Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Carter basically turned to price controls and lacked leadership ability but was a honest man and good person generally. He became president at a time when whatever turns you on selfishness had replaced common civil behavior. That lead to constant conflict that has never fully died. For a short while Reagan's leadership and confidence infected the nation but conflict returned after he left. Both Carter and Reagan where both seen as at least moral after the deceptions of so many leaders like the whole Camelot lie Inflicted by media and the Kennedy's supporters.
My perspective of the Reagan era isn't as positive as this. I remember it being a time of great conflict among Americans, and a harbinger of our current political climate. As a teenager at the time, I don't trust my perspective of the Carter years to make a good comparison.
Carter pro.....
1. Mideast peace talks! No other pres has effectively got Israel and any Arabs (in this case, Egypt) to agree to talk!
2. Visionary energy policy!
3. Honesty in leadership!
4. Habitat for Humanity, revitalizing neighborhoods (post-presidency, but....!)
Carter con.....
1. Hostage crisis!
2. He started de-regulation, not Reagan!
3. Olympic Boycott was a wrong, weak and accomplished nothing but retaliatory Olympic boycotts!
Carter pro.....
1. Mideast peace talks! No other pres has effectively got Israel and any Arabs (in this case, Egypt) to agree to talk!
2. Visionary energy policy!
3. Honesty in leadership!
4. Habitat for Humanity, revitalizing neighborhoods (post-presidency, but....!)
Carter con.....
1. Hostage crisis!
2. He started de-regulation, not Reagan!
3. Olympic Boycott was a wrong, weak and accomplished nothing but retaliatory Olympic boycotts!
Airline deregulation and trucking deregulation were very positive. I was paying a measly $600 to fly a family of 4 across the country and back ten years ago. Trucking deregulation has resulted in lower prices for all of us on most goods. Its also eliminated an awful situation where trucks were driving around empty on half a trip because they legally couldn't haul anything back.
The hostage crisis would have happened to any President. (Please no one give me some BS about how Iranians would have been afraid of Ronald Reagan)
The Olympic Boycott may have been wrong, but we had to do something.
Airline deregulation and trucking deregulation were very positive. I was paying a measly $600 to fly a family of 4 across the country and back ten years ago. Trucking deregulation has resulted in lower prices for all of us on most goods. Its also eliminated an awful situation where trucks were driving around empty on half a trip because they legally couldn't haul anything back.
The hostage crisis would have happened to any President. (Please no one give me some BS about how Iranians would have been afraid of Ronald Reagan)
The Olympic Boycott may have been wrong, but we had to do something.
1. In the 80s, at the height of deregulation, small airlines popped up with affordable prices! (My moms and I loved PeopleExpress!). OK, there's the argument that deregulation means more competition. But on the flip, There's an argument that the "Big Bird" airlines (and we know who they are) colluded to put the PeopleEx's and Piedmonts out of business, those same little airlines with affordable prices! Could regulation have protected the Little Birds?
2. If it is true that Reagan negotiated the hostage release behind Carter's back, I'm surprised that Carter, with all the intelligence at his lap, could not have sniffed that out!
3. I'm still mad over that boycott! A whole bunch of athletic careers were delayed, and many unfulfilled because of that!
And I'll add 4. It's unfortunate that a whole lot of other bad things happened under Carter: inflation, energy crisis, Three Mile Island, Love Canal, etc!
The boycott of the Olympics was just about as dumb as the grain embargo. The way to go about it was what Reagan did, arm the Afghan rebels and run the same game on them that the USSR did to us in Vietnam. It worked pretty sweet. I remember the '88 Olympics well, as that was the first real Olympic games I had seen since '76 when I was a 10 year old kid, It was a long wait, and in '88 we got to see the hairy East German women doing their thing for one last time.
I have to wonder if there wasn't something Carter could have done to prop up the Shaw or find a pro western replacement for him, as Reagan might have done. I think the old Shaw of Iran was a very interesting figure, and not just a US puppet. Altho we helped Shaw Pahlavi to power in the 50's. One thing he did that might have made Carter hesitate to save him, was his very high rank and influence within OPEC, and his success at driving up the price of oil. The Shaw of Iran was really moving Iran in the right direction, they were becoming very western and had Iran been able to sustain that, history in the Middle East would have played out much differently. The Shaw recognized Israel as a friendly state and had good relations with Israel. If Carter wanted to do something positive in the Middle East, Iran was the place to do it. If Reagan had been president at that time, I think he might have been able to stop the Ayatollah Khomeini from taking power.
Also, women should like Ford better than Carter, Ford pushed very hard for the ERA amendment for equal pay for women.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.