Calvin Coolidge...

[ThePieSwindler]

I was just looking over presidents to try to find some who i actually liked. Most sucked, certainly not as bad as they have in recent past, but they still werent that great. The ones ranked highly by scholars are your typical Abe Lincoln/FDR, two of the most overrated presidents (by ALOT, id put FDR near the bottom on my list). Then i took a look at Calvin coolidge -he was ranked like 29th out of 43, and yet, when i studied more about him, it turns out hes everything most of us would have loved in a president - lassez-faire, anti-war/non-interventionism (he did border on isolationism), talked to the press (though he wasn't overly charismatic), drastic tax cuts, etc. He was also a staunch federalist, supporting measures at the state level that he did not support at the federal level simply because he did not see it as the place of government. Yet, he isn't ranked very high. Obviously a "strong" president usually expands the size and scope of government, and thats often seen as a 'good' thing (i mean, lincoln and FDR are 1 and 2..) - but why is Coolidge below even the likes of Van Buren ('van ruin') etc?

I'm sure its because his lassez-faire economic policies were seen as a cause of the great depression. In fact thats probably it in a nutshell. So this begs the question - would this same treatment be given to Ron by historians? Obviously things are very difefrent now than they were in Coolidge's day - being a big government democrat back then would have been akin to a moderate or even conservative today, considering the size of government was far less then than it is now. I thikn people are becoming tired and worn out from ever increasing government... but then again, maybe not, at least on an economic level - it seems a large portion of Americans do want to take the plunge toward socialism. So whats to say that Ron Paul doesn't get the Coolidge treatment? I think the main thing Ron Paul has going for him is the identification of the federal reserve as detrimental to the economy, if not insidious in its own right. Coolidge did not see this, and fell prey to the federal reserve's creation of booms and bust.. he just happened to catch the beginning of the greatest bust in American history, poor fellow.

Any thoughts?

[jumpyg1258]

Ron would most likely in the history books be seen as the man that brought back the constitutional rights of the people in a time of crisis reminding us all what it means to be an american. Something that our current leaders have forgotten.

[noxagol]

Yeah, calvin coolidge is listed low because he didn't do much. This puts him very high on my list. when his economy went down a bit, he made the right move, cut government spending and taxes and the economy was booming again in less than a year.

The main cause of the depression was the fed and hoover. Despite what we are taught, Hoover gave a lot of money out, and FDR's new deal was basically an expansion of Hoover's actions. FDR kept the depression going and even WW2 didnt end it. It was a return to a freer market after the war that truly ended the deperssion. Same thing with rebuilding of europe.

[erowe1]

Coolidge was one of the greatest presidents. I think Ron Paul would be very similar. The difference is that our government has grown so much since Coolidge's day that a small-government conservative like him or Paul would be forced to make radical changes, whereas Coolidge was able to maintain the status quo and just keep the govt. from getting bigger. Granted, the govt. had just gone through one of it's biggest growth spurts under Woodrow Wilson, with the addition of the income tax, the federal reserve, WWI, prohibition of alcohol, and, perhaps worst of all women's suffrage (just kidding....sort of). But even still, compared to what it became after the new deal, the government during the Wilson and Coolidge years was tiny. Then Hoover came along and screwed it up and made way for FDR to go full-fledged socialist on us. And it's been downhill from there.

Paul Johnson's book on the History of the American People has a good section on Coolidge.

[ThePieSwindler]

I agree noxagal - and i think if Ron were elected he would "do alot", simply because alot needs to be done to move toward smaller government, even if that would just get us back to where Coolidge already was. Coolidge didn;t HAVE to make wholesale changes, thus he was seen as an "ineffective" president, which is an absurd way to rank presidents. We should have a new list, a list of the best presidents ranked by how well they defended liberty and the constitution. Coolidge would probably be near the top 5, easily.

[noxagol]

I agree noxagal - and i think if Ron were elected he would "do alot", simply because alot needs to be done to move toward smaller government, even if that would just get us back to where Coolidge already was. Coolidge didn;t HAVE to make wholesale changes, thus he was seen as an "ineffective" president, which is an absurd way to rank presidents. We should have a new list, a list of the best presidents ranked by how well they defended liberty and the constitution. Coolidge would probably be near the top 5, easily.

yeah, probably. I think that two of the worst would be FDR and Lincoln. Bush I think is the worse.

[a_european]

Wow, i agree with you totally guys! Lincoln and FDR are on the bottom of my list too. One thing i would like to add that the Great Depression isn't a big deal in todays european minds, but it did left a scar in the american memory. The reason is because Roosevelt made it much, much worse trough his politics.
I don't know how well Ron Paul will do in history books, but historians seem to really love their Ceasars, Lincolns, Napoleons and Hitlers :/

[noxagol]

Here is a video that explain why these guys are put into such great light by most historians.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7373201783240489827&q=norman+dodd&total=129&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

[Rich333]

Coolidge was a "progressive" in local/state politics, just as RP is a "social conservative" in local/state politics, but on the federal level Coolidge stuck to the Constitution, just as RP does. It's reasonable to assume that they'll get the same treatment in the history books, if RP fixes things and then we end up right back where we are now later in this century, which is the most likely scenario if RP is successful ("the natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground" -- TJ).


Fitting RP quote:
I believe that one of our problems has been that we have had presidents that want to do too much, and the people of this country like a strong president, and I got to thinking, how can I run for an office like this and say 'I want to be a weak president'? Well you know what, the answer to that is we should have a strong president. Strong enough to resist the temptation of taking power that a president shouldn't have.