked all over the place, it wasn’t 100% correct according to esoteric theological minutia. 🙂

      As for TR, I believe a great philosopher said of him back in 1928, “Never did like his politics, too progressive for me, but I’d follow that man into battle anytime. Lousy politician. Great leader.”

      Okay, fictional philosopher, but I’d agree with the sentiment. 🙂

  23. No worries boss. I come from a family of teachers and Baptist preachers, pompously correcting any inaccurate/imprecise statement we come across is what we do for fun. The holidays with at our household are a real always a real hoot…

    And the item on Colonel Teddy was directed towards someone else. I highly recommend picking up “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt” and “Theodore Rex” if you need to wash the taste of FDR’s writings out of your mouth.

  24. So hey. Looks like your choice is the guy who thought FDR was a great leader… or the guy who Obama thinks is a great policy wonk… or Ross Perot 2.0.
    You go to elections with the candidates you have, not the candidates you want; to paraphrase some guy or other.

    1. Uh huh. But the primaries haven’t started yet. At this point last go around John McCain was either 3rd or 4th in the polling. We don’t need to settle quite yet. We’ve had the flavor of the month polling going on for the last few months, with wild flips as the Anybody But Mitt group moves to someone else. I’m still waiting for Santorum to get his turn, because at least he’s got a relatively conservative record.

      That said, I don’t care for Romney. So Newt Romney or Mitt Gingrich. Wait… Did I flip that? Eh. Does it matter?

      1. Personally, I think all of them would be bad. I think all of them would be too crazy to vote in (including FDR part 5 (this would be his fifth term if elected again, right?). I think the only ones I would probably vote for at all would be Jon Huntsman or Ron Paul. Or maybe even Sarah Palin. I don’t think I’d vote for anyone else. This would be my first time voting. To believe, in freshman year, we did a mock vote in class and I voted for Obama? I believe he’s gone crazy too.

  25. Is it just me or does anyone else instantly think ‘Moron’ when a rebuttal post starts off with an ad hominem attack?*

    *This is not a rebuttal post, it is just an observation. 🙂

  26. Wow! Finally a source saying that FDR sucked! As a high-school student taking government class (with a gov teacher who just loves FDR…and Andrew Jackson…and Woodrow Wilson), it gets frustrating at times to look for sources to prove FDR’s suckiness. It’s also frustrating to try to convince my gov teacher of it as well. I mostly tell her I don’t think he was a good president because of the “court packing” (she replies with, “Everybody has their low points) and then I tell her he’s bad because of the internment camps (I forget what she replied there, but she still wasn’t convinced). As much as I like her as a teacher, she is one of those very opinionated ones…and does not make effort to hide it. She’s been teaching at this particular school for 25 years. So, back to the point (sorry about the rambling), it’s nice to see a fresh take on FDR, although I wish you elaborated on somethings. Thank you!

    P.S. My mom and older sister are huge fans of your books! I will get to reading them soon!

    1. Wait… That means you don’t like my books (plural) yet you’re reading my blog.

      No matter what else you say, I win. Sucker. 🙂

  27. You sum up FDR’s contributions very well. He should have been hauled before a firing squad. This is why I call the “Greatest Generation” the Lamest Generation.

  28. I don’t really get the debate over best and worst Presidents. They all suck..period. The seat in the White House is equivalent to being the head of a Satanic cult. Anyone who takes the job is dirt. But keep this in mind. Society is founded on evil. Therefore, many of the fool conformists are going to applaud the cult leader. Only a few who know Truth and wisdom will have a different opinion. They all stink. That’s a fact.

    1. Truly stupid comments. And the anti-Lincoln comments are idiotic, as usual. The secessionists started that war. A little engagement at Fort Sumter.

  29. And we are expected to believe all this shit? Trouble with most Americans is they were born upside down. The shit comes out of their mouth and they talk through their ass.

  30. People don’t realize how much globalism and socialist programs progressed thus eroding the fundamentals of our Constitution. Thus causing more centralized power of Federal Government and therefore abuse of its power. Everything opposite of what the Founding Fathers fought against and did everything in their power to prevent. People are being manipulated and need to educate themselves on what is truth. Our last decent President was Coolidge. A Republican who wanted small government. As it should be.

  31. I sort of think Reagan was the worst.

    FDR was a pragmatist. He was not an ideologue. It was a range of try and fix as the economy ran to nothing. Some of it was good. Some was not.

    Similarly, the stimulus during the last great recession stopped it from becoming a great depression. Overall, it worked and some of it sucks. Generally it should have been bigger and bolder because that’s just how the math works. GDP is the sum total of public and private spending.

    I do note there are a lot of demonizing of FDR by the usual professional suspects rewriting history. But one thing I have learned from fellow pup Vox Day. These professional conservatives always lie, they always project and they always double down.

    It is nice to see that socialism is no longer a dirty word and America. As brother Bob once said, “the times they are a changing…”.

    1. Ha ha – I saw Len’s post and clicked on it. Didn’t realize this thread was in moth balls. Best to let this one die. Apologies.

    2. FDR was a progressive. Progressives were deep into eugenics. Eugenics stems from the same technocratic tendencies that lead the Left to think it could change society to order.

      Actions speak louder than words. It has not escaped our attention that y’all have been scrupulously supporting supporting Planned Parenthood in systemically targeting the urban poor.

      The qualities that make a man rich or poor are not inherent in the blood. Targeted murders on a mass scale aren’t going to increase standard of living.

      Socialism is exactly as politically viable in America as racism is.

    3. Ah, George. You try to hide what you are, and fail so miserably. What’s it like to be a frustrated would-be tyrant?

  32. statists are statists no matter which side of the political fence they proclaim to be on. Hitler just took the power base from both sides and made it uber-statist.

  33. Regardless of your article, you suck at research.
    Your dislike of FDR’s speeches doesn’t make them bad. The newness of the medium doesn’t justify your opinion, either.
    Hoover waited for the economy to naturally improve, how did that work out? Smaller countries did come out of the Depression sooner. Was that due to fewer people or less landmass for agricultural recovery? Maybe your extensive research didn’t show you anything that didn’t confirm your tightly held belief system…
    The internment camps are more than disconcerting. Easily the most indefensible part of America’s longest administration. If you believe FDR was promoting racism instead of reflecting the racism in a country reeling from the attack on Pearl Harbor, I guess we could agree to disagree. I don’t want to make excuses for a time when leadership should’ve shown strength in defense of all Americans, though.
    When I began my research, I was skeptical about St. Frank. I now believe he was both our most important president, but also the only American in our country’s brief history capable of ushering us through both the Great Depression and WWII. Our first president will always be revered, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt is truly the father of this country. He was the leader we didn’t deserve and the president revisionist history will marginalize for no reason above petty contempt.
    We don’t have to believe in the same things politically. The American people asked him over and over to serve and he did, longer than anyone, until the day he died. We needed him and he worked for our Republic when no other solutions emerged. If you know your history, shame on you for coming to the childish and irresponsible conclusion : FDR sucked.

    1. The only thing you got right in that giant screed posted to the comments of a several year old blog post is the last two words.

      FDR Sucked.

      Damned right. Everything else is wrong. And he’s marginalized only because of petty contempt? Uh huh… And a bunch of awful programs, the worst depression recovery in the industrialized world, and concentration camps.

      And since there is no audience way down in the comments of a very old blog post, and debate is a spectator sport, everything I needed to say about his crappy administration is in the above post.

  34. Some more ones not included in the article:

    When he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy he came up with the brilliant plan to order his investigators to have sex (even at the time ordering subordinates to have sex was rape) with men in the Navy so he could prove those men were gay so he could kick them out of the Navy. Roosevelt’s excuse was to cling to the fact that the Democrat on the congressional committee didn’t TOTALLY condemn the man running for Vice President on the Democrat ticket.

    FDR fired Admiral Richardson for the crime of telling him Pearl Harbor was a bad choice to focus the Navy on. He flat out said it was too open to an initial strike like it got.

    After telling everyone it was too dangerous to have Americans continue living in their homes (which was totally was about danger, just ignore his Macon Telegraph articles showing just how much he hated his victims), Roosevelt took literal prisoners of war with a history of shooting Americans and used them to fill the labor shortage he had created. These “Italian Service Units” were allowed to freely roam the “sensitive” areas Americans couldn’t be trusted in. Even the camps for them were much nicer than what Americans got.

Leave a Reply to Eric Anderson Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *