Why was I taught in school that FDR was one of the best President's ever?

The man with a single stroke of a pen imprisoned 50,000 american citizens with no due process. Over the objections of his wife.

Imagine where we would be now if it wasn't for them.

Your teacher is just like 99% of teachers in public school/college -- they're nothing more than brainwashed buffoons whose jobs is to indoctrinate the youth.

There's probably a 90% chance your teach also supported Obama.

Compare US education with the world and you will see that the teacher's and the school system have worked together to FAIL America.

First, i'll answer your second question. Yes, Obama is following the spend our way out of the problem.

The reason why schools worship FDR is just a matter of who populates the front of the classroom. (I'm going to speak in generalities here, don't be offended). In general, those who can - do...and those who can't - teach.

Those who can't survive in the real world often end up teaching our children. More often than not, those people are socialist leaners. Socialists need to propegandize to survive, because it justifies their place in the world. Those who are freedom minded are often too busy producing something with their lives to propegandize.

Our schools are littered with the people who couldn't make it as engineers, as chemists, so they become math and science teachers. I'm sure there are many counterexamples of this, but in my memory not too many.

Did FDR's spending, or Obama's spending really push the depression further and longer? Probably not to a huge extent. Redistribution programs like these are akin to pulling buckets from the deep end of the swimming pool and pouring them into the shallow end. You can do this all day, but you really aren't making much of a difference.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. The overindulgence in the 1920's is what caused the depression...this much is certainly true. What made it worse were 2 foolish decisions.

1) After the 1929 crash, the federal reserve drastically tightened up the money supply. This was poor timing, should have done it in 1926. This caused a severe deflation which drove many banks under.

2) Smoot Hawley act. Faced with a deepening recession/depression...these 2 damn fools decided that it was time to protect American industry...so they pushed tarriffs on everything so high that it made every incoming good as costly as an American made one. It seemed like a good idea...but it was very short sighted because it spread our depression around the world. Now we were not importing anything, and also we weren't exporting anything.

Thus far...we have repeated the mistakes of the 1920's in 1995-2005. This is done...we are paying the price.

I have not seen a repeat of the tightening money supply in the face of a major deflation. In fact, they're probably erring on the side of printing too much in response. Trust me...inflation will seem like tinker toys compared to a massive deflation.

I'm beginning to be worried that we're going to repeat the Smoot Hawley mistake. I sincerely hope this pro-American redneck "they took our jobs" mentallity does not cause us to do something truly foolish like protectionism.

The truth of it is...the depression, like all economics, was largely psychological. People thought there was a depression, so there was. The only thing that really finally pulled us from the depression was people thought it was over after WW2 (it arguably lasted another 5 years).

That's where we are today. People are scared, so they aren't consuming. Consumption is lower, so production is lower. People then begin to get laid off in the face of decreasing demand...so more people start saving every penny they can because they're scared for their jobs. It's a psychological spiral which only really ends when people think it's over.

There are cerain aspects of the new deal that probably dragged the great depression on longer...but the real culprits are the Federal Reserve of the early 1930's and the Smoot Hawley act.

One thing is for sure though...the new deal did NOT save us from ruin.

It was a Republican-vs- Democrat thing.
My parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents, etc. etc. were all Republicans and didn't like FDR or his policies at all.
They blamed him for prolonging the great depression.

Can you imagine how Americans felt when by Presidential decree only, all bank safe deposit boxes were emptied of personal Gold used as money?
They said this made already suffering poor Americans poorer, because after the confiscation act it was a federal crime to use constitutional money.

They said he became President simply because he had the last name of a very popular past President Teddy Roosevelt, and the sympathy vote { he was crippled } but my family called him a crook because of his Gold heist.

so you would think that socialism and the 'state' are wonderful! FDR was one of the worst presidents ever. He and Stalin were big buddies.. Actually one of the reasons FDR wanted to get us into WWll was to save the soviets.. Stalin could not fight a war against the Germans and quell the uprising in his homeland at the same time so FDR got the US into the war to take pressure off Stalin. Bet you never read that anywhere did you!
you can read all about that from Richard Maybury in his book the 1000 year war. www.chaostan.com Maybury is endorsed by Ron Paul. FDR also knew the Japanese were going to bomb Pearl harbor.. they broke the Jap code about 2 or 3 weeks before the attack.. FDR basically murdered 3000 American service personell to get the American people so outraged they would go to war! FDR was the worst we have had.. then Clinton, then Bush, then whoever you want next!

"When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny."
-Thomas Jefferson

I am more concerned about the return of my money than the return on my money. --Mark Twain