# The Starving Artist plan to restore America to its former glory! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 26, 2010, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960 "2010-03-26T23:14:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Meyer6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@Meyer6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meyer6)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960/121 "2010-03-28T04:19:19Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And I remember how gangs and gang fighting was something most people were only vaguely aware of, too. Nowadays it’s everywhere. That’s the difference and the rub. Now your defence is that people were only ‘vaguely aware’ of problems back in the 50s? Have you considered that: a) you were a child/teen, and therefore less aware of the worlds issues b) before television, movies, internet, etc., news and information travelled more slowly and there was less awareness about events outside the local area c) views of problems like gang activity, drugs, etc are fueled largely by fictional stories on TV or in movies, not real life d) the more media violence people see, the more they believe exists in real life, regardless of the reality ([cite](http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/violence/effects_media_violence.cfm)) > [@source](#): > > those who watch greater amounts of television are more likely to: > > ``` > * overestimate their risk of being victimized by crime > > * believe their neighbourhoods are unsafe > > * believe "fear of crime is a very serious personal problem" > > * assume the crime rate is increasing, even when it is not > > ``` Sound familiar? It seems clear to me that with television and movies available to almost everyone, a lot of people in middle-class America will be more exposed to crime stories than they were before those media forms existed. ---
**Author:** ![Meyer6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@Meyer6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meyer6)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960/122 "2010-03-28T04:37:51Z")
And as for drug use, others have pointed out that alcohol is the deadliest drug in US history - and that the prohibition era was rife with the kind of problems you think only exist today. If you want to talk hard drugs, Cecil himself says that the US had, at minimum, [200,000 morphine addicts](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1335/did-the-u-s-civil-war-create-500-000-morphine-addicts) by the late 1800s - a time when the US population was only about 75 million. I don’t think the ‘evil liberals’ are trying to claim that drug abuse is okay, we’re just saying it’s not some newfangled thing. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960/123 "2010-03-28T04:44:33Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > I know. That’s my point. And it’s the violence they inflict on each other and upon society in general that causes me to condemn that type of lifestyle and the people who defend it. There is nothing positive about the drugs, thugs and gangsta lifestyle. Nothing good comes out of it. So it’s an utter mystery to me why so many people on the liberal side of the aisle seem compelled to defend it…or at least to condemn condemnation of it. Let me resolve this mystery for you: They don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960/124 "2010-03-28T05:04:32Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Yeah, I know. People like you have been yelling “sexist” at me for saying things that are perfectly obvious for decades. A woman I once knew was fond of claiming that there was no difference between women and men at all and there was absolutely no job that a man could do that a woman couldn’t do just as well, if not better. I finally got fed up with listening to her and pointed out that women lack the upper body strength to be firemen and couldn’t carry people down ladders to save them in a fire. She called me a sexist, too. Well, if nothing else, that does seem a rather fair complaint on her point. Yes indeed, some women do lack that upper body strength, but not all. There are women who could perform such an act (and men who couldn’t, myself for sure included). It does seem like something of a sexist generalisation, there. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960/125 "2010-03-28T05:17:55Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > Well, if nothing else, that does seem a rather fair complaint on her point. Yes indeed, some women do lack that upper body strength, but not all. There are women who could perform such an act (and men who couldn’t, myself for sure included). It does seem like something of a sexist generalisation, there. Considering there are [female fire-fighters](http://www.nj.com/newark/index.ssf/2009/03/newark_firefighter_and_constru.html)… yeah. It is. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960/126 "2010-03-28T05:42:28Z")
Well, there weren’t any at the time I said that in 1972. 🆒 Or if there were, nobody I ever mentioned it to knew any better. People didn’t have Google in those days. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960/127 "2010-03-28T05:54:51Z")
I would argue the conclusion to draw from that is that is that personal experience is far from a surefire guarantee, but I think i’ve failed to convince you of that one before. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960/128 "2010-03-28T05:54:51Z")
Well, there was a time when a guy would leave so you could make fun of him without him interrupting, he would actually stay away for a while. You, you’re like Cher’s Absolutely Final, No, Not Kidding This Time She Means It Farewell Tour. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960/129 "2010-03-28T06:04:52Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > I would argue the conclusion to draw from that is that is that personal experience is far from a surefire guarantee, but I think i’ve failed to convince you of that one before. 😉 We all use personal experience to guide our views and observations. There isn’t a person on this board who doesn’t do it. And people can only know what they know. Occasionally someone comes along who knows differently, and when that happens there can be a change in that point of view, provided that the new proof is persuasive. You’ll notice I didn’t argue about the existence or number of female firefighters in **Kobal2’s** link, for instance. Still, there aren’t enough hours in the day to research every impression we have of everything we have an impression of, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with going by experience to guide our beliefs and actions. If we weren’t the sort to do that we’d have died out long ago. > [@elucidator](#): > > Well, there was a time when a guy would leave so you could make fun of him without him interrupting, he would actually stay away for a while. You, you’re like Cher’s Absolutely Final, No, Not Kidding This Time She Means It Farewell Tour. Sorry, luce. I guess we just have different ideas of what “a while” means. Still, I don’t recall a particular reticence on anyone’s part when it comes to taking the piss where I’m concerned. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960/130 "2010-03-28T06:10:13Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > Here’s how it goes, when you’re brain is so addled you can’t understand the progress of the world around you it’s easier and reassuring to develop your own unified theory of everything, than try to keep pace with an ever moving and changing reality. > > It’s what old, addled, codgers do. Cling to their one theory. Because it covers everything. And because it requires no new data or thinking. > > Be honest, whatever happens in the next 5, 10, 15 yrs, be it world peace, religious unity, peace in the middle east or alien invasion, nothing’s going to change with SA. No new thinking or information has been allowed in for decades and that ain’t going to change. > > See he’s got it all figured, he don’t need no new information or worrisome facts messing things up. He’s all set. Expect no change in this stagnant backwater, he surrendered the ability, a couple of decades ago. > > He’s an embarrassment to thinking seniors who have managed to keep pace with the times and didn’t close their minds off some time in the 40’s. > > He’s also an object lesson in what to avoid as you age. Stay engaged, stay informed, resist the urge to just stop thinking and become such a, well, addled old codger. What makes you think SA was any better when he was young? He was probably like little Curtis, the 13 year old who delights in parading his ignorance in GD. Blaming the Sad State of Society on Decadent Art… ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960/131 "2010-03-28T06:18:03Z")
Who’s next? Be the next one to show your ignorance about **Starvey’s** life…step right up! First one who gets it right gets a giant teddy bear! C’mon! Say, how about you, little girl… Actually I like decadent art. Even painted some on occasion. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960/132 "2010-03-28T06:20:57Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > We all use personal experience to guide our views and observations. There isn’t a person on this board who doesn’t do it. And people can only know what they know. Occasionally someone comes along who knows differently, and when that happens there can be a change in that point of view, provided that the new proof is persuasive. You’ll notice I didn’t argue about the existence or number of female firefighters in **Kobal2’s** link, for instance. Still, there aren’t enough hours in the day to research every impression we have of everything we have an impression of, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with going by experience to guide our beliefs and actions. If we weren’t the sort to do that we’d have died out long ago. True, but the key is to recognise and attempt, at least, to try and cope with that lack of knowledge when those situations come around. There’s absolutely something wrong with not taking into account our lack of knowledge, or taking it into account to a mistaken extent. I know very little about American firefighters, for example. Now, I know that there are female firefighters over here. And I know that there are women capable of feats of strength. I could use my own knowledge to conclude that it was reasonable to say that there are female American firefighters - but that would be ignoring my ignorance, which means I don’t know whether it is legal, I don’t know the differences between States, I don’t know how insurance is calculated, I don’t know pretty much a ton of things that could have an affect on that answer. So while I could draw a conclusion from what I know, it would be irresponsible of me to do so; and it would be putting my own opinion and my own experiences on a far higher pedestal than they deserve, since what I am literally saying when I say I know or believe something is that I am confident that my knowledge of a subject outweighs my ignorance by a fair margin. I would say that personal experience is important in that it tells us, to some extent, what we _don’t_ know as much as what we do know. And even then there’s the unknown unknowns. Add in personal bias, input selection, and just plain old mistakes, and it tends to mean that I’m extremly wary of treating my own experiences as an excellent source. They’re pretty much one of the worst. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960/133 "2010-03-28T06:44:59Z")
Conversely, it can be just as wrong to assume that personal experience is meaningless, which posters around here love to do…posters who base almost all their ideological beliefs on their own experiences btw, and who only go scurrying for data to support their own beliefs when they want to try to disprove mine. There’s an old saying: _“There’s a big difference between twenty year’s experience and one year’s experience twenty times.”_ Experience counts for a lot, and people who have accumulated many years of it can have a pretty good idea what they’re talking about. Nobody really argues much with my main points, especially when it come to the changes that have occurred here over the last forty years. Occasionally someone will post some tidbit of contrary information under the apparent impression that the exception disproves the rule, but mostly people criticize me for the things I don’t like rather than the things I get wrong. And now I’m gonna try to back out of here for a while. I’ve blown almost the whole day posting to these two or three threads so no offense if you post something else and I don’t get back to it for a while, okay? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960/134 "2010-03-28T15:39:32Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Conversely, it can be just as wrong to assume that personal experience is meaningless, which posters around here love to do…posters who base almost all their ideological beliefs on their own experiences btw, and who only go scurrying for data to support their own beliefs when they want to try to disprove mine. In the grand scheme of things, it most certainly can be pretty much meaningless. It can be just as wrong, but it’s much easier to be. Personal experience, when applied in the terms it has been gained, may well be very useful. After all, if it wasn’t, we wouldn’t have any kind of skills at all. But it only works within those given boundaries. It’s far too easy to generalise; and as the generalisation gets wider, your experience gets less valuable. That posters look up data to support them rather than the other way around is most certainly a problem too. > [@](#): > > There’s an old saying: _“There’s a big difference between twenty year’s experience and one year’s experience twenty times.”_ Experience counts for a lot, and people who have accumulated many years of it can have a pretty good idea what they’re talking about. Nobody really argues much with my main points, especially when it come to the changes that have occurred here over the last forty years. Occasionally someone will post some tidbit of contrary information under the apparent impression that the exception disproves the rule, but mostly people criticize me for the things I don’t like rather than the things I get wrong. Really? That’s not the impression I get. My impression is that people tend to very strongly disagree with both what they feel you get wrong and what you don’t like. Why, it’s as if our personal experiences of what people say differs. And generally considering that your response to contrary information is to, rather interestingly given your dislike of total rejection of personal experience, totally reject any kind of data, poll, or statistic on the basis that they can be twisted. I would imagine that, for the most part, those who do not seem particularly willing to actually argue a point with you do so because they see you as a poster similar to, say, **Der Trihs** ; not someone open to persuasion, with quite extreme views. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960/135 "2010-03-28T15:55:55Z")
[quote=“Starving\_Artist, post:74, topic:533960”] You are right, of course. I’ve said as much myself in pointing out how both women and blacks managed to get the vote and make other advances throughout the preceeding decades without turning society inside out… Women had made advances up to that time without the rancor and name-calling and, frankly, ridiculousness that accompanies the women’s lib movement. [QUOTE] **Starving Artist** , that’s simply not true. The suffragette movement in this country and in Great Britain engendered just as much rancor and turmoil as the women’s lib movement did. Read a little history, about the numbers of women who went to prison for protesting, and the force-feeding devices used on them when some went on hunger strikes. One protester, a woman named Emily Davison, threw herself under the hooves of King George V’s horse at the Derby. From what I can read, the women of the turn of last century were just as angry and determined as their granddaughters in the 70’s. Here’s a link: [http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/Learning/Learningonline/features/wc/world\_city\_5.htm](http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/Learning/Learningonline/features/wc/world_city_5.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960/136 "2010-03-28T15:57:49Z")
I agree we should redo the 50s. Only without the mistakes made last time, such as not cracking down on the beatniks. They’re only going to encourage kids to listen to jazz and read philosophy, and that will be the ruination of us all. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960/137 "2010-03-28T16:09:14Z")
> [@Darth\_Nader](#): > > If we were all as trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent … . Life would be boring. > [@Meyer6](#): > > Actually, he has said that the entire 200 years preceding 1968 were all a golden era of sorts. You know, like the Depression, WWI, WWII, the pioneer era,the Civil War, etc., etc. All those things would have been a joy to live through, because you know, people were polite and stuff. Hmmmm, random things that happened, randomly written down as they cross my mind: The Cold War and Korean War, with Brinkmanship, McCarthyism, “oh my gawd Russians is gonna kill us all” paranoia (even had atomic bomb hide under the desk drills) . World War 2 which gave us internment of American citizens, the Bataan death march and the Holocaust. The Great Depression The Roaring Twenties, with gangsters running rampant World War 1m which gave us endless battles, led by incompetent generals, which (if memory serves) cost hundreds of thousands of lives per battle, and set the stage for That Guy later on /:=( Civil War which split the country, along with Bleeding Kansas, draft riots, lynchings in New York (of all places), burning of Atlanta, etc etc etc Much of European history after the “schism”, when christians fought wars against other christians, for being the wrong type of christian. And the Crusades, which even included a Childrens Crusade (what the fuck??) The Dark Ages, the Plague, the Huns, the Viking raiders, the warlords, serfdom, etc etc etc etc. Ancient Rome. whose economy ran off of conquest, enslavement, and the Games. > [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > For fuck’s sake dude, I am going to personally buy you a copy of ‘A People’s History of the United States’. Consider this bit by Frances Wright, writing in the mid 1850’s: > What were you saying about women’s rights not becoming an issue until the 1960’s? Turns out it was an issue going all the way back to the founding of the country. There is a whole chapter on it too- this is not merely one isolated radical speaking here. I wholeheartedly recommend that you read it. Wasn’t the biggest Suffrage movement way back during the Wilson presidency? > [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > … > And for what it’s worth, I agree with you about liquor, and as much as I loves me some hooch, I’d still give it up willingly in order to see it off the market. There is no question that alcohol, like other drugs, has ruined and taken a great many lives and condemned many family members and loved ones to lives of misery. No. Just no. Prohibition was tried and was a disaster. It was an attempt to legislate morality, based on bullshit, and it failed miserably. It fueled corruption, graft, gang wars, bootlegging, etc. Taking a liberal view, or even a libertarian view, it’s not government’s place to dictate what I do in my own home. It’s not government’s place to tell me what is “moral”, if I am harming no one. It is not government’s place to penalize or curtail me, because someone else either disapproves or doesn’t know how to act. And now to political correctness and “the seven words” - fuck that shit. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960/138 "2010-03-28T16:11:37Z")
Addled old farts who develop unified theories, “I’ll tell you where it all went wrong…” simply found reality too hard to keep pace with, better to just cling to an outdated world view and brook no dissent. Much less frightening to the atrophied mind. “I’m old and I’ve seen stuff, don’t try and sway me with your pointless facts, you young whippersnappers.” Clinging to the past is all they got. And I agree with **Reverend Threshold** , there is no point in arguing with someone who disengaged from thinking and reality some time in the 40’s. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960/139 "2010-03-28T16:21:06Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Conversely, it can be just as wrong to assume that personal experience is meaningless, which posters around here love to do…posters who base almost all their ideological beliefs on their own experiences btw, and who only go scurrying for data to support their own beliefs when they want to try to disprove mine… And you know this by way of telepathy? You know that those of us who think you are full of beans have no data until we “go scurrying” to disprove your positions? Lucky us, that the facts are actually there, blind pigs in an acorn warehouse, we can hardly miss! Your mini-sermons are fact-free and based on presumptions that only you see as solidly factual. Drug use soars because of liberal policies? Just as likely that drug use would be much more a problem if it were not for the boon of liberal policies. Where is your factual proof otherwise? Children are raised in broken homes? If it weren’t for liberal policies, marriages might remain stable? You refer to an ex-wife, you are divorced, apparently, as are many of us. You would have been better off if there were policies in place that made such divorces much more difficult? Childen are better off in homes wherein their parents hate each others guts? You kidding? No, I fear you are not. (I’m reminded of comedienne Brett Butler, asked by her son if he came from a broken home, she replies “No, honey, our home was broken, but Momma fixed it.”) If we make a presumption based on ignorance, and must “go scurrying” to find the facts to support that presumption, aren’t we about a full step ahead of you, who makes an ignorant presumption and cannot _find_ any facts to support it? When conservatives were in power, did the divorce rate go down? Drug use plummeted, did it? Kids cleaned up and started using “sir” and “ma’am”? No? Well, why not? If liberal policies make society worse, how come conservative policies don’t make it better? The prevalance of liberal thinking is not the cause of social changes, social changes make liberal policy necessary. Now, perhaps that is a dogma, much like yours. But my dogma will hunt, and yours just lies under the porch and farts. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960/140 "2010-03-28T16:28:15Z")
We need a president like Dwight Eisenhower-a man who worried about America (rather than every country BUT America). We also need to: -abolish the CIA. This group of clowns go around the word, involving the USA is all kinds of stuff - dissolve NATO-no need for this organization anymore -negotiate treaties with foreign countries upon the basis of RECIPROCITY -begin a massive program to end the importation of petroleum [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-starving-artist-plan-to-restore-america-to-its-former-glory/533960.md?page=8)