# Come on, let's change history properly **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 12, 2017, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980 "2017-01-12T18:45:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/41 "2017-01-14T16:43:56Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > Take the suggestion from one of the GURPS Alternate Earths books: send a printing press back to the middle east in the 9th Century. This sparks a scientific revolution centuries early. We get space ships by the 1600s! So then you have Plymouth Moon Rock? 🙂 Also, one of my ancestors fell overboard from the Mayflower, grabbed a rope trailing in the water and was pulled back on board. Might be more problematic in space. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/42 "2017-01-14T16:49:08Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > As a senator and early in his Presidency, he was not gung-ho for civil rights. By the time he died, he was, even when it was manifestly not in his political best interests. For better context: > > [JFK's Civil Rights Legacy: 50 Years of Myth and Fact | HuffPost Voices](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/jfks-civil-rights-legacy_b_4290163.html) > [Fast Facts about John F. Kennedy | JFK Library](https://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Fast-Facts/Voting-Record-and-Stands-on-Issues-Page-5.aspx) Debatable. He only moved on Civil Rights when forced to by law and order and foreign policy considerations. With JFK, his death and the influence of his family conspired to give him an almost Saint like reputation with biographers and analysts shying away from critical analysis. RFK was a lot more proactive on Civil Rights, to the annoyance of his brother. LBJ with the 1964 Act and Nixon on the 1957 Act and 1960, both pushed for Civil Rights fully aware of the electoral consequences that might await. As Stephan Ambrose pointed out, Nixon’s dislike of anti-black prejudice was something which had been inculcated in him in his childhood. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/43 "2017-01-14T17:09:10Z")
I think what you can say about Kennedy was that he was in favor of civil rights. But how far he would have pushed on getting civil rights legislation enacted is much more debatable. Kennedy probably would have offered verbal support to the civil rights movement but wouldn’t have taken on the Southern conservative democrats who would have opposed it. It was Johnson who was willing to fight for civil rights. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/44 "2017-01-14T17:53:24Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I think what you can say about Kennedy was that he was in favor of civil rights. But how far he would have pushed on getting civil rights legislation enacted is much more debatable. Kennedy probably would have offered verbal support to the civil rights movement but wouldn’t have taken on the Southern conservative democrats who would have opposed it. It was Johnson who was willing to fight for civil rights. …and had the years of legislative experience needed to push in through. Would Nixon have fought hard for it? I think certainly, considering the shellacking he took as VP for his support for earlier measures. Would he been as able as LBJ? ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/45 "2017-01-14T18:05:28Z")
How about something completely different? Suppose there was a secret Library of Alexandria? A vault somewhere, storing a copy of all of the works in the Library itself, guarded in secret down the generations. And, a little after Gutenberg invents the printing press, suppose it comes out of hiding and prints its contents? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/46 "2017-01-14T18:25:39Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Debatable. He only moved on Civil Rights when forced to by law and order and foreign policy considerations. With JFK, his death and the influence of his family conspired to give him an almost Saint like reputation with biographers and analysts shying away from critical analysis. RFK was a lot more proactive on Civil Rights, to the annoyance of his brother. > > LBJ with the 1964 Act and Nixon on the 1957 Act and 1960, both pushed for Civil Rights fully aware of the electoral consequences that might await. As Stephan Ambrose pointed out, Nixon’s dislike of anti-black prejudice was something which had been inculcated in him in his childhood. Still, a big bone was tossed to the bigots by Nixon, and it is one issue that is still appreciated by them: > **[Report: Nixon’s war on drugs targeted black people | CNN Politics](https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/)** > > One of Richard Nixon’s top advisers and a key figure in the Watergate scandal said the war on drugs was created as a political tool to fight blacks and hippies, according to a 22-year-old interview recently published in Harper’s Magazine. > [@](#): > > Report: Aide says Nixon’s war on drugs targeted blacks, hippies > > … > > “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people,” former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper’s writer Dan Baum for the April cover story published Tuesday. > > “You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” > > Ehrlichman’s comment is the first time the war on drugs has been plainly characterized as a political assault designed to help Nixon win, and keep, the White House. > > It’s a stark departure from Nixon’s public explanation for his first piece of legislation in the war on drugs, delivered in message to Congress in July 1969, which framed it as a response to an increase in heroin addiction and the rising use of marijuana and hallucinogens by students. > > However, Nixon’s political focus on white voters, the “Silent Majority,” is well-known. And Nixon’s derision for minorities in private is well-known from his White House recordings. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/47 "2017-01-14T19:04:10Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Suppose there was a secret Library of Alexandria? A vault somewhere, storing a copy of all of the works in the Library itself, guarded in secret down the generations. And, a little after Gutenberg invents the printing press, suppose it comes out of hiding and prints its contents? I’d figure that at that time, maybe 1/10 of 1 percent of people around at the time (mostly scholars of ancient times) would be interested in the contents of the Library of Alexandria, and it would make almost no impact on the world at all. (Sort of like today.) ---
**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/48 "2017-01-15T02:02:33Z")
How about this? At the peace talks after WW I, the Arab world gets to define it’s future and borders without western interference. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/49 "2017-01-15T04:04:15Z")
> [@velomont](#): > > How about this? At the peace talks after WW I, the Arab world gets to define it’s future and borders without western interference. You’re mistaken if you think the Arab world was some kind of monolith. When the Turks lost control of Arab lands there were a number of different factions that stepped forward with competing and overlapping claims. The “solution” of having Europeans divide up the region was far from ideal but the alternative was a general war with Arabs killing Arabs. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/50 "2017-01-15T04:40:37Z")
Cure Alexander on his deathbed. Let him live long enough to unify all of Europe and India. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/51 "2017-01-15T23:14:13Z")
All of these posts, and nothing about either the 2000 or 2016 presidential elections? Either one would be fairly trivial to change… ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/52 "2017-01-16T05:12:15Z")
Fair point. I go back and tell Al Gore’s campaign team to make better use of Bill Clinton down the home stretch in 2000, _and_ not to let Palm Beach County use a butterfly ballot. Then I go back to May 2016 and tell Hillary’s staff to spend just enough to keep Trump pinned down in Ohio, Fla. and N.C., using the savings from that (I know they’re gonna lose those states anyway) to dramatically boost their field operations and advertising in Penna., Mich. and Wisc. That should do the trick. ---
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/53 "2017-01-16T05:21:50Z")
I’d tell Colin Powell what will happen to him and the Republican Party if he doesn’t run for President. Of course, he probably wouldn’t believe me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980.md?page=2)