Unlimited "Glenn Beck is a nutter" thread

[the last yatto]

Benjamin Harrison was the best president we have ever had

[Triple Zero]

I went to get the unemployment numbers and the fact of the matter is, I'm not going to be able to produce them.  It doesn't seem they were as high as I remembered.  I am wrong on that point. 

I think you got that the wrong way around.

You went to look them up. You DID find them because they weren't as high as you remembered. But because they weren't as high, you say "I'm not going to be able to produce them" instead.

There's no pwnage like self-pwnage, I guess.

[Earthbound Spirit]

I can't find anything definitive.  I thought unemployment was double digit.  10% or higher.  The information that I found ranged from 7 - 7.6 so I was clearly wrong but I still don't know what the high mark actually was.  Sites favorable towards Carter listed his high mark at 7.  I found some conservative sites that listed it as high as 7.6

[Doktor Howl]

I can't find anything definitive.  I thought unemployment was double digit.  10% or higher.  The information that I found ranged from 7 - 7.6 so I was clearly wrong but I still don't know what the high mark actually was.  Sites favorable towards Carter listed his high mark at 7.  I found some conservative sites that listed it as high as 7.6

Hardly surprising.  Carter got shat on, because he was the only honest president since Calvin Coolidge.  Everyone has a reason to bitch about him, and those reasons are usually based on complete fabrications.

For example:  The hostages.  Carter wouldn't deal with the kidnappers, and Reagan bribed them with weapons, then spun it as the Ayatollah freeing them because he was afraid of Reagan.

Another example:  Inflation.  This would have happened to anyone, as the bar tab for Vietnam was coming due.  The next US president will feel the same effects from Iraq & Afghanistan, but someone will be dumb enough to take the job anyway.

Another example:  Employment.  As you say, he had ~ 7% unemployment, but also the highest job creation figures anywhere. 

99% of the bad rap Carter got was campaign smears by Reagan's crew, which were then accepted as "fact".

[LMNO]

He also had a bad habit of telling the truth, like his "this country is in a malaise" comment.

It was, but no one wanted to actually admit it.

[Doktor Howl]

He also had a bad habit of telling the truth, like his "this country is in a malaise" comment.

It was, but no one wanted to actually admit it.

The Truth will not make you popular at parties.

Or get you reelected.

Then we bitch that our politicians are liars.   

[Elder Iptuous]

another beef with him is giving back the Panama Canal, which i am undecided upon as far as the wisdom of that...  i need to read more about it.

[Doktor Howl]

another beef with him is giving back the Panama Canal, which i am undecided upon as far as the wisdom of that...  i need to read more about it.

Giving back something we stole?

Heavens.

So...how much US shipping, military or civilian, has been turned back from the canal?

[Elder Iptuous]

another beef with him is giving back the Panama Canal, which i am undecided upon as far as the wisdom of that...  i need to read more about it.

Giving back something we stole?

Heavens.

So...how much US shipping, military or civilian, has been turned back from the canal?

Right... the matter seems obfuscated from the little that i remember from reading about it...
we built it right?
we supported the Panamanian separatists and got them to sign off on perpetual lease in exchange for that support if i remember correctly.
of course there's shady shit in anything like this, but i don't know how it turns out in the wash...

[Requia ☣]

BLS employment figures (specifically, the percentage of men 25-54 with jobs, I find this one of the best economic indicators) for Carter/Reagan.

[Doktor Howl]

another beef with him is giving back the Panama Canal, which i am undecided upon as far as the wisdom of that...  i need to read more about it.

Giving back something we stole?

Heavens.

So...how much US shipping, military or civilian, has been turned back from the canal?

Right... the matter seems obfuscated from the little that i remember from reading about it...
we built it right?
we supported the Panamanian separatists and got them to sign off on perpetual lease in exchange for that support if i remember correctly.
of course there's shady shit in anything like this, but i don't know how it turns out in the wash...

Kinda, yeah:

In the first eighty years following independence from Spain, Panama was a department of Colombia. The people of the isthmus made several attempts to secede and came close to success in 1831, and again during the Thousand Days War of 1899–1902. When the Senate of Colombia rejected the Hay-Herran Treaty, the United States decided to support the Panamanian independence movement. In November 1903, Panama proclaimed its independence and concluded the Hay/Bunau-Varilla Treaty with the United States.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama

Lesson:  Do things as El Norte asks, or we'll send you home with a rupture.  The free market at its finest.

[Doktor Howl]

BLS employment figures (specifically, the percentage of men 25-54 with jobs, I find this one of the best economic indicators) for Carter/Reagan.

Looking at debt is fun, too.

For all his talk about "small government", old Ronnie added 200,000 federal jobs (hence the bumps), and spent money like there was no tomorrow.

[Elder Iptuous]

Lesson:  Do things as El Norte asks, or we'll send you home with a rupture.  The free market at its finest.

So, for great justice, we should have given the canal back to Columbia?
(im being flip, that obviously would not be a good thing)

but. ok. so Spain lost the war against Gran Colombia seeking independence.  after Gran Colombia won the various groups that were cohesive in order to fight well started to argue, and many wanted to break up.  so upon separating Columbia had the Isthmus of Panama as part of their territory, although many in Panama wanted to be separate.  So the US comes along and points its hamfist at the isthmus and says, "hey we think we can build that canal that the others failed at, let us give it a shot and we'll lease the canal from you".  Their congress turns down the offer considering it a bad deal.  The separatists on the isthmus say, "hey we want that canal, and we want the money that the US will pay us for leasing it.  We also want you(Colombia) to gtfo."  So we say, "sure, we can make yer dreams come true."
So, apart from interventionism and liberating the fuck out of some people, was it really 'theft'?

and once the deed is done, what is the proper way that a successor govt. should make amends?  There just seems something unsatisfying in just giving the canal back since we invested money and lives in the construction of it, so that we could have access to a strategic asset...  why not just renegotiate more generous terms that would help out the Panamanians so that there's not a wire fence that separates shit hole panama slums from eden like canal zone?

I dunno.
shit like that is the reason that non-interventionism seems the best policy to me in the first place....
but then you suggest that, and your slapped with the 'isolationist' label.

[Doktor Howl]

So, apart from interventionism and liberating the fuck out of some people, was it really 'theft'?

"Apart from forced anal intrusion and the whole toilet plunger thing, was it really 'rape'?"   

[Doktor Howl]

And what's wrong with being an isolationist?