Ten Worst Americans of the past 100 years?

[Amerpie]

1. George W. Bush
2. Joe McCarthy
3. Richard Nixon
4. William Calley
5. Tim McVeigh
6. John D. Rockefeller
7. Ross Barnett
8. Ronald Reagan
9. Ken Lay
10. James Earl Ray

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

1. Does Rupert Murdoch count?

Born Australian, but now a US citizen, right?

[Kellanved]

2. Where is Henry Ford?

:shrug:

I'd put him at #5.

[NewHampshireDem]

10. Ford paid his workers enough money that they could buy his cars.

And even though the assembly line is dehumanizing, it did allow costs to be cut to such a level that the common man could afford an automobile, as well.

I'm not so sure he's evil. :shrug:

[Kellanved]

14. ahem

Ford 1938, receiving the "Eagle Shield of the German Reich" for his Anti-Semitism and support of Nazi-Germany.

[NewHampshireDem]

15. I stand corrected ...

I guess you really do learn something every day. :shrug:

BTW, when did Prescott * get his?

[Canuckistanian]

3. Who is Ross Barnett? n/t

[Amerpie]

7. Gov. of Mississippi

From 1960-64

[catzies]

4. ...

1. George W. Bush
2. George H. W. Bush
3. Barbara P. Bush
4. Jeb Bush
5. Marvin Bush
6. Prescott Bush
7. Jonathan Bush
8. Billy Bush
9. George P. Bush
10. Jeb Bush Jr.

[ElementaryPenguin]

5. Tough to leave Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Delay, Rove off, isn't it?

:shrug:

[tridim]

Rumsfeld, Delay and Ashcroft

need to be in there somewhere, Rush and Savage too. Otherwise, good list.

[Nevernose]

6. That's assuming JE Ray killed MLK

I don't know too much about the specifics of that particular conspiracy theory, but I definitely remember MLK's family doesn't believe that James Earl Ray acted alone.

Reagan should be moved higher up on the list, Calley should be moved below McVeigh.

[Amerpie]

9. Why

Calley was responsible for the deaths of more human beings than McVeigh?

Also, Ray is a symbolic choice.

[Nevernose]

18. There were a hell of a lot more people there than Calley

Including his superior officers and his underlings. Also, it was kind of a temporary insanity thing, not quite in the heat of the moment, but close. There was an entire platoon gone batshit from days in the jungle, dealing with snipers and booby-traps and bugs and god-knows-what-else, and for no fucking reason whatsoever. War does terrible things to a man, and turns what would otherwise have been a bunch of kids in college or pumping gas into ruthless, bloodsoaked killers. What they did was terrible and evil, but also at least semi-insane, and those soldiers were what we made them to be.

Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, OTH, were simply mass-murderers. Cold, premeditated. They don't even have the quasi-excuse of "the jungles of Vietnam."

While I can't sympathize with Calley and his platoon, I am at least capable of understanding how they could become so evil. McVeigh and Nichols, though, I can't begin to understand. To me, this makes Calley & Co. less evil than McVeigh and Nichols.

Symbolic choice. Gotcha.

[Amerpie]

20. Thanks for a well reasoned response

It's so cool when folks around here actually put some time into a post. I appreciate it.

[Nevernose]

24. Soon enough I'll be drinking...

...and there will be no more well-reasoned responses from Argumentus!

Thank you for the compliment, however. It's also nice just to have people respond to one's posts, isn't it?

[mitchum]

8. I would substitute J Edgar Hoover for James Earl Ray...

since he is the one responsible for Dr King's murder (and many other heinous acts) Even King's family believes that Ray was just a fall guy

[Amerpie]

11. You are right, I mean correct

Hoover was an evil mother....

[EstimatedProphet]

12. What about Rush Limbaugh?

Actively brainwashing Americans to be Stepford Citizens...

[WilliamPitt]

13. J. Edgar Hoover needs to be on that list

along with Paul Nitze (who trained Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, who subsequently trained Cheney, to do what it is they do). Nitze helped create the 'Rule By Fear' ethos that has been in place, to one degree or another, since the beginning of the Cold War. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Cheney are running the War on Terror in exactly the same fashion as Nitze helped run the Cold War.

He deserves to be there, too.

[Political_Junkie]

16. 10 is way too short a list.

What about Kissinger?

[Sapphocrat]

17. Expand it to 20, or 50, or 100...

...and add (in no particular order):

"Rev." Fred Phelps
Dick Cheney
Lee Harvey Oswald or whoever killed JFK
Rick Santorum
Jesse Helms
R.J. Rushdoony
J. Edgar Hoover
"Judge" Roy Moore
Pat Robertson
Jerry Falwell
Henry "Butcher of Cambodia" Kissinger
Lynndie England and the whole Abu-Auschwitz gang
"Dr." Paul Cameron
Gary Bauer
Bill McCartney
Randall Terry
Richard "The Night Stalker" Ramirez

And that's off the top of my head. Even "Dr." Laura Schlessinger, Phyllis Schlafly, and Anita Bryant are second- (or third- or fourth-) string compared to the monsters above... all of whom make Julius & Ethel Rosenberg look like uber-patriots.

[starroute]

19. Maybe you need pre-1950 and post-1950 lists

Pre-1950, there were plenty of native fascists, like the DuPont brothers or Father Coughlin. There was Palmer, I think it was, of the Palmer raids after World War I -- J. Edgar Hoover's mentor in suppression. There was Henry Anslinger, who made pot illegal.

I have to go make dinner, or I could think of more. But this thread is currently skewed far too heavily towards the names that people living today are familiar with.


On edit: It may be just me, but I'd vote to add Carmine deSapio, who was head of Tammany Hall in New York when I was a kid, and who I was sure at the time was the second most evil person ever.

[PragMantisT]

21. I nominate George Lincoln Rockwell and David Duke

Nazis in name and in action.

[Amerpie]

22. I'd like to add

the names of more evil industrialists. Unfortunately, they are allowed to pass into obscurity. The men who owned the mines in West Virginia, the meat packing plants in the midwest or the textile mills in NC would be good candidates.

Also, those responsible for making bad medicine, unsafe cars, thalidomide, Agent Orange, the Union Carbide management team.

I agree with adding US AG PAlmer to the list. We should also add those who dreamed up Japanese internment, White Citizen's Councils, draft boards and some folks from Watergate, including MItchell, Haldeman and Liddy.

I wouldn't mind adding the part of LBJ that faked the Tonkin Gulf and contemplated using nukes at Khe Sanh.

[HuckleB]

23. A list.

1. George W. Bush
2. Joe McCarthy
3. J. Edgar Hoover
4. Rush Limbaugh
5. Pat Robertson
6. Anthony Comstock
7. Father Charles Coughlin
8. Richard Nixon
9. Britney Spears
10. Ronald Reagan

[Lindsey]

25. Dick Cheney #1(I think he's the anti-christ)

2.George W. Bush
3. Henry Kissinger (this guys a war criminal in FIVE countries)
4. Ronald Reagan (ignoring the AIDS crisis and ultimately costing thousand of people - mainly young gay males - their lives), Iran-Contra (it Happened under his watch, closing and taking away many mental health facilities and resources, etc.)
5. Nixon
6. Rush Limbaugh
7. Pat Robertson
8. Rumsfield
9. Rove
10. Timothy Mcveigh

[jmowreader]

26. I agree with Bush first

If I can only have ten, I'll take:
George W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
Donald Rumsfeld
John Ashcroft
Dick Cheney
Ronald Reagan
Prescott Bush
Richard Nixon
Joe McCarthy
Arthur Laffer

Laffer because without him, Reaganomics wouldn't have happened.

If I can have 30, I'll break it down as follows...

Elected (or supposedly elected) Politicians:
GWB
GHWB
Jeb Bush
Ronald Reagan
Joe McCarthy

Unelected political figures:
Ashcroft
Rumsfeld
James Watt
Antonin Scalia
Robert Bork

Spies:
Ethel Rosenberg
Julius Rosenberg
Clayton Lonetree (the Marine security guard who allowed the Soviets into the US Embassy's communications room; he was sexually compromised)
James Hall (who sold so much information about US intelligence operations to the East German Stasi, they told him to slow down)
Jonathan Pollard (who sold thousands of no-foreign-dissemination documents to the Israelis)

Religious snake oil salesmen:
Jerry Falwell
Jack Chick
Pat Robertson
Fred Phelps
Donald Wildmon

Propagandists:
Pigboy Limbaugh
Ann Coulter
Sean Hannity
Michael Savage
Thomas Sowell

Miscellaneous and unknown:
Henry Ford
Arthur Laffer
Prescott Bush
Averill Harriman
Kenneth Lay