re: Is Woodrow Wilson the most dangerous and harmful person ever to be President?

Prior to the Direct Election of Senators, Senators were appointed by the legislators of his or her state. Due to being accountable to the government of that state rather than the people of that state, those Senators would rarely, if ever, vote for legislation that ceded power from the states to the federal government, due to the fact that legislatures would recall and replace them. With direct election of senators, they became beholden to "the people", which in reality was lobbyists. It's very expensive to run for a statewide election every 6 years, so Senators have to pander to special interests to fund campaigns, those special interests often are attempting to carve out loopholes in federal law, regulations that punish competitors, or want to give more power to the federal government and weaken states' rights.

Without the 17th, most federal entitlement programs never would have passed the Senate due to their nature of passing on massive costs on to States to pay for (see Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, HUD, SNAP, Section 8, ect).

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Thanks. Makes sense.

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no it doesn't. This was a hugely popular amendment due to corruption of state legislatures.

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What was bad about the 17th Amendment?

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It essentially makes the senate redundant as another house of reps and eliminates the states legislature's influence and pull in congress. Senators don't answer to their state governments anymore but rather citizens who may be ignorant. The state legislature appointing the senators for their state is supposed to be a staple of a constitutional republic and representing their state's interests.

The 17th was a major landmark victory for progressivism.

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kingbob

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Random. I shopped the white box out your avi.

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that led to disastrous consequences

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disastrous!!

Seriously, do you know what this word means?

I don't see how anyone can think that state legislatures would be less crony-tastic than what we have now.

no

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this is completely inaccurate.

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1. Wilson did not support the Treaty of
Versailles.

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True, but he pushed for the removal of the monarchies in Germany and Austria.

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2. It was the Germans who sent Lenin to Russia & kickstarted the revolution. They thought it would free the eastern front (it did, but it also kickstarted communist pressures at home).

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Three things:

1. The Central Powers were willing to go into negotiations to end the war with the Vatican as the mediator. France and England balked after Wilson said that he'd stop sending money if they agreed. He also gave hints that he'd bring the US into the war militarily, making the Allies think that they could get a clear victory in the War. An earlier end to the war allows Russia to stop the Revolution.

2. Russia was ready to move to round up the big guys in the Revolution prior to the Revolution breaking out. Russia met with the Allies and the US about doing this, and the US dissuaded Russia from acting for fear that a Russian raid would set off a larger conflict.

3. Prior to the end of the war, the Allies met and discussed whether they should go in to help the Tsar. Wilson blocked it, once again threatening to stop sending supplies and money to Britain and France.

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3. France & UK were not about to let the Germany off the hook with a simple truce.

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Of course, but without Wilson the countries have stable governments (the existing monarchies) and no fears of Communist aggression from the USSR.

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WW is the first fascist president ever.

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Started a trend that has continued for 100 years.

You already know my opinion of the man, but I'll go a little bit deeper.

People like Wilson come down on the extreme side of a philosophical debate that has been raging for hundreds (if not thousands) of years. More succinctly, men like Wilson illustrate the horrors of a utilitarian worldview as opposed to a more Kantian one.

Conservatives, especially libertarians, often get painted as utilitarians because they want to do things like slash spending at the expense of the poor. Ultimately, this is a mischaracterization because most conservatives would agree that every human has some inviolable rights to their own private property, body, life, and other basic personal and economic liberties. They believe this so much that they shy away from things like dispensing with due process for the obviously guilty. In my view, conservatives are actually Kantian thinkers because they just plainly don't want to violate the basic rights. The problem with government is that it falls all over itself to invent new rights that people will also call inviolable. It necessitates new bodies of law, new governmental entities, and always more spending. Not coincidentally, the new rights invented lately are almost always positive rights instead of negative ones. By the time anyone is rethinking those rights, the public has already made up their mind that they are owed something by the government or society. Think of your conservative grandfather saying "I paid into SS my whole life and I deserve this money!" It is not necessarily Machiavellian to say that we shouldn't have invented those new money pits in the first place.

Woodrow Wilson is the antithesis to that brand of thinking. He is the ultimate utilitarian. He believed that power in and of itself was a virtue worth nurturing. He believed that he could deceive the public at will as long as long as it somehow benefited the poor savages in the end. Rule of law wasn't meant for men like him and he didn't even really try to fake that it was. This is uniquely unlike Obama, FDR, and other utilitarian thinkers who pay lip service to the individual and "liberty." Wilson is the guy who ran on the slogan "He kept us out of war!" before predictably launching America into war immediately after the election.

This is why Wilson was the most dangerous president ever. He didn't even feel the need to hide what he thought and he most assuredly would have done almost anything to achieve his ends as long as he could rationalize it to himself. He did enough damage as it was, but I can only imagine what he would have done to the US with a compliant mass media and the bully pulpit to stir up the masses.