We all agree that Richard Nixon/Tricky Dick was a good president, right?
Some facts:
1. Yes, he was a paranoid alko and that did lead to the poor bastard's downfall.
2. He was a liberal.
>>365174
He was pretty much the only U.S President who could cease being butthurt at China, so props for that.
>>365253
Jimmy Carter's administration had to invite him to some White House thing because he was good friend's with Mao.
>>365266
Reading the conversations between Kissinger/Nixon/Mao/Zhou Enlai is quite marvelous. They talk of Hegel, Winter War, invasion of Taiwan, nuclear war and dismantling USSR in perfect calamity.
>>365174
In his day he probably was a liberal but today he'd be considered a conservative like all republicans before progressive liberalism.
>>365396
He's not exactly Santorum/Huckabee/Carson, etc.
>>365396
OP's probably the type of genius who thinks pointing out that the Klan was started by Democrats is an insightful criticism of modern soc dems
Who could forget this gem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiHN3IJ_j8A
His policies were socially conservative and fiscally liberal; a dangerous combination in a recession and social upheaval.
Plus the recent revelation about how he helped sabotage peace talks makes me disgusted at him. I'm what you call a paleo-conservative; I would've aligned myself somewhere near the late Barry Goldwater though I'd disagree with him. I understand realpolitik quite well; I read quite a bit about Bismarck. But Nixon's approach was too archaic in the age he lives in. That might have been acceptable in the 19th century, but not in the post-WW2 era.
Nixon was a brilliant man, but his paranoia and complete disregard for ethics tarnishes his legacy. He was better off not running for the Presidency.
LBJ can go suck it. If he only seved as a one term President, things might not have spiraled out of control. And Joe Kennedy definitely fixed things up in Illioniis for JFK's campaigning with help from unsavory elements.
Politics is a mess in this nation. There aren't any figures who actually want to serve the masses instead of their own vainglory.
>>365449
If only we could get Ike back.
Nixon is one of my favorite presidents.
He reminds me of my father
>>365396
Nixon was in no shape a liberal. He was far more center-aligned than people realized. Reagan was way more right wing than Nixon.
After Nixon's downfall, the Republican Party was paralyzed. They reinvented themselves by merging Christian fundamentalist elements in the South which even Goldwater was alarmed by. And this was the man that was called Mr. Conservative!
>>365449
>There aren't any figures who actually want to serve the masses instead of their own vainglory.
That's because political positions in your country have been elevated to these vain, glorified heights. You have to be a bit of a douche to even want to be a US politician.
Countries should be run by boring people like they are in the rest of the world.
>>365448
Well, who could forget this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qRZvlZZ0DY
>>365458
I have mixed feelings about Ike. The Shah and U-2 definitely blacken his administration. Not to mention Dulles' United Fruit machinations.
But there were pluses in his 2 terms despite the 2 recessions. I could say that at least with Ike; he did give the US some breathing space in-between Korea and Vietnam.
>>365473
I know. Heads of state are supposed to be administrators who can delegate tasks to those who are good at it. A good leader recognizes this.
His politics in China is his one saving grace. Still he was the one who definitely murdered the gold standard. Keynesian trash.
>>365531
>he fell for the gold commercials
>>365531
>gold standard
>a good thing
>>365174
Triggered
>>365174
no
>>365366
I refuse to believe Nixon read Hegel. Source? You actually have me fucking hooked here.
>>365449
>I understand realpolitik quite well; I read quite a bit about Bismarck.
perish you fool
>>365449
Does a politician have to serve the masses in order to be a good President?
>>366992
no
>>365492
You're right, be he was still the last President who wasn't a complete sociopath.
>>365174
best politician and worst person to occupy the presidency in the 20th century
>>366979
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v18/d58
It isn't Nixon. Kissinger expresses a deep love of philosophy and refers to a personal history of Hegelianism in a conversation with Mao and Zhou Enlai. They just discuss Hegelianism and Marxism for a little while. Mao namedrops Feuerbach.
If there's a section of this record that I haven't been able to find where Nixon and Mao engage in the greatest bit of argumentative and political dialectic of all time, I hope someone can link it to me.
>>365473
didn't douglas adams say something to the effect that, "anyone capable of getting themselves elected president should immediately be disqualified from the job."?
>>367639
He and anyone else who has paid attention to the difference between statesmanship and politics.
>>367627
tx mate
Opening up China was a catastrophe for domestic manufacturing, Nixon was one of the worst Presidents for doing so
>>367998
>Muh Marxist metanarrative in which only production matters
The real problem was the hippies and their decision to abandon economics as an area of political engagement in favor of pure social justice initiatives.
>>368050
There were almost no hippies in the SDS. The SDS were typically against hippy politics.
At the end of the 1960s hippydom became a subculture, and the SDS transformed into a couple of reformist new left trot groups and some underground armies.
>>365396
You have a pretty warped worldview, dude. Nixon won in '68 by picking up on a wave of conservativism - he was definitely in that time considered conservative. If anything the opposite would be true: modern Republicans would consider a Nixon-esque candidate impure.
What was so "liberal" about his policies, anyhow? He was pretty forward-thinking on civil rights, but I don't understand why conservatives wouldn't credit themselves on something as common sense as desegregating schools.
>>368163
>SDS was against hippies
>the not being overwelmed by them when vietnam heated up and consequently being radicalized under their influence
>>368617
>>SDS was against hippies
>>the not being overwelmed by them when vietnam heated up and consequently being radicalized under their influence
No. They weren't. The radicalisation of the campuses under primarily the Civil Rights movement (SNCC), and Vietnam was an entirely separate process to lumpenproles in san francisco using drugs.
The radicalisation happened largely from red diaper trots and maoists.
This is really widely documented stuff, stop using your imagination and read.
I don't think liberal/republican had anything in common with their modern counterparts. I mean JFK was a liberal and he was assassinating people and invading shit. Andrew Jackson was the first democrat and he owned slaves and committed genocide on the Indians.
>>368617
SDS didn't get radicalized, they got reduced to social fascism by the SJWs.
>>368693
>social fascism
>SJWs.
IIRC the maoists split the SDS in a line drive over 3rd worldism. Might be wrong on the cause, but it was definitely 3rd worldist maoists conducting a bureaucratic line drive, against, again IIRC, reformists in the Pabloist tradition. Again, might be wrong about the tradition, but they were definitely trot aligned reformists.
I'm not sure where you're getting your history from, but I suspect that you're pulling it out of your own arsehole and licking your fucking fingers.
>>368708
I'm talking after that, in the late 70s and 80s, when SDS became just a way to show how left you are by campaigning for the inclusion of more marginalized groups in the benefits of collective violence.
>>368719
>I'm talking after that, in the late 70s and 80s, when SDS became just a way to show how left you are by campaigning for the inclusion of more marginalized groups in the benefits of collective violence.
The SDS ceased in the early 1970s mate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_a_Democratic_Society#Climax_and_split:_1968.E2.80.931970
Stop licking your own shit.
>>368692
>I mean JFK was a liberal and he was assassinating people and invading shit.
Yeah, by modern standards he'd be viewed as a far-right-wing demagogue (considering how he created/used the mythical bomber gap in his election and supported Joseph McCarthy)
>>368751
Are you unaware that people started it up again?
>>368758
Whoops, Kennedy was behind the missile gap not the bomber gap.
Also of note was his emphasis on how cutting taxes significantly would lead to greater prosperity
>>368762
>started it up again
Yes, in the early 2000s. Which is beyond the 25 year rule, and not the early 1980s or 1970s.
Just keep spooning that poo down mate.
>>367431
I don't know of anyone who would call Jimmy Carter a sociopath, even his biggest critics
His policies were fantastic but his character and morality is probably one of the worst in history. Only LBJ, Wilson, and possibly Jackson rival him.
Sabotaging peace talks for the sake of winning an election, outright paranoia, racism (His conversations with Billy Graham reveal this), cheating in an election against George goddamn McGovern of all people. The man was a sociopath.
>>369137
>His policies were fantastic
Nixon was a closet anti-semite and war-mongering asshole.
>>369145
>closet anti-semite
Considering that Kissinger was Jewish I don't think it really affected his policies that much. Besides, everyone knows whom the President answers to.
>>366992
Depends on the meaning of serving the masses, innit?
If the masses are self destructive ignorant a with little understanding of global politics, doing what they say without thought would be really stupid.
But the leader of a nation should always be looking out for the interest of their citizens surely. All of them. Not just the ones who can rent the ears of those in power.
I'd rather have Nixon that Obama, tbqh.
>>367627
This is great. Please, please, find the other one
>>365174
>2. He was a liberal.
Please define liberal. I never know with you burgers.
