Nixon evil, why?

[Reply #40 on:]

Well Nixon is probably all bitter from Watergate and shit...and then like Y_L_B said being a head crammed in a jar for a thousand years would piss me off too.

I'd need to dominate the world after something like that.

[Reply #41 on:]

Nixon was a great American. He was not evil, just human. Paranoid?..I'd say it was his hippie opposition that was paranoid. Just look at some of the slandor and ridiculous urban myths being spread in many of the preceding posts. For shame. You want evil?...You've got Michael Jackson, Hillary Clinton, Usama Bin Laden.....or am I just being paranoid?

[Reply #42 on:]

Why is Nixon evil? I don't know too..... But one thing is for sure he would do anything to get a body for his lonely head!!

[Reply #43 on:]

what can I say that head really does everything to get a new body... (even trying to have a robot's body) EEEEEVVVVIIIILLLLL!

[Reply #44 on:]

 

Originally posted by keiji:
what can I say that head really does everything to get a new body... (even trying to have a robot's body) EEEEEVVVVIIIILLLLL!

Why is that evil? I'm just curious. If I were a decapitated head in a jar for 1000 years, I'd kill 2 puppies to get a body. No more though...   

[Reply #45 on:]

well being australian, we don't really care about those idjit's you guys call "leaders" but, i do not belive nixon was evil, maybe he was nurotic, but aren't we all?

[Reply #46 on:]

nixon may not have been evil, but he was a lying, manipulitive fraud. pretty much your average politician, really.

[Reply #47 on:]

 

Originally posted by zapperdan:
nixon may not have been evil, but he was a lying, manipulitive fraud. pretty much your average politician, really.

Exactly.  The only difference between Nixon and any other politician is that he got caught.

[Reply #48 on:]

Second.

[Reply #49 on:]

To be fair, Pamela Anderson has spent 1000 years in a jar and she's not evil.

Don't know why Nixon is evil, but he hasn't done anything much worse than recent presidents has he?

[Reply #50 on:]

 

Originally posted by zapperdan:
nixon may not have been evil, but he was a lying, manipulitive fraud. pretty much your average politician, really.

[Scruffy] ...Second. [/Scruffy]

But Nixon did lead a pretty interesting life.

I just read somewhere that the word "politics", when translated to latin, means "many bloodsucking parasites". What a great description!   

[Reply #51 on:]

 

Originally posted by David A:
 Exactly.  The only difference between Nixon and any other politician is that he got caught.

The other difference is that Nixon chose to resign instead of thumb his nose at his country with absolute disregard. He was never convicted, just caught in the act. If he were in power at any time in the last two decades and had been caught red handed he would probably have just risked the impeachment, figuring he can ignore the cardboard cutouts in Congress. Oops, got carried away there...

[Reply #52 on:]

Well, yeah.  There's that too.   

[Reply #53 on:]

As Greg mentioned before, there were other heads in jars in the show that had been around for 1000 years: Pamela Anderson, Ron Popeil, Henry Kissenger, Lucy Lui, Conan O'Brien, Gerald Ford etc. None of them went evil. Although Pamela did have a crazy evil laugh in 'Fishful of Dollars'.

[Reply #54 on:]

 

Originally posted by M0le:
Although Pamela did have a crazy evil laugh in 'Fishful of Dollars'.

She also helped Mom's sons steal Fry's money.  She seemed pretty evil to me.

[Reply #55 on:]

 

Originally posted by anachronism:
 The other difference is that Nixon chose to resign instead of thumb his nose at his country with absolute disregard. He was never convicted, just caught in the act. If he were in power at any time in the last two decades and had been caught red handed he would probably have just risked the impeachment, figuring he can ignore the cardboard cutouts in Congress. Oops, got carried away there...

nixon would have gone to jail if he hadn't have been pardoned by that wuss, ford! if you think he resigned because it was the honorable thing to do then you really don't know much about nixon or politics, for that matter.

[Reply #56 on:]

 

Originally posted by zapperdan:
 nixon would have gone to jail if he hadn't have been pardoned by that wuss, ford! if you think he resigned because it was the honorable thing to do then you really don't know much about nixon or politics, for that matter.

That may be true. I don't really know any of the details. What I understand of it is that he was on track for reelection and he did something stupid that wasn't even necessary but rather, vogue for the political arena. Maybe he would have gone to jail, that's more than I know.

However, I'm not sure what you mean about honor. There's honor among thieves, no question about it. Things just aren't black and white. Or maybe this proves I don't know anything about politics and by implication I'm an idiot. Do tell.

[Reply #57 on:]

as far as i can tell, you were suggesting that his resignation was the decent thing to do and that was the reason he resigned, yes? politicians simply don't think like that. politicians arte coniving, manipulitive people. nixon was at the pinnicle of this breed. honour had nothing to do with it. the only thing nixon(read all politicians) would have considred was neccessity.

there's an old saying, something like this- there can never be a good/decent/honest president/prime minister, etc. because for him to achieve his position he has had to deceive, lie, cheat and promise so many things he cannot possibly give to the people, by the time he arrives at the top he has been corrupted absolutely.

that applies to EVERY political leader, today. such is the way of modern politics.

i didn't mean to suggest you were an idiot. i should have said you didn't seem to know a lot about politicians, not politics. in any case its just my opinion, which is as poor/wise as anyones.

[Reply #58 on:]

Kennedy cheated to become president too, and yet he is one of the most admired presidents in recent history. Why is Nixon hated so much more?

[Reply #59 on:]

The thing we must remember here is the Vietnam war.  Watergate alone is not the only thing that people hated him for, and it isn't even the most commonly referenced thing on Futurama.  Vietnam is.

Vietnam was always meant as a propaganda tool.  The so called "Communist threat" was a bunch of bullshit and political leaders knew it.  But when you're in "war time" (even one that doesn't involve any shots like the "Cold war" ) its pretty easy for a  political leader to manipulate the voters into blindly following them and voting for them.

LBJ took the cold war one step forward by starting an actual war.  He always wanted one, he just needed the perfect way of getting into one.  The Gulf of Tonkin incident (which in itself was hugely over exxagerated for purposes of starting a war) was enough for him to convince congress.

Nixon promised he had a "plan" when of course he didn't, and he got elected.  He kept the war going, allowing thousands to die for propaganda purposes.  The whole mess with that war also has set up a whole chain of dastardly "foreign relations" incidents by the US that currently make it the leader in terrorist actions.

THAT'S why Nixon was evil.

[Reply #60 on:]

 

Originally posted by DotheBartman:
The thing we must remember here is the Vietnam war.  Watergate alone is not the only thing that people hated him for, and it isn't even the most commonly referenced thing on Futurama.  Vietnam is.

Vietnam was always meant as a propaganda tool.  The so called "Communist threat" was a bunch of bullshit and political leaders knew it.  But when you're in "war time" (even one that doesn't involve any shots like the "Cold war" ) its pretty easy for a  political leader to manipulate the voters into blindly following them and voting for them.

LBJ took the cold war one step forward by starting an actual war.  He always wanted one, he just needed the perfect way of getting into one.  The Gulf of Tonkin incident (which in itself was hugely over exxagerated for purposes of starting a war) was enough for him to convince congress.

Nixon promised he had a "plan" when of course he didn't, and he got elected.  He kept the war going, allowing thousands to die for propaganda purposes.  The whole mess with that war also has set up a whole chain of dastardly "foreign relations" incidents by the US that currently make it the leader in terrorist actions.

THAT'S why Nixon was evil.

The "so called communist threat"? It was more than a threat. It was a reality. Nixon was hated by the left for his anti-communist stance. A stance he held in common with JFK. He helped expose Stalin's spies in the FDR and Truman administrations, as well as home grown Red traitors. The left hated him for it. After WW2, communism was the big winner. Ten countries in eastern Europe were ceded over by Churchhill and FDR at Yalta. The threat was a reality.
      Nixon's "plan" worked. All increases in U.S. forces in South Vietnam occured under JFK and LBJ. It peaked at 536,000 in late 1968. All reductions occured under Nixon. 20,000 in late 1972 and virtually zero in late 1973. This was because of the Paris Peace Accords.  North Vietnam broke the treaty after 1) Nixon's resignation, 2) the anti-war congressional democrats cut aid to South Vietnam in half, 3) the certainty that Ford would do nothing. There was only a handfull of U.S. troops left. Not enough to stop the onslaught. Nixon tried to cover up for his aides and he payed the price. The left hated him, and they still do. Because they are evil perhaps.

[Reply #61 on:]

more neo-conservative revisionist garbage.

 

[Reply #62 on:]

I'm a conservative, not a neo-conservative. and anything other than what I wrote would be revisionism.

[Reply #63 on:]

I don't know that I'd call Nixon evil. I mean, who's really evil. I mean, purely evil. No one. No real person, anyway.

Nixon was evil inasmuch as he was the opposite to the Kennedys, whom many considered "good." The idea that the Kennedys were good and Nixon was evil is the kind of black/white thinking that gives us the concepts of, well, black/white people. It's silly.

One thing about Nixon that can't be disputed: he used the "Red Menace" thing to his distinct advantage. His Congressional and Senate races were both won by painting his opponents as Commies or Communist sympathizers when that just wasn't true. Nixon played on - and, in some ways, amplified - the witch-hunt mentality of the 40s, 50s and 60s.

And that mentality was Nixon. He wasn't trusting. He was paranoid. He was scheming. He was clinging desperately to his power and willing to do whatever it took to keep that power. Most politicians would probably act similarly, and no doubt many have before and since. But, with Watergate and the tapes and All That Jazz, we KNOW that Nixon wasn't the greatest guy, personally, and that he wasn't exactly motivated by the most noble of ideals. We may suspect these things of other polticians, but we know them to be true of Nixon. Which is why he's sort of become this caricature or a caricature over the years. We have too much information on Nixon. Wayyyyyy too much. And this is what we've done with it. We've channeled it into some kind of cartoon presidential oaf who can be blamed for everything bad.

Nixon gets painted with the evil brush for doing what every politician who's ever held high office has done a zillion times: he lied. Nixon just had the misfortune of getting caught. All the other guys maintained plausible deniability.

Off to beat myself with the Off-Topic Stick

[Reply #64 on:]

 

Originally posted by zoidberg74:
I'm a conservative, not a neo-conservative. and anything other than what I wrote would be revisionism.

no it wouldn't.

[Reply #65 on:]

 

Originally posted by DotheBartman:
The thing we must remember here is the Vietnam war.  Watergate alone is not the only thing that people hated him for, and it isn't even the most commonly referenced thing on Futurama.  Vietnam is.

Vietnam was always meant as a propaganda tool.  The so called "Communist threat" was a bunch of bullshit and political leaders knew it.  But when you're in "war time" (even one that doesn't involve any shots like the "Cold war" ) its pretty easy for a  political leader to manipulate the voters into blindly following them and voting for them.

LBJ took the cold war one step forward by starting an actual war.  He always wanted one, he just needed the perfect way of getting into one.  The Gulf of Tonkin incident (which in itself was hugely over exxagerated for purposes of starting a war) was enough for him to convince congress.

Nixon promised he had a "plan" when of course he didn't, and he got elected.  He kept the war going, allowing thousands to die for propaganda purposes.  The whole mess with that war also has set up a whole chain of dastardly "foreign relations" incidents by the US that currently make it the leader in terrorist actions.

THAT'S why Nixon was evil.

What I'm saying is, is their really all that much difference between Nixon and someone like Kennedy, not even considering that both cheated?

If the cold war was just a bunch of B.S. then Kennedy exploited it also, and approved the invasion of Cuba in the Bay of Pigs. We should also remember Nixon opening up relations with China, a communist country.

I'm not saying that Nixon was great, just that he was not much worse than most everyone else we've had as president.

[Reply #66 on:]

 

I'm not saying that Nixon was great, just that he was not much worse than most everyone else we've had as president.

I can go along with that.

[Reply #67 on:]

Yeah, I wasn't saying other politicians were saints either.  Politicians today pull the exact same tricks.  Voters never seem to learn from past mistakes.

[Reply #68 on:]

Goody...now we're all friends again.