This whole "two sides to people" thing

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

In discussion on this forum, people seem to be caught up in this idea that if a historical figure is something, they are that and only that. In a recent discussion on Woodrow Wilson I witnessed, one person made the claim that Wilson was unabashedly progressive and moreso than, say, William Howard Taft. In that same thread, no doubt, there were claims relating to Wilson's racism. Our own Walter Mitty doesn't seem to be able to comprehend the idea that while Wilson pushed for a progressive vision in economics and foreign affairs, he as well was an unabashed racist even by the standards of the time. The same could happen in a discussion on Nixon where a person--regardless of their actual ideology, both sides might make the same claim in a few cases--will say either that Nixon was a true-blue liberal progressive hero or that he was an arch-conservative right-winger and little beyond that.

In total, a number of people here seem to have forgotten that a person may be two things at once. Nixon could be an avowed cultural conservative and still sign pieces of liberal legislation out of either apathy or as a way of attempting to reach across the aisle for support (or for a few other reasons). Some fail to comprehend that Wilson could both be classified as a "progressive" with a nice tidy and ambitious progressive vision, and at the same time be what we could objectively call a proud racist. Rather, some people will focus on one or the other, and form their opinion based around that one side of the person. It's frickin' ridiculous.

[Mechaman]

Yeah this totally needed to be said.

And a reason why a lot of you fail American History.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Finally somebody made some sense.