So? Most Germans never personally murdered a Jew, but they still got bombed out of house and home by Allied Command, and in far greater numbers than were suffered by the South. Surely, then, Eisenhower is a greater evil than Sherman?
I already addressed that point — in the very paragraph you quoted.
While I in no way agree with Rune as far as Carter belonging on this list, I do know what he’s talking about. There are some people of the neo-nazi persuasion that have taken to thinking highly of Carter due to their perception that he is anti-Israel.
Still, a pretty silly reason to put him on the list. A bit like demonizing the Beatles because of Charles Manson.
This is very unfair. Hitchens has been supporting the Kurdish cause for years and years and this undoubtedly influenced him to think the war in Iraq was justified. He was wrong, of course. But to characterise him as someone who joys in destruction above all else as opposed to the stupid but well-meaning neocons is bizarre.
Cites:
Holiday in Iraq | Vanity Fair - an article from April 2007 on a ‘holiday in Iraq’
http://www.amazon.co.uk/When-Borders-Bleed-Struggle-Kurds/dp/0701162759/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229992737&sr=8-1 - Hitchens introduced this 1994 book which documents in pictures the struggle of the Kurds
On other things he likes that aren’t being mean to Mother Theresa - the cause of the Palestinians, which was one factor in him supporting Obama over McCain: McCain’s slander of Rashid Khalidi to be more specific. Cite: John McCain's appalling attack on Rashid Khalidi.
Three pages and nobody has mentioned Ayn Rand yet? Purveyor of the vile who continues to warp minds (although I suspect fewer of them now than was once the case)
I don’t believe that you did, Liberal. You did indicate a willingness to define evil as broadly as necessary to include Sherman. But you didn’t address the fact that, even by that standard, Sherman does not rate very high in the pantheon of American villains, as there are many generals from our nation who have used the same tactics as Sherman, to much greater effect. If such acts are evil by definition, then Sherman, far from being the fourth most evil American in history, is a mere footnote beside such monsters as Dwight Eisenhower or Franklin Roosevelt.
She was born in Russia though, even though she became a citizen we can blame her on them.
Again, though, how many people has Ayn Rand actually hurt? She never became leader of anything, never assumed a position of power, and her philosophy is popular largely among college students and people with a lot of time on their hands. You never hear about people shot or imprisoned by an Objectivist regime, because there aren’t any and there never will be.
Logically, L. Ron Hubbard would be a better choice along the “authors who hurt people with their words” category. Scientology is a pretty small cult relatively speaking, but at least you can point to actual people it has damaged, and Hubbard legitimately did take an active role in founding it.
Or, it seems to me, Ulysses S. Grant, Sherman’s commander. Does he not bear responsibility for the actions of his subordinate, which he certainly did not disapprove of?
Jimmy Carter. Proof that Engineers make shitty presidents. Did any one person give a Country such a buzz kill as this guy? Hell, he still does.
Sherman looked at it (rightly, in my view) that unless Deep South southerners personally felt the horrors of war they would attempt to continue it. His march almost certainly shortened the war. The citizens clamoring for slavery and secession like Edmund Ruffin were much worse than Sherman.
I totally disagree. Bush’s invasion was poorly conceived and executed but it in no way compares to the horrors of Hussein’s regime.
Actually I think Hitchens had a point about Mother Theresa – that she loved poverty, not the poor.
:dubious: Nobody, least of all Michael Moore or his fanbase, has any illusions about what kind of ruler Hussein was. We all know about the mass graves and the brutal suppression of rebellions and the network of part-time secret-police informants. Nevertheless, Hussein’s iron fist at least allowed Iraqis of different nationalities and religions to live together more or less peacefully in a society that worked. If you just kept your mouth shut about politics (and, if an attractive woman, escaped the notice of Uday and Qusay) you could live your life in safety, and walk the streets in safety, and find a good job and enough food, clean water and health care, and women were almost the equals of men, so far as they can be in any Islamic country. And Bush went in and wrecked all of that – wrecked it recklessly and brutally and stupidly. It would be hard to find an average Iraqi outside Tikrit who misses Hussein, but it would be even harder to find one who does not wish the invasion had never happened.
The question concerned the worst American.
I believe they’d felt them for quite some time.
And if Bush is named for title, measuring the damage he did Iraq against the damage Hussein did Iraq is relevant.
And Hussein has all the advantage of the comparison.
Even so, Hussein isn’t or wasn’t an American.
Nor was he nominated; the comparison remains relevant in assessing Bush.
You left out being gassed for being a Kurd or a kept from political and economic prosperity for being Sunni. Hussein routinely used torture and assassination. He kept the “peace” through fear and intimidation. I am no Bush apologist; I was against the invasion from the beginning and I still believe it to be a colossal mistake. I believe, however, that it needs to be held in perspective, that even with the mistakes a brutal and evil dictator was replaced.
I’d like to see a cite for that.
Not enough to demand and end to the war, though.
By now it’s obvious that this thread has become a joke. If Ayn Rand could be the worst American, then I guess so could Walt Disney.
Disney built a mega-capitalistic empire that methodically warped the minds of innocent children, by showing them pictures of bizarrely humanoid animals who could not only talk, but unleash upon each other violent acts that mere humans could only dream of . . . often with no consequences whatsoever. And many of them ran around with no pants, yet strangely devoid of genitals, causing kids to have negative ideas about their own bodies. He taught kids that a cricket can substitute for a conscience. He ridiculed people (or ducks) with speech impediments. He taught little girls that all their happiness required was meeting the right Prince Charming . . . provided they are pretty and white. He turned people of color into insulting caricatures, and didn’t portray even one openly-gay person.
Wow, that’s a strech. What, he negotiated a peace accord with Israel’s most powerful neighbor at Camp David that has lasted since 1979? What an anti-semetic bastard!