President Carter: to Commend or to Condemn?

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          I thought our discussion of President Carter was interesting. When, asked many of us described President Carter's presidency as being uneventful, or even bad. This is how a lot of people of the time also viewed his presidency, along with a lot of people now. We learned in class, however, that this is not necessarily the case. In fact, today, people are reassessing his presidency. They are looking more into his interest in human rights, rather than the shortcomings of his presidency. Since I was really interested in the conversation we had about President Carter in class today, I decided to research more on my own about President Carter and how people felt about his presidency. I even found one article comparing him to arguably one of our most controversial presidents - President Trump.
          This was a really interesting article because I had never thought about comparing him to Donald Trump. I think that it is interesting how we compare presidents to each other to such a great extent and try to categorize their success or their failure - but what is success as a president? I think it all depends on what a person wants for their country. Some people prioritize economic status, some people prioritize foreign policy, some people prioritize human rights. I'm not sure if we have yet to have a president that meets the mark on all three completely. Although I did not live during the time of his presidency, I can commend President Carter for when he did do for human rights - something that is important to me. He was the first president to take a real interest in human rights. He also gave funding to Nicaragua after Somoza took steps towards increasing the human rights in his country, which is a controversial act in itself because it seems that Carter took the little amount of work that Somoza did and called it progress. I did however feel good about the fact that it seemed like the United States was finally doing something that could be qualified as good for a Latin American country, rather than just looking out for their own economic interests. But, he didn't do much in the way of trying to help the economic state that the United States was in. I don't know, what do you guys think? How would you classify Carter as a president - good or a dud?

Comments

  1. Haley RushingApril 11, 2018 at 7:04 PM

    Emily, to answer your question, I don't think that Carter could be simply classified as good or a dud. Once again, I try to put at least some positive light on most leaders because it is undeniable that they do try. With that being said, some leaders are corrupt and their lasting impression is negative; however, somewhere in their time, there must have been at least some good intention (I hope) . I try to look at it like this: for one to be concretely classified as a dud, it should be proven beyond all reasonable doubt that ALL actions were done with a negative intent. This might be the wrong way to look at it, but I enjoy it because it is a challenge to think critically. Also, just because this is the way I choose to think, I am not being ignorant of the fact that there are poor leaders. Do you think that many leaders go into their position with all terrible motivations? I hate speaking behind a screen because I am unsure of how my tone comes off. So, I am genuinely asking this question because I respect your opinion and this is a question I have had throughout the semester and potentially even before.

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