primitives discuss worst person of the 20th century

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8903370

Oh my.

It's always lightly amusing, watching the primitives squibble-squabble about history.

Kurt_and_Hunter (1000+ posts)       Sun Aug-08-10 01:55 PM
Original message
 
Worst person of the 20th Century?

I go back and forth on this one.

Hitler is always a respectable answer. You can't go too far wrong talking about how bad Hitler was.

But I am always drawn back to Stalin. Everything Hitler did Stalin did on a larger scale. One gets into questions like is it worse to kill ten million people for their ethnicity/orientation or to kill twenty million people for their ethnicity/orientation/nationality/simple-inconvenience...

No automatic answers to that sort of thing.

And then there's Mao. I am reluctant to invoke Mao because I don't have the same level of cultural context to really get the history, on that gut level.

Hitler and Stalin. Stalin and Hitler... it all depends on how you frame the matter. (Who was a better hitter pre-steroids? Ted Williams or Babe Ruth? People who study baseball statistics go back and forth on that question because as you change tiny variables on or the other come to the fore. But everyone is pretty sure they were the top two.)

I *get* Hitler more because Germany was more like America than Russia was. Alarmingly un-alien. But is there some racism there? Is it right that I *get* Hitler more because his milieu was like mine and his victims were most like me?

God knows the worst person of the 19th century was probably a colonial force of some sort. It is said that what made Hitler stand out was that he applied the developed logic and methods of colonialism within Europe. I can see that.

Maybe Leopold II of Belgium deserves honorary mention for worst person of the 20th century... he didn't die until 1909 but the worst of what went on in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was in the 1890s.

Anyway, who is your pick for worst person of the 20th Century? (And if Hitler is too no-brainer, then who is your second choice?)

FSogol  (1000+ posts)        Sun Aug-08-10 01:58 PM
Response to Original message
 
1. Tie: Ronald Reagan and the guy who invented the leaf blower

Initech (1000+ posts)        Sun Aug-08-10 02:00 PM
Response to Original message
 
2. If Hitler's a no-brainer then Reagan was second.

Third? I'd have to say Pat Robertson, the guy who invented modern televangelism.

brewens  (607 posts)      Sun Aug-08-10 02:03 PM
Response to Original message
 
3. What do you come up with when you add all the dead that Hitler was responsible for? Allied war dead, the Holocaust and German war dead. That probably blows away what Stalin did to his own people. I suppose you could add some of the Russian war dead to Stalins total because of the purges and incompetence.

GSLevel9 (123 posts)      Sun Aug-08-10 02:12 PM
Response to Reply #3
 
12. not true... Stalin wins that body count by a long shot.

Igel (1000+ posts)      Sun Aug-08-10 02:19 PM
Response to Reply #3
 
16. The numbers are unknowable, if you go that route.

What would have happened if Stalin hadn't signed a non-aggression treaty with Hitler? If Poland hadn't been divided up as both decided to reclaim the empires they had formerly enjoyed--German supremacy in the West and Russian control in the east of Poland? Or even if the Russians had helped beef up Polish forces rather than killing 20k of their officers and essentially disposing of the Polish army?

How about if the Sudetenland hadn't been just handed over to the Germans?

If Russian troops had poured into Germany when Poland was attacked, or when Belgium and France were attacked, or if there had just been the threat of such an attack, what would Hitler have done?

A lot of German "help" in occupied Eastern Europe had precious little to do with a love of the Nazis per se. The Germans were viewed as liberators at first, but that required the Soviets as being seen as oppressors. In many cases, killing the Jews wasn't a big deal--yes, anti-Semitic, but not something they'd have done on their own. "Ooh, the Soviets are gone--let's kill the Jews!" isn't what would have happened most of the time.

Kurt_and_Hunter (1000+ posts)       Sun Aug-08-10 02:19 PM
Response to Reply #3

17. That would be a bad way to compare

Stalin killed a lot more people than Hitler however you divide it up.

First, Allied war dead, the Holocaust and German war dead wouldn't blow away what Stalin did to his own people. It would be even at best and probably a few million short. (This is worst of the 20th century so stuff Stalin did in the 1930s counts, ot just in WWII)

A thing to remember about Stalin is that he conquered as many nations (and people) as Hitler did during the same time frame. Just not nations we think about very much.

The start of WWII was the 1938 invasion of Poland. What we know today but did not know than was that Hitler and Stalin agreed to divide Poland between them. It was a dual invasion.

But Hitler was, like most RW types, a major dupe who was always getting punked by his allies. Russia decided to not claim her half until Germany did all the fighting. She feigned shock at Germany's terribleness then took her half of Poland to protect it from those terrible Germans. (re: punking. Germany told Japan it would declare war on us after Pearl Harbor if Japan declared war on Russia. Germany declared war on us and then Japan said, no... we're cool with Russia. Punked!)

Sad, sad true story... when Russia finally moved into Poland There were Polish jews fleeing west to the protection of German army because they they were more afraid of Stain than Hitler. (Stalin wasn't exactly jew friendly himself)

Anyway, there is no numerical measure of human decency measure where Stalin doesn't top Hitler. The only claim Hitler has to *special* evil is the intensity of genocide on (what was thought to be) a scientific basis. If that is an ultimate horror than Hitler wins.

Stalin was genocidal insofar as he slaughtered millions of members of particular ethic groups to get rid of them, but he didn't have the same "eliminate them to the last drop of blood" thing.

Oh my.

when Russia finally moved into Poland There were Polish jews fleeing west to the protection of German army because they they were more afraid of Stain than Hitler.

MicaelS (1000+ posts)      Sun Aug-08-10 02:07 PM
Response to Original message

4. Hitler, Stalin, Mao in that order..

As much as I despise Stalin, and boy do I despise him, he's a distant second to Hitler.

GSLevel9 (123 posts)      Sun Aug-08-10 02:10 PM
Response to Reply #4
 
10. just for a historical discussion... what did Hitler do worse than Stalin?

And if you're not familiar with all Stalin did... make sure to research what Stalin did pre ww2 and post ww2.

Posteritatis (1000+ posts)      Sun Aug-08-10 02:19 PM
Response to Reply #10
 
18. One thing worth considering for him

...is the fact that, really, he was just getting started. "Win the war" was one of the earlier steps in his general plan for Europe (and possibly Russia and chunks of the Near East). That has me pondering Hitler The Historical Person on the one hand and Hitler The Potential Person on the other.

The idea of a Hitler, still furher or perhaps recently retired, who died comfortably in bed in, oh, 1958? That horrifies the hell out of me and makes me glad his life and career got cut off short (if not nearly short enough).

Of course, it's up in the air whether someone should take that sort of thing into account in this sort of discussion; I can understand doing so and not doing so equally well.

MicaelS (1000+ posts)      Sun Aug-08-10 02:36 PM
Response to Reply #10

19. He started a war that killed well over 40 million dead. 

Stalin butchered lots of people, but primarily did it in his own country. That doesn't make it any better of course.

I've always regarded Staling as an opportunist.

To me his attitude was "Let's you and him fight, and I will reap the rewards when you both are too exhausted to fight anymore."

But, if I had a time machine and could back and kill all three before they rose to power, I wouldn't hesitate for one second..

Sebastian Doyle  (1000+ posts)      Sun Aug-08-10 02:08 PM
THE SHERLOCK HOLMES PRIMITIVE
Response to Original message
 
5. Samuel P. Bush

He began the 20th century by investing money made from Rockefeller railroad scams into the Remington Rifle company. Then he sold those rifles to both sides of World War I, and also the Russian revolution, which led to the Soviet Union - making the existence of Josef Stalin possible.

Samuel's son, Prescott Bush funded the rise of Adolf Hitler, and continued to profit from Naziism long after WWII had begun, including concentration camp slave labor.

Prescott's son George Herbert Walker Bush turned the CIA founded by his daddy's friends into the world's biggest drug dealing, terrorist funding, assassination machine. Including the creation of Al Qaeda as a weapon to use against the Soviet Union indirectly created by his grandpa. His other son, Prescott Jr. enabled China to become the dominant economic power on the planet. Great for China. Great for the Bush Crime Family. Not so much for the rest of us. Just ask any pet who died from their shitty poison food. Or dead babies who drank the melamine formula.

And well, we all remember what George's idiot son George Jr. did. Not to mention his other sons Jeb (election fraud & drug smuggling), Neil (S&L fraud, education fraud, and loves those child prostitutes in Thailand), and Marvin (ran "security" at the World Trade Center)

Over a century of crime, treason, and just plain despicable evil from these bastards. Thanks Great Grandpa Sammy Bush for making it all possible.

stevedeshazer  (1000+ posts)        Sun Aug-08-10 03:04 PM
Response to Reply #5
 
30. What you said.

The entire Bush Crime Family arguably created more death, destruction and suffering from worldwide war than anyone in history, even Stalin and Hitler. They would not have been enabled without their bankrolling from the Bush Crime Family.

LWolf  (1000+ posts)        Sun Aug-08-10 02:08 PM
Response to Original message
 
6. I don't do "worsts," "bests," "favorites," etc.. 

I don't rank things like one is always at the top of a list.

I will say that Hitler and Stalin were among the worst people in the 20th Century.

I'd add Ronald Reagan to that group, and I'm sure there are more that fit.

GSLevel9 (123 posts)      Sun Aug-08-10 02:08 PM
Response to Original message
 
7. absolutely Stalin, then Mao... 

Hitler has the worst PR... the others have been rehab'd for the last 60 years. Hitler was bad, bad in an evil kinda' insane sorta way. But Stalin was worse because there was NO insanity... just a primitive mentality that lead to the deaths of TENS of millions. In fact it's fair to say that Stalin killed more Russians pre-ww2 than Hitler killed Jews during ww2.

Stalin was evil incarnate.

tedder10 (5 posts)     Sun Aug-08-10 02:09 PM
Response to Original message
 
8. I was thinking the guy who invented robocalls but that certainly doesn't cover the list. I think an easier list would be for the worst person in the 21 century and a certain buffoon from texas would win that one.

Mole.

Beacool  (1000+ posts)        Sun Aug-08-10 02:09 PM
Response to Original message
 
9. Before even opening the thread I thought of th same two: Hitler and Stalin.

Two monsters who directly, and indirectly, caused the death of millions of people. May they both rot in hell!!

Posteritatis (1000+ posts)      Sun Aug-08-10 02:13 PM
Response to Original message
 
13. I waffle between those two depending on my mood half the time

With the same caveat as you that I don't have the background to make that educated a decision on Mao, so he's more off my mental radar than he should be. I need to fix that at some point, though I've mainly been working on fixing my US history gaps lately.

I'm not comfortable using body count as the sole metric of that sort of thing - not because I don't think that's important, but because I worry about the results of boiling people down to numbers or points. Even though that's a rational thing to do at times, I don't have to like it.

Some of my evaluation goes into counterfactual territory, which obviously isn't something one can use as Objective Proof in either direction. To take Hitler and Stalin as examples, I find myself wondering how much worse things might (well, let's be honest, would) have gotten had the former won the war. For Stalin pondering, Stalin drove the Soviet Union pretty far into the ground between the Holodomor, the Red Army purges and god only knows how many other things - if someone else was in charge after Lenin wouldn't the country have been much better off, more intact, better able to resist a German attack or even discourage one entirely in the first place?

I don't know, and don't pretend to have the ability to figure that sort of thing out. Suffice it to say they were both pretty vile, though; if I absolutely have to pick just one I'd try to loophole a tie out of it.

Leopold II was pretty ****ing evil, though. When other European colonial powers are horrified at how you're acting? Yeah.

I absolutely don't qualify anyone in the US for the top of any such list, though.

AnArmyVeteran  (1000+ posts)        Sun Aug-08-10 02:14 PM
THE PRIMITIVE franksolich IS IGNORING
Response to Original message

14. Barbara Bush for producing evil offspring.

MicaelS (1000+ posts)      Sun Aug-08-10 02:38 PM
Response to Reply #14
 
21. No, you have to go back further than that

Back to at least Prescott Sheldon Bush.

AnArmyVeteran  (1000+ posts)        Sun Aug-08-10 02:59 PM
THE PRIMITIVE franksolich IS IGNORING
Response to Reply #21

28. Yeah his wife should have kept her legs together too. 

The entire Bush clan is evil and corrupt. Too bad abortion couldn't be retroactive through several generations. 

backscatter712  (1000+ posts)      Sun Aug-08-10 02:19 PM
Response to Original message
 
15. Stalin gets top billing, just for the body count.

Warren Stupidity  (1000+ posts)        Sun Aug-08-10 02:37 PM
Response to Reply #15
 
20. The body count is not really settled.

If one includes the great famine of the 30's you get into the 10-15,000,000 range. The 60M figures end up including everyone who died in WWII fighting the nazis, which is dishonest.

Without distorting the count Hitler is clearly the winner by body count alone. However there is a huge difference between the two. The nazi program was explicitly genocidal and was cut short, really at it's beginnings. The program intended to eliminate not only jews, gypsies socialists and deviants, but also the enslavement and elimination of much of the population of eastern europe to make room for a greater germany. Stalin lived to a ripe old age and died peacefully after 30 years in power. He carried out all of his programs to their conclusion. Hitler barely got started.

Make7 (1000+ posts)     Sun Aug-08-10 02:39 PM
Response to Original message
 
22. Gavrilo Princip

Posteritatis (1000+ posts)      Sun Aug-08-10 02:40 PM
Response to Reply #22
 
24. He certainly made a disproportionate splash, didn't he?

Uncle Joe  (1000+ posts)      Sun Aug-08-10 03:02 PM
Response to Reply #22
 
29. There you go, without his actions, possibly no World War I, which led to the rise of Lenin, Stalin and Hitler, not to mention the War with Vietnam as the U.S. dissed independence for that nation in favor of France during the Treaty of Versailles.

Ho Chi Minh was a great admirer of the U.S. during those days and claimed to have wanted democracy for his country, but the U.S. sided with France; to retain Vietnam as a colony.

Huh?

the U.S. dissed independence for that nation in favor of France during the Treaty of Versailles.

undeterred  (1000+ posts)        Sun Aug-08-10 02:40 PM
Response to Original message
 
23. Dick Cheney deserves to have his name brought up for an honorable mention at least.

Mole.

tishaLA  (1000+ posts)        Sun Aug-08-10 02:55 PM
Response to Original message

26. Pol Pot's gotta be on that list

He didn't kill as many as some, but he killed a higher percentage of his population. In a nation of about 7.5 million, he was responsible for the deaths of ~1.7 million.

I'd also nominate the architects of British and French colonial policies for a special position of dishonor. Because of what they started in the 19th century and continued through much of the 20th centuries, much of Africa and Asia still hasn't recovered.

Unruly (2 posts)      Sun Aug-08-10 02:57 PM
Response to Original message
 
27. One does not need . . . 

. . . a cultural context to judge it as genocide.

"And then there's Mao. I am reluctant to invoke Mao because I don't have the same level of cultural context to really get the history, on that gut level."

Actually, when it comes to mass murder, Mao Tse-tung wins the gold medal.

But as we all know, the primitives--Mrs. Alfred Packer isn't the only one--dislike yellow people anyway, and so probably in the primitive mind, one white or black victim is worth ten yellow victims.

[debk]

wow....it took until the 5th post to get to the Bush family! I am shocked, shocked I tell you!!!!

dumb asses.....

[AprilRazz]

Funny how a mass murderer like Che Guevara isn't mentioned.

[cavegal]

What no Glenn Beck?  shocking!

[thundley4]

Let's just say the worst person award would got to a leftist and leave it at that.

[AllosaursRus]

If we just include the US, Zero is at the top of my list! No other single person in our history has done more to destroy the country of our Founders! After all, even thought the DemonRats author the bills, Zero is backing them and has to sign them into law! If he gave a rusty about the cost to our freedom, or the eventual cost in dollars and deficit, he could Veto them!

Frikkin' socialist POS! No other president in our history has perpetuated the "Victim Mentality" like he has! To say nothin' of his complete lack of any kind of experience for the office of POTUS! Like Rush says, "When he walks into a room, he is the least experienced of anyone, no matter the topic"!

I realllllllllllllllly can't stand the guy, have ya noticed?

[true_blood]

If we just include the US, Zero is at the top of my list! No other single person in our history has done more to destroy the country of our Founders! After all, even thought the DemonRats author the bills, Zero is backing them and has to sign them into law! If he gave a rusty about the cost to our freedom, or the eventual cost in dollars and deficit, he could Veto them!

Frikkin' socialist POS! No other president in our history has perpetuated the "Victim Mentality" like he has! To say nothin' of his complete lack of any kind of experience for the office of POTUS! Like Rush says, "When he walks into a room, he is the least experienced of anyone, no matter the topic"!

I realllllllllllllllly can't stand the guy, have ya noticed?

I agree with you 1000% brother!! I cannot stand to look at him on the tv, I change the channel. I don't want to see his face nor do I care to hear him spew his lies, while putting on the arrogant stupid smile on his face, all the while knowing that he is feeding us lies. GARBAGE!!

[vesta111]

If we just include the US, Zero is at the top of my list! No other single person in our history has done more to destroy the country of our Founders! After all, even thought the DemonRats author the bills, Zero is backing them and has to sign them into law! If he gave a rusty about the cost to our freedom, or the eventual cost in dollars and deficit, he could Veto them!

Frikkin' socialist POS! No other president in our history has perpetuated the "Victim Mentality" like he has! To say nothin' of his complete lack of any kind of experience for the office of POTUS! Like Rush says, "When he walks into a room, he is the least experienced of anyone, no matter the topic"!

I realllllllllllllllly can't stand the guy, have ya noticed?

Meat Ball Mary   [I hope I have this correct. ]

She was a German official at the Camps that had this odd fetish, she was called in when a prisoner arrived with an interesting tattoo.

Much care was taken of the prisioner----This could be the inspiration for Silence of the Lambs---and their death was an easy one not to harm the tattoo.

Mary had Lamp Shades made of the skin and tattoo taking arts and crafts a bit too far.

Last I have heard about her she made her way to New York and lived a good kind life until the JDL found her.  She by now had powerful friends in Washington that refused to turn her over to the war crimes panel.

Evil comes in shades, rulers that are evil and then the every day person that puts them to shame.

[AllosaursRus]

Huh???????????????????

[Ptarmigan]

Let's just say the worst person award would got to a leftist and leave it at that.

Let see.
Adolf Hitler
Joseph Stalin
Mao Zedong
Pol Pot
Hideki Tojo
Benito Mussolini
Idi Amin-Soviet Union supported him
Mengistu Haile Mariam
Kim Il-Sung/Kim Jong-Il
Jim Jones
Charles Manson
Lee Harvey Oswald
Saddam Hussein
Osama bin Laden
Mullamar Omar
Seung-Hui Cho
Eric Harris/Dylan Klebold
Jeffrey Dahmer
Ted Bundy

Gees, there are leftists.  

[PatriotGame]

AnArmyVeteran  (1000+ posts)        Sun Aug-08-10 02:59 PM
THE PRIMITIVE franksolich IS IGNORING
Response to Reply #21

28. Yeah his wife should have kept her legs together too.

The entire Bush clan is evil and corrupt. Too bad abortion couldn't be retroactive through several generations.

Yea, too bad since I can guarantee you a starring participant role on Will It Blend. Bring your kids - it'll be fun!

[VelvetElvis]

Just what is it that Reagan did that inspires such animus in these DUmmies?

Who did he kill?

Or, maybe, what did he kill? Perhaps as in, the DUmmies dreams of unending liberal dominance?

And as for the "Bush Crime Family" delusions, how far gone do you have to be to believe that bullshit?  If the Bushes were so all-powerful as these nitwits claim, wouldn't these DUmmies all be taking dirt naps by now?


 

[Ralph Wiggum]

And as for the "Bush Crime Family" delusions, how far gone do you have to be to believe that bullshit?  If the Bushes were so all-powerful as these nitwits claim, wouldn't these DUmmies all be taking dirt naps by now?


 

Or in camps as they often suggested that ChimpyMcBushHitler was going to put them in.

Yeah, the DUmmies can't have it both ways.  Either W was dumb or really smart.  Having met the guy, I lean toward the latter.