# Who are the worst Americans? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 21, 2008, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211 "2008-12-21T19:37:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Laudenum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Laudenum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laudenum)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211/41 "2008-12-22T02:07:52Z")
I think the fact that people like Phelps, and the ENTIRE religious right have ended up on lists shows how self-centred some people are. You are a country that has invaded other countries and killed thousands of innocent civilians over the past few years, and you have people in your country who want to execute the people with mental difficiencies. Seriously. You could fill the top 100 places without getting near someone who was a prominant anti-gay-marriage campaigner. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211/42 "2008-12-22T02:12:38Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Yes, Bryant did a lot of harm too. However, by dismissing Phelps as “just attention-seekers whom no one takes very seriously,” you make the same mistake that RickJay does: you assume that every individual sees the world the same way you do. If you’re a gay teen in the flyover states, trust me, you don’t need the Dope to tell you who Phelps is. Added to which–though it’s clearly not as bad as it was when I was a gay teen in the flyover states–the culture at large seems pretty content to, as you say, not take Phelps seriously. Try to imagine the world through eyes other than your own, and you might understand that Phelps does not mean the same thing to you as he does to someone with a completely different worldview from yours. Sorry that sounds like it does, but your response, and RickJay’s, make it pretty clear that you haven’t made much effort to empathize with that suicidal gay teen in rural Kansas. I don’t see how you can directly link Phelps to gay teen suicides. Can you please elaborate? I want to see how it is conclusively him, and not any other homophobic social component, that is pushing gay kids over the edge. ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211/43 "2008-12-22T02:13:31Z")
> [@Laudenum](#): > > you have people in your country who want to execute the people with mental difficiencies. In a country with 300 million people I’m sure a few of them want to do this, but which prominent Americans advocate the execution of the mentally disabled? ---
**Author:** ![Laudenum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Laudenum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laudenum)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211/44 "2008-12-22T02:21:38Z")
I just reread that, and I realise that it didn’t say what I though it did. I meant that many of your people want to apply the death penalty to people who are “mentally retarded”. They think that if someone with a severe mental disability kills someone, they should still be executed. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211/45 "2008-12-22T02:24:36Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > I don’t see how you can directly link Phelps to gay teen suicides. Can you please elaborate? I want to see how it is conclusively him, and not any other homophobic social component, that is pushing gay kids over the edge. Dude, just because you can pull an arbitrary distinction out of your, um, hat, doesn’t mean that it’s a valid one. The culture is homophobic; the culture of homophobia includes such supporters of the homophobic status quo as Fred Phelps. When you’re a teen who’s taught by your culture to loathe yourself, do you really think you’re going to make such fine distinctions? ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211/46 "2008-12-22T02:26:57Z")
> [@Laudenum](#): > > I meant that many of your people want to apply the death penalty to people who are “mentally retarded”. OK, I see. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211/47 "2008-12-22T02:46:41Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Dude, just because you can pull an arbitrary distinction out of your, um, hat, doesn’t mean that it’s a valid one. The culture is homophobic; the culture of homophobia includes such supporters of the homophobic status quo as Fred Phelps. When you’re a teen who’s taught by your culture to loathe yourself, do you really think you’re going to make such fine distinctions? [“Psst! There’s been another one!”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartman_Sucks) But, I think the OP is asking for the worst **individual** Americans, and there’s no one figure on the homophobic religious right (not even Falwell or Robertson, and least of all Phelps) who can really be blamed for it or identified with it as with Jefferson Davis and secession, or Hitler and Naziism. We’re talking about a whole, broadly and deeply rooted cultural tendency here, and we can’t label all of that as the “Worst American.” ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211/48 "2008-12-22T03:46:16Z")
I have never heard anybody take Phelps and his crew seriously. I’d guess that Phelps hurts the anti-gay movement more than he adds to it. I think that when people get up in arms over Phelps it makes him look more legitimate. IMO Gen. Sherman helped end a bloody war and would put him in the list of good Americans. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211/49 "2008-12-22T04:04:47Z")
Christopher Hitchens. Sure, he’s not the only American to praise Lenin and other bloodthirsty communist dictators. He’s not the only American to support Bush’s mass murder and help spread known lies about Saddam’s WMD stockpiles. He’s not the only American to say that the world would be a better place if the Jews had been wiped out long ago. He’s not the only American who hates Mother Teresa and other people who devote their lives to helping the poor. But as far as I know, he’s the only American who has done all those things simultaneously. It takes a serious amount of cognitive dissonance to believe that Vladimir Lenin and George W. Bush are both good people, yet Hitchens manages it. As best I can tell, his philosophy is that anyone who kills innocents by the thousands is good, anyone who fails to do so is bad, and anyone who protects those who can’t protect themselves is the most evil of all. And since someone will doubtless want a cite: [http://www.amconmag.com/article/2005/oct/10/00022/](http://www.amconmag.com/article/2005/oct/10/00022/) > **[Hanukkah celebrates the triumph of tribal Jewish backwardness.](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2007/12/hanukkah-celebrates-the-triumph-of-tribal-jewish-backwardness.html)** > > High on the list of idiotic commonplace expressions is the old maxim that "it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." How do such... ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211/50 "2008-12-22T04:31:26Z")
Lyndon Baines Johnson. The Vietnam War killed at least 3 million vietnamese, and 68,000 American soldiers. He may not have started it, but he escalated the war to a significant degree. George Walker Bush. An estimated 600,000 deaths that wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t choose to invade Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211/51 "2008-12-22T04:31:46Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Christopher Hitchens. But, how much actual **damage** has he done to America, or to anywhere else? ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211/52 "2008-12-22T04:34:18Z")
Noam Chomsky. 9/11 was our fault, and we deserved it and more. I hope he joins his wife in hell very soon. ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211/53 "2008-12-22T04:38:57Z")
Also to consider: Robert Macnamera J. Edgar Hoover Robert E. Lee (if JD was the head of the confederacy, Lee was the heart). Benedict Arnold? ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211/54 "2008-12-22T04:49:02Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > George Walker Bush. An estimated 600,000 deaths that wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t choose to invade Iraq. Even if those figures are correct (and I would argue otherwise) you’d have to balance that with the number of Iraqis that would have died at the hands of Hussein’s regime. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211/55 "2008-12-22T05:04:36Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But, how much actual **damage** has he done to America, or to anywhere else? He has used his position as a writer and speaker to promote dictatorship, mass-murder, chaos and widespread violence. How much his voice actually contributed to making bad things happen, we’ll never actually know. I’m ranking evil more by intention. I believe that most of the neocons did honestly believe that the overthrowing Saddam would make Iraq a better place, and that it would be a net gain for human rights. That belief was dumb, naive, short-sighted, and arrogant. They failed to think critically about it or to learn the lessons of history, but they honestly believed it. I believe that communist supporters such as Hiss and the Rosenbergs did honestly believe that communism would make the world a better place. They were appallingly naive and willing to ignore the evidence of atrocities committed by the Soviets, but they honestly believed it. I don’t believe that Hitchens has any good intentions at all. He’s an egomaniac who takes delight in saying the most harmful nasty, and outrageous things he can imagine, merely because he likes to hurt people. To that end, he’ll support anybody in the world who’s willing to attack the things that Hitchens hates, at any time, for any reason. For the Iraq war, he was quite willing to abandon everything he’d supposedly stood for and run to the other end of the political spectrum to get on board with the latest train of destruction and chaos. While he’s devoted much of his life to his hatred of Christianity, freedom, democracy, capitalism, and global stability, I’ve never seen any evidence that he likes any other things. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211/56 "2008-12-22T05:12:05Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I’ve never seen any evidence that he likes any other things. He seems very fond of liquor. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211/57 "2008-12-22T05:16:05Z")
> [@pancakes3](#): > > J. Edgar Hoover My number one. For 48 years he was effectively a power answerable to no one. I always suspected he could have had one or both Kennedys offed, or at least made certain the FBI wouldn’t have stood in the way. ---
**Author:** ![Paladud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Paladud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paladud)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211/58 "2008-12-22T06:52:10Z")
LBJ, with honorable mentions for Wilson and Truman. Bringing the country into unnecessary wars is bad enough. Enslaving some segment of the population to that end is unmitigated evil. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211/59 "2008-12-22T07:02:21Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > Even if those figures are correct (and I would argue otherwise) you’d have to balance that with the number of Iraqis that would have died at the hands of Hussein’s regime. Saddam, while an evil son of a bitch, seemed to have toned down in his later years. He wasn’t doing any major amounts of killing in 2003. It’s extremly unlikely that we’d have seen those many deaths between '03 and now if we didn’t invade. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2008, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211/60 "2008-12-22T07:54:14Z")
Oppenheimer. Einstein. The guys who invented weaponized biological agents. The guys who paid them. Who was it ordered the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem? Jack Kennedy? Him. Andrew Jackson. The vigilantes who ended Reconstruction. Corrupt cops. Serial killers. But I should mention: The nihilists who twist youth’s minds into seeing no moral meaning in the world but ephemeral pleasure & distraction–including various horror novelists & arguably Ayn Rand. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-worst-americans/478211.md?page=4)