The common view on Jimmy Carter is he was a poor President but a great ex-President, a decent man overwhelmed by events.
The events of this decade demand a revision of that judgement.
Jimmy Carter was a great President. The fault lay in us, not in him. He just didn’t lead a great country, only one which thought itself great.
We ridiculed Carter for warning of the energy crisis, for wearing the cardigan sweater. We preferred the glib, simple "kill ’em all" answers of Ronald Reagan. We chose them. Carter did everything possible to tell us not to, but we chose Reagan. We thought Reagan a great man.
And what did Reagan do?
- The Reagan Administration cemented an alliance with Osama bin Laden.
- The Reagan Administration cemented an alliance with Saddam Hussein.
Had Carter been re-elected, we might have had a floor price for energy enabling us to start moving away from our junkie-like dependence on Middle East Oil. Imagine how many lives would have been saved.
Instead we’ve had this political thesis, this assumption of American
Exceptionalism that is no more real than a Hollywood stage set, and the
inevitable downfall, the inevitable excess into destruction, into loss,
into the destruction of that Exceptionalism.
It didn’t have to be that way.
Carter was right.
The Reagan statues in our midst are as misleading as the one of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. It is time to take them down from our national memory.
The judgements of history are true for all time, not just for one time.
Carter was not a great President. In fact, he was an actively bad President (I’d give LBJ the overwelmed by events cop-out). The problem with Carter was that he was all about conservation and cutting back when the answer is pushing forward and developing new approaches. This is the cure for inflation and it is also the cure for energy issues. Telling people to drive slower and turn down the thermostat is counter productive to what they should be doing, building more energy efficient cars and houses. Conservation* is betting against progress and that is a bet you will always lose. While there is much merit in questioning Reagan’s greatness, I have never heard anything to make me think Carter was anything but a bad President.
* I am not arguing against resource management, just “capital c” Conservation as a philosophy. That type of thinking is based on the dream of a 0 entropy state, which is counter to the nature of the universe.
Carter was not a great President. In fact, he was an actively bad President (I’d give LBJ the overwelmed by events cop-out). The problem with Carter was that he was all about conservation and cutting back when the answer is pushing forward and developing new approaches. This is the cure for inflation and it is also the cure for energy issues. Telling people to drive slower and turn down the thermostat is counter productive to what they should be doing, building more energy efficient cars and houses. Conservation* is betting against progress and that is a bet you will always lose. While there is much merit in questioning Reagan’s greatness, I have never heard anything to make me think Carter was anything but a bad President.
* I am not arguing against resource management, just “capital c” Conservation as a philosophy. That type of thinking is based on the dream of a 0 entropy state, which is counter to the nature of the universe.
Regardless of what you think of Carter, Dana is right in that “…moving away from our junkie-like dependence on Middle East Oil.” is the only sensible solution. Policies addressing the reality of limited petroleum resources implemented in the 1980s would have saved everyone in the US (and around the world) from many of the problems we face now, including the resource war in Iraq.
There is no magical solution for replacing petroleum around the corner. The only way to *smoothly* convert to a low-energy sustainable society is through conservation.
I don’t see how telling people to conserve resources is counter productive to the development of energy efficient technology. If anything I think it makes them aware of the problem and support more energy efficient products by buying them.
If you were on a deserted island with a week’s supply of food would you promote going on a 2 day binge in order to get to the solution faster?
I would suggest that a better solution would be to try to stretch out that supply as long as possible while working out alternatives.
Sustainable development doesn’t mean no development.
Regardless of what you think of Carter, Dana is right in that “…moving away from our junkie-like dependence on Middle East Oil.” is the only sensible solution. Policies addressing the reality of limited petroleum resources implemented in the 1980s would have saved everyone in the US (and around the world) from many of the problems we face now, including the resource war in Iraq.
There is no magical solution for replacing petroleum around the corner. The only way to *smoothly* convert to a low-energy sustainable society is through conservation.
I don’t see how telling people to conserve resources is counter productive to the development of energy efficient technology. If anything I think it makes them aware of the problem and support more energy efficient products by buying them.
If you were on a deserted island with a week’s supply of food would you promote going on a 2 day binge in order to get to the solution faster?
I would suggest that a better solution would be to try to stretch out that supply as long as possible while working out alternatives.
Sustainable development doesn’t mean no development.
Russ, what are you talking about? Petroleum could be replaced today with nuclear, wind, solar, geothermic, hydroelectric, and even other fosil fuels to power the grid and ethanol, biodiesel, CNG, and other fuels to power vehicles and what not. Would this be painless, of course not. It would require changing out a whole lot of infrastructure and it will only happen when the cost of doing so is less than the cost of continuing with petroleum.
A better example would be if you were on a desert island with 10 coconuts and 100 varied trees producing other things, but there was a guard there who wouldn’t let you get to the trees until you ate all the coconuts. Now the thing is, you like coconuts, so you don’t want to waste them. So, what makes more sense, half starving yourself to try and get more enjoyment out of the coconuts, or going through them in a reasonable fashion and then moving on to the other trees? Conservation is all about pretending there are no other trees.
Russ, what are you talking about? Petroleum could be replaced today with nuclear, wind, solar, geothermic, hydroelectric, and even other fosil fuels to power the grid and ethanol, biodiesel, CNG, and other fuels to power vehicles and what not. Would this be painless, of course not. It would require changing out a whole lot of infrastructure and it will only happen when the cost of doing so is less than the cost of continuing with petroleum.
A better example would be if you were on a desert island with 10 coconuts and 100 varied trees producing other things, but there was a guard there who wouldn’t let you get to the trees until you ate all the coconuts. Now the thing is, you like coconuts, so you don’t want to waste them. So, what makes more sense, half starving yourself to try and get more enjoyment out of the coconuts, or going through them in a reasonable fashion and then moving on to the other trees? Conservation is all about pretending there are no other trees.