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

Well, seeing as they are a large enough group in the House to block most any legislation Obama would want to propose, I'd say, yeah, they're kinda a big deal whether you agree with them or not.

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We got the federal reserve and 17th amendment under him.

He basically criminalized criticism of the gov't and damaged civil liberties with the sedition act of 1918.

He glorified power and sought to expand it at all costs.

He basically sought war with Germany and drew the USA in WW1.

He took over the US economy with the War Industries Board for starters.

He openly criticized the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

I can only think of FDR and LBJ as a close second and third with Lincoln not too far behind.

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Wilson had a mixed record...terrible with WWI, racist, good on some domestic issues.
Right wing anti-freedom socialists certainly would agree with you that LBJ and FDR are at the bottom of the list.

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

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Seriously?

Even if they were "crony-tastic" it would be so in the interest of their individual state and not in the interest of being elected by the ignorant masses. Furthermore, if their interest was heavily slanted towards their state, it would be killed on the Senate floor. This set up was a major restraint on the growth of the federal government at costs to the states. Wilson knew this. Hell, Wilson was a central planner who favored unrestrained (meaning no constitutional limit) on federal government growth. He was enamored with the Socialist Movement in Europe and openly declared that the idea of individual liberty superceding government power was a mistake and individual rights do not exist.

From Wilson's Essay "Socialism and Democracy:"

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‘State socialism’ is willing to act through state authority as it is at present organized. It proposes that all idea of a limitation of public authority by individual rights be put out of view, and that the State consider itself bound to stop only at what is unwise or futile in its universal superintendence alike of individual and of public interests. The thesis of the state socialist is, that no line can be drawn between private and public affairs which the State may not cross at will; that omnipotence of legislation is the first postulate of all just political theory.

Applied in a democratic state, such doctrine sounds radical, but not revolutionary. It is only an acceptance of the extremest logical conclusions deducible from democratic principles long ago received as respectable. For it is very clear that, in fundamental theory, socialism and democracy are almost, if not quite, one and the same. They both rest at bottom upon the absolute right of the community to determine its own destiny and that of its members. Men as communities are supreme over men as individuals. Limits of wisdom and convenience to the public control there may be: limits of principle there are, upon strict analysis, none.

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The Senate was the biggest obstacle to Wilson's usurpation of federal power collected in the Executive. The States were not beholden to the Federal government or Wilson and the representatives in the Senate were not beholden to the uninformed whims of the masses whom Wilson refers to as "tools" in his essay "Leaders of Men:"

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“The competent leader of men cares little for the internal niceties of other people’s characters: he cares much–everything–for the external uses to which they may be put…. He supplies the power; others supply only the materials upon which that power operates…. It is the power which dictates, dominates; the materials yield. Men are as clay in the hands of the consummate leader.”

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Wilson, the Father of American Progressivism, operated then as modern progressives operate today - which is to say the Progressive elite use whatever tactics necessary to sway public support in favor of granting to the elite ever more power. This exact ideal was written about and warned against by Jefferson repeatedly.

The 17th Amendment was the biggest blow ever dealt to Madison's Republic.

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Antonio Moss

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damn.

That's the best and most impressive analysis/takedown of the 17th amendment I've ever seen on this board.

Well done.

What should Wilson's response have been to the German's policy of unrestricted submarine warfare? Should he have just ignored German u-boats sinking our merchant vessels after being told repeatedly by our government to stop?

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Outside of that though calling him "most dangerous and harmful" is way over the top

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Not if you think Progressivism is the most dangerous ideology in modern government.

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What should Wilson's response have been to the German's policy of unrestricted submarine warfare? Should he have just ignored German u-boats sinking our merchant vessels after being told repeatedly by our government to stop?

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Allow the Vatican-mediated peace talks to take place two years before hand.


Or he could have not intentionally gotten the Lusitania sunk.

The peace proposal I believe you are referring to is the Papal Note of 1917. While Woodrow Wilson wasn't for it, neither were France and Great Britain. Plus, Germany and Austria-Hungary never responded in the affirmative to any of Pope Benedict XV's proposals either.

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Outside of that though calling him "most dangerous and harmful" is way over the top

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Like I said earlier, when people say they're a progressive, I often wonder if they really know what that means.

Most people really have no idea who WW is. He's relatively obscure because he wasn't nearly as active and accomplished as someone like FDR and LBJ.

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you're one of the resident board loons

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I'm libertarian and one of the most normal and sane people on this board. Aside from the liberals who do post here, I also argue with the bible thumpers and dumb conservative and neocon posters.

It sucks to be libertarian because your post and this are examples of how we get shite from both sides as opposed to what a liberal or conservative would get from only one which is a luxury.