A few of my college friends and I exchange emails on various topics. A recurring theme from a couple of them is how bad LBJ and Ted Kennedy were for the country. A typical comment is:
"Let’s just say that only LBJ beats “Teddy"when it comes to having been destructive to the US. His legacy too will be endlessly negative.”
So far the country hasn’t fallen apart, despite whatever it is they might have done.
What do dopers think about the legacies of LBJ & Ted Kennedy?
For LBJ- in short, he was very important to getting Civil Rights passed, so that was very good. He also was very important in getting us involved in Vietnam, and I think that was not good. I think those were the two biggest things LBJ was involved in, so he has a mixed legacy IMO.
Just to be clear, you’re asking us to debate some wild, unsupported claim made by people who don’t post here? Hows about having them join, make their case, and then we’ll debate them?
I mean, taken at face value, the question is ludicrous. America isn’t “destroyed”, so the answer is no.
The proper response to such is to
And the space program- getting things built in Texas was important to Johnson. We should have had him around for the supercollider.
I thought LBJ WAS a supercollider.
Or maybe that’s just what his opponents felt like.
Can’t really debate a vague comment like that. In what way do they say LBJ and Teddy K destroyed the USA?
Since America has not been “destroyed,” this is an easy one.
But if you really want to discuss, both were “complicated” men, by which I mean they were like most of us, a mixture of decency, flaws, inspiration, and disappointment.
Putting aside whether he was a good or bad influence, he was probably the most concequential post-war President . Aside form Vietnam and Civil Rights, he also created Medicare, Medicaid, started federal funding of schools, the Clean Air Act, presided over the bulk of the development of NASA’s Gemini and Apollo missions, passed the FOIA*, created PBS and NPR, got rid of racial quotas for immigration and created the food-stamps program. There isn’t really any President between now and FDR who got so much done or had so much of his agenda passed.
Without knowing the specific claims, my guess is that some element of the argument from naive, Fox-informed right wing types is that the Great Society has shackled us with massive, unsupportable debt, has limited our productivity and has created a subclass (approximately 47% of us or so) that are looking for nothing but a handout.
If this is the argument, we could talk about a lot of empirical evidence demonstrating the failure of those hypotheses, but it won’t matter. Generally, you’re looking at people who are uninterested in and unmotivated by facts.
I suspect they’re not talking about Vietnam or civil rights legislation strictly speaking, but rather the “Great Society” initiatives.
Kids today! Don’t know jack about history. It was FDR who destroyed America! We used to be a free country, with a gold standard and everything. Now we’re a welfare state, everbody dependent on “Socialist Security.” It’s all the deal he made with Stalin. Sold us out. Why the hell’d we drop bombs on Japan if we’re just going to let them take over all our car dealerships? FDR. He’s the one who destroyed this country.
(Well, why not? That’s kind of the way I feel, in real life, about Ronald Reagan!)
Silly! Ronald Reagan never bombed the Japanese.
Well, we are a smoldering, charred ruin of a country, and something destroyed us completely. Sure, LBJ and Ted Kennedy could be the cause, but where is the evidence linking LBJ and EMK to our charred, rusted and worthless carcass of a country?
As others have pointed out, the country isn’t destroyed, so LBJ and EMK get a pass on destroying the country. Denying the consequent is a valid proof. Denying the consequent - definition of Denying the consequent by The Free Dictionary Your friends are utterly wrong and generally not to be trusted when it comes to matters of logic and observation.
I think Dopers are being silly trying to disprove the charge.
The only focus here should be to encourage OP to ask his “college friends” where they get their info. Answer might be interesting; they may know FauxNews is untrustworthy so get their political erudition from Facebook, YouTube or Yahoo Answers. :smack:
OP must approach the subject gingerly: “This information seems so important! Teach me how to find it on the Internet too!”
On the contrary! Ticket sales in Japan for Bedtime for Bonzo were abyssmal!
LBJ was a POTUS, but Ted Kennedy was only a Senator – what did or could he, personally, ever to that could rise to national-destruction level?
I should think the things RWs most hate LBJ for would be the Great Society and the War on Poverty. (Actually, the things they really most hate him for would be the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, but even in this climate they can’t say that out loud.)
If they’re singling out LBJ and Teddy Kennedy, while it could be the Great Society and their notable liberalism, my guess is it’s the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which was signed by LBJ and of which Teddy Kennedy was a pretty big promoter. It got rid of the quota system of immigration, and allowed in a lot more non-whites and people from non-European countries. A lot of racists think that the passage of this bill is when the US really started to go to hell.
Well, Ted was a Democrat and sponsored more legislation that passed than any other US Senator (and probably House Rep too) in US history. Unlike right wing hero Strom Thurmond who served even longer, but never passed a single authored bill.