Talk:Richard Nixon

Archives for this talk page:

<1>

, (new)

	This United States politics related article has not received a brainstar for quality. Please consider expanding the article appropriately. See RationalWiki:Article rating for more information.

Nobs

Nobs has a problem with the truth. His edits are factually inaccurate, cherry picked, or just disingenuous. This isn't new info. Hipocrite (talk) 05:26, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Really? the quotes you vandalized are verifiable anywhere, as all the rest of the material is. You never even looked at what you destroyed. Please cease this treatment of another good faith editor. nobs^{Ye shall all perish in flames - Kim Jong-un} 05:33, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Opening

The opening quote is a bit undignified, don't ya think? Kicking a corpse? quoted from a crackhead who killed himself with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head? Bit of conundrum: Who was more mentally unbalanced, Nixon or Hunter S. Thompson? But we'll have to leave it consensus if it's appropriate. nobs^{Ye shall all perish in flames - Kim Jong-un} 07:58, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

As anyone here even done the slightest research on Richard Nixon? He was a progressive. And this article is incredibly un-persuasive because of its childish bias and name-calling.

This makes Conservapedia look unbiased. Seriously demeaning to this website. Its an embarrassment to an otherwise useful website.

There is nothing unusual about the Richard Nixon article; it can fairly be categorized as commonplace. Check out the Ronald Reagan article for more of the same harsh, frothing-at-the-mouth criticism.

If RationalWiki were to treat all politicians (both Republicans and Democrats) as scurrilous scumbags (which they usually are), some of the over-the-top seething hatred might be justified; but that is not the case. The scale always tilts left.

Pick any article and do a side-by-side comparison. Invariably, Wikipedia is the best of the lot. Conservapedia comes in a distant second. And RationalWiki, well... they just sling mud and hurl insults; but only at their opposite counterparts.

If nothing else, RationalWiki is reliably predictable; it's just another far-left mouthpiece. And like its myriad brethren, excruciatingly boring and monotonous. Slings and Arrows (talk) 09:42, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I think I smell a raging balance fallacy in the arguments so far. Is it "name calling" to designate Nixon as a "criminal", or what is referred to here? Where is the Democratic parallel to Watergate, Iran-Contra, or the lead-up to the Iraq War? The reason you can find so many Republican nutters called out on RW is not mere bias, but because the Republicans are currently the nuttier (by far!) major U.S. political party - just look at the parties' respective primary candidates for Pete's sake. Oh, and "far-left mouthpiece", really? From which vantage point? The Republican National Convention? The Tea Party? Leftist (depending on the vantage point) bias, perhaps, but "far-left"; don't think so. ScepticWombat (talk) 10:14, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be beneficial to read the opening quote from Hunter S. Thompson. Of course, Nixon was a criminal; most politicians are. But desecrating someone's corpse (especially a US President), is a sick and twisted dissension into Looney Ville. Slings and Arrows (talk) 10:43, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

"Of course, Nixon was a criminal; most politicians are." Balance fallacy, again. "Most politicians" don't break into their political opponents' offices to steal their documents, run wire taps on or otherwise spy on or harass them, or defends their flagrant abuse of executive power with "Oh, when the President does it, that means that it is not illegal." And the quote is simply Hunter S. Thompson being Hunter S. Thompson (his hatred of Nixon was arguably only matched by his fascination of the man). What you're doing here is essentially waving a red herring in the guise of a tone argument without confronting the facts of the matter. Sure, the Thompson quote is not "nice", but compared to what Nixon actually did, it's very small potatoes. ScepticWombat (talk) 11:02, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

In a nutshell, the whole Watergate fiasco can be summarized as follows. Nixon wanted to find out what lies his opponent would be telling, so that he could counter with his own set of lies. I really don’t care if they spy on one another, as long as they leave me the hell alone. Slings and Arrows (talk) 11:27, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

That's a remarkably complacent attitude, oh, and a rather selective version of events. Watergate was simply the thin end of the wedge that revealed a host of other "dirty tricks" (and not all of them originating in Nixon's presidency), not least using the FBI to spy on U.S. citizens etc. But hey, as long as they didn't spy on you in particular it's okay, right? Braving Godwin's law I'll remind you of Martin Niemöller's subsequent lament of his earlier passivity, or, for that matter, an admonition from the 1790s: "It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." ScepticWombat (talk) 11:55, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

They do spy me, and you, and everyone else. You would be very naïve to think otherwise. We have surveillance cameras everywhere now; they have become so ubiquitous that we no longer even notice. All internet and cell phone traffic are closely monitored. The satellites overhead are so powerful they can read the head of a dime; and with infrared imaging can see inside your house.

But as long as they leave me alone, I really don’t care. But hey, if you want to fret over it, knock yourself out; just don’t do anything undignified, someone is probably watching. Slings and Arrows (talk) 13:28, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Sceptic asks, "Where is the Democratic parallel to Watergate?" Here. Bob^{the Battery Operated Boyfriend} 15:50, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Victor Lasky is “dead on balls accurate”; it didn’t start with Watergate; nor has it ever come to an end. All politicians are crooks who spend each day with their pants down around their ankles, eager to violate anyone (human or beast) who will hold still.

If I were ever told that a politician (Republican or Democrat) was coming to my home, I would immediately hide all valuables, lock the women and children in the cellar, barricade the entry, and stand out front with a loaded shotgun. Slings and Arrows (talk) 20:37, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Oh surprise, nobs can quote a conservative trying to play the balance fallacy shading into not as bad as while Watergate was hammering the Republicans. Sure, other POTUSes had stepped beyond the limits, but even Republicans were outraged at the level of Nixonian mendacity. Note also that Lasky's examples from JFK and LBJ are far from the kinds of widespread and flagrant abuse seen during the Nixon years (the Watergate break in was as stupid and unnecessary as it was illegal as Nixon would've won in a landslide anyway). What is even more nefarious is Nixon's clearly unconstitutional claims of authority, which amounted to the kind of Imperial Presidency the promotion of which would not surface again until the bizarre claims by Dubya's hocus pocus lawyers arguing for similar Presidential powers, most (in)famously John "Torture Memo" Yoo, but to a lesser extent also Alberto Gonzales and John Ashcroft. Note that the Nixon and Dubya low points were linked by the presence of such people as Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney who, unlike most others, had concluded that the problem with Nixon's scandalous and illegal activities weren't their character, but simply that they had been discovered...

If I had to choose between Tricky Dick and Dubya, however, I'd definitely choose the former as he at least was savvy on foreign policy. Note how Nixon's dithering on Vietnam was (arguably more than) balanced by his "opening" to China, SALT I, and the ABM Treaty (scrapped by Dubya, btw) in contrast to Dubya's foreign policy which was pretty much an expensive (in lives and money) failure from start to finish.

As for the earlier claim that Conservapedia(?!?) and Wikipedia always trump RW, I'd point to one article where I think RW currently manages to actually outdo Wikipedia, namely William Lane Craig. While I've added to that one quite extensively and I'm thus no unbiased witness, I think that even prior to my own contributions the RW version was better than Wiki's (not to speak of Conservapedia's gushing praise), because Craig fans and Wiki sourcing policy has so far kept the extensive and scathing criticism and well-known debunking of WLC's PRATTs out of William Lane Craig. ScepticWombat (talk) 14:48, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Quotes

The cite just added from the youtube video clip and original tapes shows the quotes, "You know what happened to the Greeks! Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo. We all know that. So was Socrates."[21] and "You know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman emperors were fags ", need to merged into one quote. Where the remainder of the second quote comes from still is unsourced. nobs^{It all depends what ISIS is.} 17:27, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Founding the DEA.

Nixon also "started" the War on Drugs with the creation of the DEA, mostly for political gain as part of his southern strategy. ^{— Unsigned, by: Greatnecro / talk / contribs (signed by bot)} 02:25, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

'Compare and contrast'

Anyone knowing more about US politics care to do a 'compare and contrast "bad" Presidents' piece? (Indicate clearly which sense of 'bad' is being used.) Anna Livia (talk) 10:47, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Nixon was actually a fairly decent president policy wise, shame he, well, you know.... — Oxyaena ^Harass 08:29, 15 June 2019 (UTC)