Yup.
at spelling? :dubious:
So deploring murder and torture is “irrational” to you?
Come on now. This is Great Debates, kiddo, not IMHO. Et cetera.
Did you know that the same guy invented Tetra-ethel, that brought us leaded gasoline, and chlorofluorocarbon refrigerants that brought us the ozone hole? He was trying to make things better.
TrisDid he keep it up while dismissing an entire world trying to tell him he was wrong, and how? Did he keep changing his stated reasons for his work depending on what was actually happening, while pretending he hadn’t?
Your point?
Gee, whodathunk that he would have come up in the OP? I would have thought that he would have lasted until the second post, but nope, you came right out and said it.
So, does this person have to be alive? How about Kim Jong-Il? I suppose that if Bush were around for another 50 years he might possibly kill a small fraction of the people that Kim is responsible for, but it would be pretty tough.
If we’re going for dead people, I think we all know the obvious answer, and I’d rather not name him because I’d prefer not to drag out the morons and their tired meme.
In any event, while President Bush is guilty of a lot of things and has made a lot of mistakes, it is awfully myopic to call him the worst person in the world.
For sailors in the British merchant marine in WWII, if your ship was sunk by a U-boat and you were adrift in a rowboat for days you didn’t get paid for that time.
Because you weren’t working.
Bud Selig.
So only a Bush fan would argue agains tthe position that he is the worst person in the world? Really?
I am so tempted to respond to this in a forum-inappropriate manner.
We need objective criteria on which to base the finding of the Worst Person In The World.
Logically, it should be the person who has sparked the most Pit threads.
Our finalists are:
- George Bush
- Ann Coulter
- Liberal
Voting will close at midnight, to be followed by pizza and beer.
I agree with Bricker on this one. George Bush may well be the worst President this country has ever had but by world standards he’s a saint. People need to read this and this and get a little sense of perspective.
I see Seyed Ali Khamane’i went from 18th to 9th. Too bad those injuries late in the season cost him a spot in the playoffs.
Anyway, can we make this thread “Who other than Bush is the worst?” because otherwise the whole thing is pointless. Anyone convinced Bush is worst, please name your silver medallist, and let’s move on.
I try to have an original thought from time to time. I think I am the first person to say this.
GWB is the Republican version of Jimmy Carter. Like an evil twin, or a Bizzaro World version.
What makes you think that ? It’s America that has always had rose colored glasses towards Bush; the rest of the world never liked him.
No votes for Osama Bin Laden?
The guy who pointed a gun at the 7 year old boy on the train my sister rode this afternoon.
Heh Khameini doesn’t even get an honorable mention in this fight. A leader of a country that has never invaded another nation gets a mention? Why? Simply because he’s a head of state in our adversary du jour?
I don’t think Bush rates much either. There are a lot of people who are far worse than Bush. I think intent is important here. No matter who wields the Presidents office, the blood of thousands will be upon them due to the fact that the United States is the pre-eminent empire in the world right now.
Not a scholarly source in and of itself certainly, but googling the names of Mugabe, Kim Jong Il, and Omar al Bashir brings up David Wallechinsky’s List of Worst Living Dictators from a February 2007 Parade Magazine. Before scoffing at the source, the facts themselves check. They haven’t all caused more deaths than Bush (though some have), but they’re ahead of him in HR violations.
Dictator (country) and, where given, the estimated number of deaths caused
Omar al Bashir (Sudan): 200,000 in the past 4 years alone with millions more displaced
Kim Jong Il (N. Korea): by the most conservative estimates over 250,000 North Koreans, by more “liberal” estimates more than 4,000,000.
Ayatollah Sayyid Ali KhamEnei (Iran): not responsible for as many deaths as Bush, but he believes in extreme restrictions on the rights of women, death for homosexuals and adulterers, and is Supreme Leader of one of the most oppressive Islamic fundamentalist states.
Hu Jintao (China): (from Parade) “The U.S. State Department has identified 22 areas of human-rights abuses under Hu Jintao, among them torture, forced abortions, forced labor, detention of religious groups, government corruption and restrictions on speech and the media. Last year, citizens were executed for such nonviolent crimes as bribery and stealing oil.”
King Abdullah (Saudi Arabia): has it in his power to lift the sentence of a gang-rape victim sentenced to 200 lashes for speaking with the press and as of this writing has not done so.
Than Shwe (Burma/Myanmar)- don’t know enough about him to comment (which isn’t surprising since “Reporters Without Borders ranked him 164 out of 168 nations in terms of freedom of the press”
Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe)- responsible for at least 10,000s of deaths and many more tortures and imprisonments without cause of his people (including the arrest for “treason” of his most recent opponent for election)
You’re missing the point. Did any of them lie?
This thread is almost a parody of the SDMB.