Welcome to Blogging the Presidents: A Voting While Intoxicated™ Almost Original Series. We will be taking a serious look at the 43 men who have led our country and hopefully finding a few laughable details.
PART XXI
Chester A. Arthur, inspiration of The West Wing? Arthur kept secret a fatal kidney disease. Unlike a certain President Bartlett, who hid his diagnosis of MS, he was not re-elected.
Arthur’s major accomplishment was civil service reform. Now as someone whose career options involve a lot of federal job applications, I have plenty of complaints about how the civil service system works, but his de-politicizing (later undone by the Bush Administration) of the civil service is certainly a good step.
Less good was his establishment of the first immigration restrictions. Sure, people as noble as Ben Franklin had voiced outrage about immigration (in his case, Germans), but it took until the 1880s to restrict immigration. In the case of Arthur, Chinese immigrants were a particular target, banning them outright for ten years (later extended).
Chester A. Arthur, inspiration of The West Wing? Arthur kept secret a fatal kidney disease. Unlike a certain President Bartlett, who hid his diagnosis of MS, he was not re-elected.
July 15, 2009 at 6:49 pm |
The age-old pesky U.S.-Mexico border problem has taxed the resources of both countries, led to long lists of injustices, and appears to be heading only for worse troubles in the future. Guess what? The border problem can never be solved. Why? Because the border IS the problem! It’s time for a paradigm change.
Never fear, a satisfying, comprehensive solution is within reach: the Megamerge Dissolution Solution. Simply dissolve the border along with the failed Mexican government, and megamerge the two countries under U.S. law, with mass free 2-way migration eventually equalizing the development and opportunities permanently, with justice and without racism, and without threatening U.S. sovereignty or basic principles.
Click the url and read about the new paradigm for U.S.-Mexico relations.
July 15, 2009 at 7:08 pm |
Yeah…good luck with that. That strikes me as being vastly less successful than German reintegration which was not exactly a picnic.