Cast your vote: The Worst Person in the World

[kaylasdad99]

@Airman Doors

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.

I don’t get it. What tired meme is associated with Ronald Reagan?

D&R

[Mayo_Speaks]

You guys need to focus on the future! It’s clearly either Giuliani, Romney, McCain, or Huckabee. The exact ordering depends on a combination of polling data, cash-on-hand, and “the big mo.”

It could also be Yoko Ono.

[BrainGlutton]

I was wavering, but as a librarian, based on this (which I don’t recall the media mentioning at all at the time, and which I just found out about through random surfing), I have to vote for GWB for TWPITW.

Every innocent civilian killed by the war/occupation would have died one day, but books can potentially live forever.

[Dinsdale]

Let’s look at the relative positions. The OP posits Bush as TWPITW. In post #7, Bricker offers that the totality of Bush’s arguable misdeeds pales in comparison to the acts of 2 specific murderers and one rapist.

By post #14, Bricker apparently sees the ludicrousness of his previous contention, because he broadens his net to include Kim Jong II, unidentified multiple kiddie rapists and serial killers.

By the time he is done, I have no doubt he will chastize the OP for suggesting Bush is “worse” than every evil doer in the past, present and future, including Jack the Ripper and Skeletor.

So speaks the voice of reason from the right.

One difficulty for anyone who wished to debate this rationally would be to come up with an agreed upon definition of “worst person.”

IMO, Bush has two factors strongly in his favor. First, he has unparallelled power to impose his actions upon vast numbers of people around the world. I could easily argue that the ability to initiate unnecessary wars killing and maiming tens/hundreds of thousands, and imposing economic costs upon generations exceeds the evil that could be wreaked by any individual killer/rapist. Even a despicable genocidist such as Mugabe or even Kim Jong (or dare I say Saddam Hussein) is/was limited in his ability to harm folks who are fortunate enough to not live within his country’s borders.

Second, Bush pursues his reprehensible policies with an air of smug, patronizing, sanctimoniousness, which I personally believe may be a relevant factor in judging how bad his behavior. I could at least imagine debating the relative merits of an evildoer who acknowledges his evil, as opposed to one who maintains he is harming you for your own good.

[BobLibDem]

I pick Cheney over Bush. Just as I would hold Edgar Bergen responsible for the deeds of Charlie McCarthy.

[Liberal]

I hate to cop-out with an abstraction, but since there are so frigging many to choose from amongst individual tyrants, I’m going to go with … the American voter. Damn him for believing the bullshit and for rationalizing that good people shouldn’t be voted for because they have no chance of winning — a rationale along the lines of nobody goes there anymore because the place is too crowded.

[BrainGlutton]

@BobLibDem

I pick Cheney over Bush. Just as I would hold Edgar Bergen responsible for the deeds of Charlie McCarthy.

No cite, but I’ve read that “Edgar” is the Secret Service’s quasi-official codename for Cheney.

[BrainGlutton]

@Liberal

I hate to cop-out with an abstraction, but since there are so frigging many to choose from amongst individual tyrants, I’m going to go with … the American voter. Damn him for believing the bullshit and for rationalizing that good people shouldn’t be voted for because they have no chance of winning — a rationale along the lines of nobody goes there anymore because the place is too crowded.

So you voted for Nader in 2000, did you?

[Liberal]

@BrainGlutton

So you voted for Nader in 2000, did you?

No, I voted for Walt Brown. Are you joking?

[Steve_MB]

@Airman Doors

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.

Mao Zedong has a tired meme?

[BrainGlutton]

@Liberal

No, I voted for Walt Brown. Are you joking?

The point being, anyone who voted for either in preference to Gore, under our first-past-the-post electoral system as it stands, bears equal responsibility for helping make the Iraq War possible. So it is.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Liberal

I hate to cop-out with an abstraction, but since there are so frigging many to choose from amongst individual tyrants, I’m going to go with … the American voter. Damn him for believing the bullshit and for rationalizing that good people shouldn’t be voted for because they have no chance of winning — a rationale along the lines of nobody goes there anymore because the place is too crowded.

Actually, the analogy is exactly the opposite: it’s along the lines of saying nobody goes there because the place is too empty.

As for claiming Bush is the worst person, that strikes me as borderline insane. I’m convinced he’s the worst president so far in my lifetime, and the only thing that keeps me from extending that through the past 150 years is an awareness of my dim historical knowledge; I’d rank him as probably a better person than Andrew Jackson.

But I’d really like to see someone defend Kim Jong Il as being a better person than George W. Bush. I cannot imagine what such a defense would look like.

Daniel

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@BrainGlutton

The point being, anyone who voted for either in preference to Gore, under our first-past-the-post electoral system as it stands, bears equal responsibility for helping make the Iraq War possible. So it is.

Which responsibility is essentially zero. I voted for Nader in North Carolina, knowing full well that if every Nader voter voted for Gore, Bush would take the state. Liberal’s vote for Brown was subject to the same calculation, whether or not he made it. I hate this sort of mathematically sloppy blame-shift.

Daniel

[RedFury]

@Bricker

What opinion have I advanced that is irrational?

If you’re seriously arguing that Bush is worse than Kim Jong Il, than kiddie rapists, than serial murderers,** then I ask you to at least concede that for the vast majority of adults worldwide**, you won’t get agreement with that view.

So objectively, your claim is not solid.

– bolding mine

Bzzzzt! Wrong!

Cite: World crisis of confidence in Bush

**Global distrust of President Bush is mutating into an almost worldwide sentiment of antiAmericanism, according to the world’s most comprehensive poll of international opinion, published yesterday.

The Pew Institute’s survey of 45,239 people in 47 nations shows support for the US has dropped sharply among traditional allies in the West, including Britain, as well as substantial declines elsewhere in Latin America, Eastern Europe, China and the Middle East.

<snip>

…In the Palestinian territories, 91 per cent said that they had little or no confidence in Mr Bush “to do the right thing”, while in Turkey – a member of Nato – just 2 per cent expressed even limited confidence in Mr Bush’s leadership.

Although other Muslims, particularly those in Africa, remain more positive at least four fifths of the public in Spain, France and Germany have little or no confidence in the US President, a sentiment shared by 70 per cent of British people surveyed…**

Objectively speaking, it seems pretty clear to me that he is, indeed, THE most hated head of State in the world by a “vast majority of adults.”

*Plenty more cites/polls available on this matter.

[tagos]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

Actually, the analogy is exactly the opposite: it’s along the lines of saying nobody goes there because the place is too empty.

As for claiming Bush is the worst person, that strikes me as borderline insane. I’m convinced he’s the worst president so far in my lifetime, and the only thing that keeps me from extending that through the past 150 years is an awareness of my dim historical knowledge; I’d rank him as probably a better person than Andrew Jackson.

But I’d really like to see someone defend as being a better person than George W. Bush. I cannot imagine what such a defense would look like.

Daniel

‘George Bush The Lesser - not as evil as Kim Jong Il or Saddam Hussein.’

Translate into Latin and we have the perfect Presidential Library motto.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@RedFury

Objectively speaking, it seems pretty clear to me that he is, indeed, THE most hated head of State in the world by a “vast majority of adults.”

*Plenty more cites/polls available on this matter.

Objectively speaking, your cites say nothing like this.

I can ask Americans whether they like tofu, and a majority will say they do not. Does this mean that, objectively speaking, tofu is the most hated food in America? That more Americans despise tofu than kim chee, or haggis, or rotten herring?

Of course it doesn’t: I didn’t ask them about those. Just like your cites didn’t ask people about Kim Jong Il.

[There’s the implication also that, if they were asked about it, more than 20% of Europeans would express confidence in Kim Jong Il, which is a pretty silly implication].

In any case, even if we stipulate that, given the question, more people would hate GWB than KJI, that may just be evidence that people are kind of ignorant morons, which we already know to be the case. An argument that the former is worse than the latter needs to examine the worst acts of each of them as well as the best acts of each of them, and demonstrate why, given their total records, the one is worse than the other.

As criteria, I’d look at:
-How many deaths has this person’s decisions caused?
-How much suffering has this person’s decisions caused?
-How much suffering has this person’s decisions alleviated?

I think those three questions are good ones. Let’s not limit, in any case, the death or suffering to a particular nationality; let’s keep it within the species.

Daniel

[RedFury]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

But I’d really like to see someone defend Kim Jong Il as being a better person than George W. Bush. I cannot imagine what such a defense would look like.

I don’t think anyone need defend the indefensible (Jong Il) to consider Bush a greater threat to world peace. After all, I ask you, who wields the most power and therefore is able to go on wild goose chases and murder at will basically anywhere he wants to? Not Jong Il methinks.

[Dinsdale]

@RedFury

– bolding mine

Objectively speaking, it seems pretty clear to me that he is, indeed, THE most hated head of State in the world by a “vast majority of adults.”

Surely you realize that the poll you quote shows no such thing as it makes no attempt to compare “lack of confidence” (not hatred) among various heads of state.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@RedFury

I don’t think anyone need defend the indefensible (Jong Il) to consider Bush a greater threat to world peace. After all, I ask you, who wields the most power and therefore is able to go on wild goose chases and murder at will basically anywhere he wants to? Not Jong Il methinks.

That goalpost used to be set at “worst person in the world.” When did it move to “greatest threat to world peace,” and who gave you permission to move it?

Daniel

[Bricker]

@BrainGlutton

I was wavering, but as a librarian, based on this (which I don’t recall the media mentioning at all at the time, and which I just found out about through random surfing), I have to vote for GWB for TWPITW.

Every innocent civilian killed by the war/occupation would have died one day, but books can potentially live forever.

So if you were to discover that Omar al Bashir, responsible for 200,000 deaths, has also stood by while books were destryoed, that would change your vote?