Liberals historically have been better rulers than conservatives in the U.S. on the Federal level.

Resolved: Liberals historically have been better rulers than conservatives in the U.S. on the Federal level.

Definitions: Liberal - Favorable to progressive reform

Conservatives - Those opposed to change and want to keep traditional values.

Federal government: The House of Reps., Senate, White House. Would prefer if they were referred to as a single unit since any laws and reforms would need all three's support.

Time Period: 1776 to 2000

This debate is in terms of the past ONLY, please no references to today or the future, unless it is in regards to the impact past actions have had on us.

Contentions:

I. Liberals have historically been the ones to find problems, propose solutions, and eventually fixed the problem in the end. This is the basis for my argument.

II. Conservatives are opposed to all new reforms because it chips away at their power and their ideals and they feel threatened by anything new because they believe it won't benefit them.

I would appreciate that all talk be confined to liberals and conservatives..keep republicans and democrats out of it because it is possible to be a liberal republican or a conservative democrat (despite the trends we see today).

My opening argument will be just one quote:

" Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act., the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did the Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things….every one!! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, " Liberal," as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor." Matt Santos, The West Wing

Ok well this is going to be weird with nothing to rebutt, oh well. In this round I would like to identify all the best presidents that our nation has seen.

George Washington - He and all the other founding fathers were liberals. Liberals as defined earlier were people who were willing to change the system. Well George Washington as almost all of the founding fathers were liberal. Compared to the liberals today, no they wouldn't be considered such cause now women could vote and slavery is abolished and all that jazz but for the time period they were very radical liberals. After all this was the first time a colony of a major empire succeeded. Then on top of that they become the only free and democratic society on the planet. Rome invented democracy and a couple others used it but at the time we were the only one. Of course, the American people were basically about to hand George the crown and continue the endless cycle of monarchy, but he refused and we created our system. To be 100% accurate we aren't a true democracy. A true democracy was like Rome were they had a vote on every issue like when to go to war, but that backfired because while they were trying to vote on whether or not to go to war the Spartans were knocking down the door. We are actually a Federal Democratic Republic.

Lincoln - Now I know what you're thinking. He was a republican, blah blah blah, but all that being said he was still a liberal. We wanted to end slavery, that was a radical new progressive idea for that time, so much that it led to our Civil War.

FDR - My personal hero. Got us out of the depression and most of WWII, only reason why he didn't finish was because he died. FDR was so popular he was elected 4 times. If he hadn't died it might have been more times. After he died is when they made the constitutional amendment about only having 2 terms. But he was in my opinion the best president we ever had because he got us through the worst economic and foreign crisis we ever experienced.

That there are our best three presidents.

Then theirs Kennedy, Johnson, Jefferson, Madison, Truman, Teddy, and some others. As evidence of their achievements which need little mentioning, liberals have been good rulers.

Now lets looka at some not so great leaders.

Since the conservative philosophy hasn't been a major one in politics until failry recently, these presidents shall be newer.

Herbert Hoover - He helped caused the Great Depression, said the solution was for private individuals to fix it and it only got worse. "Hoovervilles" were towns literally reduced to tents and shacks with living conditions worse than that of the original Puritan immigrants to this country. When he came up for re-election he lost all but one state (maybe two), including his home state. He, one of the most expierenced people in Washington, was beat in a landslide victory by FDr, a man with virtually no expierence.

Nixon - Watergate, Vietnam, Kent State (Four Dead in Ohio, great CSNY song) resigned because of all of the above just before he was supposed to be impeached...need I say more?

Reagan - Now I know what you are thinking...Reagan? Bad? Naaa. Well I would argue that he was.

HIV and AIDS - Blacks and homosexuals are dying of a disease that is immune to anyhting known to man and he lets it happen without a second thought (those were blacks of people that didn't vote for him so what did he care.) That was until Elizabeth Glaser told him the story about how she has AIDS and so do her two little boys (al white might I add). Then something got done. I would also like to clarify, that I am not some ranting black - I am white - like the kind that burns as soon as he hits the sun Celtic and German white.

Foreign Policy - This story is told in "Charlie Wilson's War" were we help the Afganistanis fight Russis under the table, but left them for dead once Russia retreated and told them to rebuild their country themselves and we didn't really like you just used you to kill Russians. By the way, the weapons we gave them and trained them to use are now being used against us.

Economy - Rich got richer poor got poorer, I don't care if income rose because inflation rose faster which means the middle class actually got less than squat. Also created a defict for the government, which he didn't mind because he was trying to get rid of government.

Whatever, its not like I need to argue anymore...I have won unless this guy does something.

I shouldn't have made this thing so many rounds, I WANT IT TO BE OVER!! UHH I hate character limits ytgDrgdghdaghdtghtrdytdyhdhdthdthtdhtdhtdayht

meeting the limit sry!!!! gnrstbnkrsdytbjrtirsdbgibhkgrdtgihdfkbgirgbedrghkterhkdgbirhsdkgbrhs kifgeraihsgiwearg awr hiariu wirgiaiusri gsr gist istsr trsa huarsutisa ruir y