The Twenty Most Evil? Really?

[redneckgaijin]

Apparently some right-wing blogger asked his friends to vote on who the most evil Americans in all history were. The results have Barack Obama being more evil than Timothy McVeigh, Richard Nixon, Benedict Arnold, and Jeffrey Dahmer (who didn't even make the list)... but slightly less evil than the worst man America has ever claimed for a citizen...

... Jimmy Carter.

This result so disgusted another conservative blogger that he made his own, saner list... which, of course, I find a bit incomplete myself.

Of course, this is a game anybody can play, so let's play it.

Who, in your opinion, are the twenty most evil Americans in history? You do NOT have to put them in order if you don't want to. If I get enough responses, I'll tally them, like that original blogger did, and rank them based on number of mentions in lists- not position in lists.

So, post! And forward the challenge, and let me know where to look! It's meme time (I hope)!

EDIT: How do I define "most evil?" For my part, there have to be three criteria involved. First, the person themselves must be, by their nature, evil- which I define as selfish to the point of completely ignoring the consequences to others of their actions. "What's good for me is good for America," "I am the voice of the American people," and "The ends justify the means," are all to me statements of evil intent.

Second, the person involved must have done significant harm to others- a LOT of others- and thus, with few exceptions, must have exercised power of some sort. Only truly egregious mass murderers (like Charles Manson, Jim Jones, or Jeffrey Dahmer) should even be considered (and I only put one on my personal list). By and large these should be people of great wealth, great authority, or both.

Third, the person involved should have few if any redeeming values or qualities. Despite his ruthlessness in creating and building his empire, I don't list Bill Gates because of his truly vast philanthropical works- ditto Andrew Carnegie (whose estate is still giving to charity almost a century after his death) and J. P. Morgan (who twice saved the country from a financial depression). The only exception should be if the act of evil that defines the person was so egregious as to wipe out all other considerations (for example Benedict Arnold).

That's what I judge by, anyway.


Putting them in historical order:

BENEDICT ARNOLD
ANDREW JACKSON
JOHN C. CALHOUN
JAMES K. POLK
WILLIAM WALKER
WILLIAM QUANTRILL
JOHN CHIVINGTON
JOHN WILKES BOOTH
WILLIAM TWEED
THOMAS EDISON
AL CAPONE
J. EDGAR HOOVER
GEORGE LINCOLN ROCKWELL
RICHARD DALEY, SR.
L. RON HUBBARD
RICHARD NIXON
JEFFREY DAHMER
TIMOTHY McVEIGH
ROGER AILES
RICHARD CHENEY

EDIT: some I considered who didn't make the cut, but are still evil in my book
Woodrow Wilson (he'd be my #21)
James Buchanan
Clyde Barrow
D. W. Griffith
Robert Barnwell Rhett
Jefferson Davis (not for being the Confederate President, but for working so hard after the war to create the myth of the Lost Cause and of the unimportance of slavery in the war)
Jim Jones (decided against because Jonestown wasn't in America)
Benjamin Butler
Lyndon B. Johnson (too many good intentions and good deeds; he was the ultimate case of "ends justify the means")
Philip Sheridan (even more of an Indian-killer than Chivington, but at least he never used murder to win votes)

Comments

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

If you don't mind my asking, why Thomas Edison? All I really know about him is the inventor stuff.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Edison was, put bluntly, a thief.

Edison himself invented very little. He first gained his status as "inventor" not by creating anything new but by tinkering with first the telegraph and then the telephone, making improvements. The phonograph, the lightbulb, and his patented "Kinetoscope" were all actually invented by employees of his at Menlo Park... and Edison took the credit, the patent and the money, and kicked the actual inventors to the curb when they tried to get their fair share of credit and revenue.

Furthermore, as the first leader of the motion picture industry Edison was a copyright scofflaw- stealing prints of movies, especially from Europe, duplicating them, and showing them in his own theaters- with the creators receiving not one penny. The most egregious example is in the final episode of the HBO documentary From the Earth to the Moon and involves, as it happens, the very first science-fiction movie.

Finally, if another inventor or technologist came up with a technology that rivalled Edison's existing market control of a technology, Edison would do anything and everything not merely to keep the competing technology from taking hold, but to discredit and ruin the competitor. The greatest victim in this case was Nikolai Tesla, who was in every way a superior scientist to Edison. Edison, unfortunately, was the superior businessman, and in the Guilded Age greed beat science hands down. Edison died a multimillionaire and Tesla a discredited pauper... despite the fact that the global electric infrastructure derives from Tesla's designs, and not Edison's.

Thomas Edison is on my list as the flag-bearer for all the unrepentant, irredeemably evil CEOs, business tycoons and the like the United States has produced. Unlike most of the classic list- Morgan, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, Gates- Edison has no good qualities to redeem his overwhelming greed and vanity, and so he makes my twenty most evil list.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I'd be inclined to add Randolph Hearst.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Well, that's one; who are your other nineteen?

For me, Hearst is well off down the list; he didn't invent yellow journalism by any means. In fact, what we now call "yellow journalism," or advocacy journalism (or Fox News), was the way the first newspapers ALL used to be, and were down to Hearst's time. Hearst, for his part, at least encouraged innovation in his newspapers, including protecting creator and journalistic freedom.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

My big problem with Hearst was his work toward the criminalization of marijuana, and his methods in particular.

Hm. I've never really kept a list. In no particular order, and until I run out of ideas:

1. William Randolph Hearst.
2. Charles Keating.
3. Tim McVeigh, certainly.
4. Possibly the Unabomber, although he may not qualify because he was mentally ill, as opposed to simply evil.
5. Randall Terry, from Operation Rescue.
6. WalMart. (Hey, the court says corporations are people.)
7. Monsanto.
8. Duplicating your list again, George Lincoln Rockwell.
9. Possibly Phyllis Schlafly.

[silussa.livejournal.com]

I'd really have to work to come up with 20. After all, most folks certainly wouldn't have THOUGHT they were being evil.

Although I'd be happy to make an exception for Benedict Arnold, who pretty much has to go to the top of anyone's list that's sane, I think.

In no particular order, save the first, a list I think most folks would agree is apolitical:

Benedict Arnold
Bernard Madoff
Fred Phelps
Ted Kaczynski
Jim Jones
Lee Harvey Oswald
Charles Manson
John Wilkes Booth
Charles J Guiteau
Albert Fish

[silussa.livejournal.com]

Apologetically, I believe I have to add to the list:


Charles Ponzi

[silussa.livejournal.com]

One I must admit I'm not sure of:

William Tecumseh Sherman

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Well, that's ten at least.

I excuse Kaczynski, Oswald and Guiteau because they weren't evil so much as batshit crazy.

And although we're taught from early on in school to revile Arnold, he's on my list but nowhere near the top. Yes, he tried to sell out a vital military institution and garrison primarily for money. But consider: he already felt that America, in the form of Congress and even Washington himself, had betrayed HIM. He was denied full credit for his superior results against incredible odds (especially at Saratoga, where Horatio Gates hogged credit he most patently did not deserve). He was passed over for promotion by men whose only qualification was friends in Congress. Finally, he was investigated and reprimanded on suspicion of peculation as military commander of Philadelphia immediately after the British withdrawal in 1778. He felt like he'd been given a raw deal- and so he was quite willing to listen to his new Tory wife when she suggested switching sides.

And I had never heard of Albert Fish before. Intriguing.

[silussa.livejournal.com]

Kaczynski, pretty agreeably batshit crazy. Oswald, arguable. Guiteau, arguably NOT (the jury DID find him sane).

As for Arnold, he did betray a sacred trust for cash. If I recall, they reserve a special spot in Dante's Inferno for such.

And does being batshit crazy excuse being evil? To venture outside the realm of the exercise, I'm not sure such an argument would stick with Adolf Hitler, or Joseph Stalin. (yes, I DO think Stalin was nutty; he was certainly paranoid)

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

As for Arnold, he did betray a sacred trust for cash. If I recall, they reserve a special spot in Dante's Inferno for such.

No moreso than George Washington and others who violated their oaths as officers and enlisted of the English Colonial armies when they turned coat. Arnold may also have been upset by the pass given to some US-on-Tory attrocities.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Not "colonial armies," colonial militia.

Although the Continentals did include a few officers who had held royal commissions (notably Charles Lee, Horatio Gates and Richard Montgomery), they had resigned their commissions years prior to the war. No actively serving British officer joined the rebellion.

And, more to the point, neither Washington nor any of the officers of the Continental Army sold any British-held installation to the colonies for money in the middle of ongoing hostilities. They started the war on one side and stayed on that side straight through the war. Arnold started on one side and ended on the other- which is the textbook example for betrayal.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Sure, but the enlistment and commissioning oaths are supposed to be life-long, even after the end of active duty, which is why I specified army regulars instead of militia. This doesn't excuse Arnold, but it makes his negative achievements less exceptional.

Crap, I cannot locate the reference now!

[nsingman.livejournal.com]

Our lists overlap by two names. More than I expected.
:-)

Abraham Lincoln
Woodrow Wilson
Franklin Roosevelt
Lyndon Johnson
Harry Truman

Alexander Hamilton
Henry Clay
William Sherman
Theodore Roosevelt
Herbert Hoover

Richard Nixon
George W. Bush
Barack Obama
Paul Tibbets
Paul Warburg

Nelson Aldrich
Benjamin Strong
J. Edgar Hoover
Alan Greenspan
Robert Moses

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

I understand your reasoning behind most of them (and agree, with caveats, in about half the cases)...

... but why on earth General Sherman? Granted he was a pioneer in the tactic of total war, but after the war he worked hard to help the South rebuild. His goal in harsh measures was to end the war as swiftly as possible- not to exact revenge (except for South Carolina, where he did admit to wanting to "bring the war home to those who started it"). I don't see him as being particularly evil, either for his time or on an absolute level- and there are plenty of commanders in the war (Forrest, Sheridan, Porter, Jefferson C. Davis (Union general), Pope, Butler, Ewell, Lyon, Quantrill and Morgan all come to mind) who were demonstrably more evil than he.

[silussa.livejournal.com]

Which notes why Sherman is on my tentative list. Admittedly, the man has a lot to say for him.

However, he was also one of the first to apply the concept of "total war"....and I can't help but think that, whatever the logic was for doing so, it's a development we all could have lived without.

Especially if you happened to be in the path of his March.

[nsingman.livejournal.com]

It was primarily because of his waging total war and his vengeful attacks on South Carolina (what happened to Columbia was morally equivalent to the firebombing of Dresden), that I see him as being particularly evil. Some of the names on my list are there because they pioneered profoundly evil doctrines or practices. Sherman was called the first modern general, and I think it's an apt (and not a complimentary) description. YMMV, of course.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

The irony in your statement is that the Columbia fire was started by the retreating Confederates. They set fire to warehouses chock full of stockpiled cotton to deny it to the Union, and the fire spread through the city. Incoming Union soldiers ended up fighting the fires rather than starting them in that particular case.

What happened in the rest of the state, though, was for the most part Union destruction for destruction's sake. And all accounts agree that the destruction ceased almost magically at the North Carolina state line.

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Why Polk? For creating the U.S. Treasury?

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Both for launching the Mexican-American War on patently false pretenses, and for deliberately sabotaging his army commanders for political purposes. (That is, he didn't want any general who wasn't indebted to him to become popular enough to win the Presidency in 1848. Hence his taking most of Zachary Taylor's army away from him, short-changing Winfield Scott of supplies midway into that general's invasion of central Mexico, and his attempts to have Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri commissioned a lieutenant general to outrank both the aforementioned commanders.)

And that entirely leaves aside his pre-presidential political career, for which the phrase "sneaky opportunistic bastard" is accurate but inadequate.

[maciapaladin.livejournal.com]

I don't have any names to add to the list, and I agree with quite a few. I'm more fascinated by what people consider "evil". And, I'd like to know why Barack Obama needs to be included in this list. Not because I think so-and-so is wrong for feeling that way, but it seems a little premature to close the book on this history of a president who has sat for a mere two years. And, frankly, I'm curious. From a historical perspective. There are others, but that name intrigues me the most as he is the sitting president.

I'm gonna get yelled at fa' sure...

[kyllein.livejournal.com]

I have only two people to suggest for this list, but given what they did I'm of the opinion they decidedly belong on it.

A: Abraham Lincoln. Undermined the Constitution* and instituted a Military dictatorship in the North during the Civil War. Instituted the first Income Tax. Permitted the creation of the basic structure of the bureaucracy that is still in place in Washington City, District of Columbia. Contrary to historical claims, he did not free one single slave in the United States.
*essentially made the Constitution a "Fair Weather" document.

B: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Using a Lincolnesque invention, the "Execuive Order", FDR caused the unlawful imprisonment of American citizens who had >50% Japanese ancestry without trial or access to the courts. He also sent American forces throughout the American Continents, both North and South America, "rounding up" Japanese-ancestry citizens of other nations. While American Citizens eventually received some compensation for their imprisonment, the non-citizens kidnapped from their own countries never received a cent.

Why do I group these so-called American "Heroes" among the most evil people of history? Simple. Under our law and legal philosophy,* since it was done ONCE; it can be done again. All it takes is the stroke of the President's pen.
*the principle of "Precedential Justification" which we inherited from English Common Law. Originally seen as a curb on excess by the Crown, under our system it has become an "authorizing action" for governmental activities of the worst kind.

Re: I'm gonna get yelled at fa' sure...

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

FDR... to put him on the list I for one would need more than just the Japanese internment, which was in response to both military paranoia and public outrage at the presence of Japanese-Americans in their neighborhoods. He shouldn't have done it, but it's easy for me to see why he acquiesced in it: it was a battle he didn't want to fight.

Two points about Abraham Lincoln. First, prior to Lincoln, there was still a bureaucracy in Washington- he merely expanded it and took the first steps towards a permanent bureaucratic class. This sounds horrible... until you consider that prior to Lincoln every job- EVERY SINGLE JOB IN WASHINGTON- could change hands every election, and could be filled by people wholly unqualified for the work except in their support of the incoming administration or party in power. The professional civil service (which really didn't get going until the assassination of James Garfield) was a step forward, not back, for good government and liberty alike.

Second: the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in areas not, as of January 1, under the control of the Federal government. That said, after the Proclamation, every place the Union armies went they brought emancipation- for good or ill- with them. (One of the most outrageous incidents of the war was when Union general Jefferson C. Davis- no relation- during Sherman's March to the Sea pulled up the bridges behind his division and stranded close to 10,000 slaves to be recaptured or killed by Confederates and outlaws shadowing Sherman's army.) Lincoln didn't free any slave just by issuing an order, but the order gave his armies the ability to gut slavery like a fish being cleaned.