The Twenty Most Evil? Really?
Aug. 14th, 2010 06:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redneckgaijinApparently 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)
... 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)
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no subject
Date: 2010-08-15 01:14 am (UTC)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
no subject
Date: 2010-08-15 01:19 am (UTC)Charles Ponzi
no subject
Date: 2010-08-15 01:57 am (UTC)William Tecumseh Sherman
no subject
Date: 2010-08-15 01:28 am (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-15 01:52 am (UTC)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)
no subject
Date: 2010-08-15 02:56 am (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-15 04:22 am (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-15 06:08 am (UTC)Crap, I cannot locate the reference now!