Heroes and Villains

[Moskitto]

I'm thinking of compiling a list of people who I think are the 10 greatest villains and the 10 greatest heroes in history.

For heroes there's Che but does anyone have any other ideas?

For Villains I think I know who's going to be No1 unless anyone can persuade to me that Hitler, Stalin or Mao were more evil than Pol Pot. But I was thinking who people though were the most evil out of other killers like...

Maximillien Robespierre
Ghengis Khan
Mary Tudor
Ivan the Terrible
Idi Amin
Mao Zedung
Saddam Hussein
Augusto Pinochet
General Suharto
Joseph-Desiré Mobutu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Yahya Khan

(Edited by Moskitto at 11:52 pm on Nov. 1, 2001)

[SellasieI]

I would put Vlad the Impaler, I think he's done his part to piss a couple people off, but thats just me talking.

(Edited by SellasieI at 6:13 am on Nov. 2, 2001)

[Kez]

Heres my top 10 Villain list

10:Uncle Joe Stalin
9:Thatcher
8:Kennedy
7:Reagan
6:Bush
5:Senator Mcarthy
4:Truman
3:Pol Pot
2:Kissinger
1:Hitler

[Moskitto]

My History Teacher rates Joseph Stalin no 1 but I think that's only based on numbers killed and doesn't take into account factors such as how they were killed, what numbers were tortured, what proportion were killed of the total population, and why they were killed. For example even though Stalin killed up to 50 million Russians (for disagreeing with him mainly) is he worse than Hitler who killed about 21 million (for being the wrong ethnic group) because the methods they used were different and if they said their actions were wrong before they died or not.

Based on this I think my top 10 would be

1. Pol Pot
2. Adolf Hitler
3. Joseph Stalin
4. Ghengis Khan
5. Mao Zedung
6. Henry Kissinger
7. Maximilian Robespierre
8. Idi Amin
9. Augusto Pinochet
10. Mary Tudor

[CommieBastard]

I think Vlad Drakul get's a lot of bad press he doesn't deserve...
for a start, all of the accounts are inherently biased against him, because he opposed both the Christian and Muslim superpowers that were encroaching from both sides...
secondly, he didn't even spend that long in power...
thirdly, his 'worst' act, was when the Turks invaded his lil' country, he made the very tactical decision of putting up a barrier of their friends corpses from the last battle...
very sensible in my opinion, delayed them quite a lot, and hell, is it wrong to kill someone who is trying to kill you?

poor ole Vlad, not only does he get a historically bad press, but then the whole modern idea of Vampirism gets based on him... what a bummer that must've been...

[CommieBastard]

And Moskitto, as for the Khans, what was so bad about what they did?
About the worst thing they did was the way they killed the generals of their enemies... Which was to roll them in a carpet and trample them to death. BUT you have to get this in cultural context, because their religion dictated that if when you died your blood wasn't shed you would be superior in the after life, thus they thought they were honoring their enemies. This is why when important Mongols were captured, and the Indians did this to them, it was quite a useless act...

[CommieBastard]

P.S i just noticed im a sub-commandante :D

[Moskitto]

Quote: from CommieBastard on 11:35 pm on Nov. 2, 2001
And Moskitto, as for the Khans, what was so bad about what they did?
About the worst thing they did was the way they killed the generals of their enemies... Which was to roll them in a carpet and trample them to death. BUT you have to get this in cultural context, because their religion dictated that if when you died your blood wasn't shed you would be superior in the after life, thus they thought they were honoring their enemies. This is why when important Mongols were captured, and the Indians did this to them, it was quite a useless act...


History's biggest genocide, 35 million Chinese peasants slaughtered. (most of Stalin doesn't count as genocide because that wasn't targeted against a particular ethnic group.)

But the Monguls were great stratagists and warriors.

Oh that other Khan I mentioned wasn't a Mongol. He was a dictator from Pakistan who was reputed to be pretty cruel.

(Edited by Moskitto at 12:01 am on Nov. 3, 2001)

[Kez]

Uncle Joe wasnt that bad man
After all he did the free the world of Hitler

Having said that he sorta went on a bad acid trip and killed manyintelectuals INCLUDING top GENUINE VERY PRO COMMUNIST poets such as Charenz. I believe that he feared that this new inteligensia would over throw the soviet govt. Bad mistake. Poor old Joe :(

COmrade KAmo

[CommieBastard]

ok, Joe was a Nazi, get over it...

[Kez]

Joe was not a nazi
He was a "stalinist" haha

He was alright man, ok he killed shit loads but he dont deserve the shit he gets from everyone

Give the chap some respect
His Red Army killed Hitler and the fascist hate machine, we must never forget that we owe our lives to the Glorious Red army who sacrificed 23 million soldiers to stop the rot of fascism

Comrade Kamo

[kingbee]

i was thinking fanon- just been flicking through a book bout him
lenin aswell- just think, if hed lived a bit longer, stlain wouldnt had come to power

[Moskitto]

No one's actually objected to Mary Tudor which I didn't expected. Mary Tudor is just seen as a Queen who decided to kill all the Protestants so it could provoke some objections.

[Moskitto]

I get called a retard for calling Stalin a Nazi.

Yeah well the problem is he believed in Socialism in one Country which he called "National Socialism." Which is quite a lot like Hitlers ideas.

I would copy and paste what I said about Stalins policies to that idiot who came on about a week ago but it's far too abusive and Kamo doesn't deserve that. Or I could edit it.

[reagan lives]

Villains:
1) Magneto
2) Dr. Doom
3) Lex Luther
4) Joker
5) Venom
6) Kingpin
7) Apocalypse
8) Riddler
9) Mum-Raa
10) Shredder

[vox]

Once again, RL dazzles with his substantive contribution and intellectual prowess.

vox

[reagan lives]

Once again, vox displays his wonderful sense of humor. You know what this calls for...

[vox impression]
Once again, vox resorts to personal attacks.

You failed to refute even one of my "villain" choices.

Prove me wrong, left-winger.

Prove me wrong, coward.

By not contesting any of my villains, you have once again validated my intellectual superiority.

I am so much smarter than you.
[/vox impression]

Thank you, thank you. You're too kind.

[AgustoSandino]

HAHAHAHAHA, no, no, thank you.

[ernestodekam]

stop whinging you babies, ya muma is calling..........

[Kez]

Stalin was nothing like Hitler
And its a disgrace to the left to say he is.
22 million Red Army Soldiers were killed by Hitler and people still claim that By defeating Fascism in Europe Stalin was a "Nazi"
Listen, if it wasnt for Stalin before the war then the USSR would be another 20 years less developed and Hitlers would of just walked all over the USSR killing God knows how many people

As i have said before Stalin has made mistakes, but then if everyone make a mistake and we call them a nazi then surely we would all have to be walking around with Swastikas on our arms

Power to the Soviets
COmrade Kamo

I myself like to consider myself a trotskyist which is slightly ironic considering what i said above.

Hail Comrade Stalin :)

[sabre]

Whos Pol Pot?

[RedCeltic]

Pol Pot was prime minister of Cambodia (1975-79). Leder of the Communist Party of Cambodia. He beleved in returning to the year zero... to an ethnicly pure agarian state. He is responsible for killing something like 2 million people. Cambodia was captured by the Vietnese in 1979 and Pol Pot was sentanced to life in prison... he died in prison in 1997.

[TNapoleon]

Top Ten Bastards of All Time:
1.Adolf Hitler
2.Ronald Reagan
3.Benito Mussolini
4.Augusto Pinochet
5.Margaret Thatcher
6.Pol Pot
7.Deng Xiaoping
8.Idi Amin Dada
9.Chiang Kai-Chek
10.Josef Stalin

Top Ten Heroes of All Time:
1.Vladimir Lenin
2.Che Guevara
3.Leon Trotsky
4.Rosa Luxembourg
5.Fidel Castro
6.Emiliano Zapata
7.Luís Carlos Prestes
8.Ho Chi Minh
9.Antonio Gramsci
10.Carlos Marighella

[sabre]

Oh yeah now i know who pol pot is! I heard about him the other day on (this miught sound really stupid) Oprah. I turned on the TYv and oprah was talking about communism so i decided to listen. It was quite interesting, actually. Wow whata terrible dude

[Moskitto]

It seems that people are surprised that I included Pol Pot as No1. so i'll give an explaination.

1. Pol Pot although only killed aproximately 2 million killed a far greater proportion of the population that any other mass murder in history has ever killed aproximately 1/3 of the popultion of Cambodia were killed in only 4 years.

2. Although Pol Pot might be argued to only be as bad as Stalins, Maos or Hitler. The difference with Pol Pot is his attitude towards the Genocide. While Mao Zedung repented before he died and Hitler and Stalin died before they could talk about their actions. Pol Pot maintained until he died that "I have a clear concience" and wouldn't accept that he done anything wrong.

3. While Stalins purges were mainly against people who disagreed with him on politics and while bad in themselves. The victims of Stalins purges could reasonably have kept quiet (although that isn't really fair). However Pol Pot's enemies were targeted for the most irrational reasons such as the fact they wore glasses, had an education, belonged to the intellectual class, had an above average income, were Vietnamese, Thai or some other ethnic group, couldn't fill work quotas. Just goes beyond reason why any normal person could commit such atrocities.

[Drifter]

i don't see why Robespierre was so bad as to make it to the top ten, and what about more ancient heros such as saladin

[Moskitto]

Robespiere, pretty big mass murderer. Decided to kill people for similar reasons to Pol Pot but couldn't manage to kill everyone he wanted to. Also his "Great Fear" was the inspiration behind Stalin (although that wasn't really his fault.)

Killed only about 500 thousand out of 28 million though but decided to kill people merely for having "le" in their name so a pretty nasty murderer.

[Kez]

Moskitto am i right in saying your 16
If so i would like to say how well educated you are in your ideologies and im sure in many other subjects

Comrade Kamo

[Moskitto]

actually I'm 15.

I sort of stopped pre 20th century History at the French revolution in year 9. And I wrote a pretty funny pro-monarchy newspaper for an assignment.

Politically I taught myself mostly. Then the internet came along I discovered that most people who go online are basically jerks who think they're funny, clever and stuff they blatantly aren't so I came here.

I would describe myself as a scientist rather than a linguist.

Now if you would really like a full life story I could write one but it is mostly pretty boring (apart from the bit where I broke my nose)

[AgustoSandino]

Hey Kamo,you're right Stalin was no Hitler, he actually killed way more people.

[gooddoctor]

hey, mao wasn't that bad. stalin was an evil nazi though and set back the socialist cause by decades.

hmm...top ten heros:
1) karl marx
2) el che
3) william wallace
4) gandhi
5) trotsky
6) jesus
7) ho chi minh
8) lenin
9) mao
10) abe lincoln

(Edited by gooddoctor at 7:16 pm on Nov. 5, 2001)

[AgustoSandino]

Moskito: robespierre killed nowhere close to 500,000 people. Try 20,000.

top ten Villains:
10)Osama Bin Laden
9)Idi Amin
8)Fidel Castro
7)Benito Mussolini
6)Saddam Hussein
5)Kim Il Sung
4)Pol Pot
3)Mao
2)Stalin
1)Hitler

Top Ten Heroes:
10)Deng Xaioping
9)Tecumseh
8)John Locke
7)Martin Luther King Jr.
6)Ghandi
5)Jonas Salk
4)Jesus(how do mere mortals outrank the Son of God!?)
3)Abraham Lincoln
2)Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1)Every Man and Woman that has defended the United States of America

[gooddoctor]

villains is a toughy for me. i guess hate just doesn't figure in my vocabulary (i didn't mean to sound trite there):

1) hitler
2) stalin
3) bush
4) suharto
5) pinochet
6) pol pot
7) king edward longshanks
8) osama bin laden
9) margaret thatcher
10) the bloke i used to work beside

[Moskitto]

Quote: from AgustoSandino on 2:44 am on Nov. 5, 2001
Hey Kamo,you're right Stalin was no Hitler, he actually killed way more people.


He also had the oppertunity to kill more people.

[Moskitto]

1)Every Man and Woman that has defended the United States of America

Why is someone who's defended the US better than someone who's defended any other country?

Shows the hipocracy of nationalism.

[Zippy]

Quote: from Moskitto on 8:05 pm on Nov. 5, 2001
Why is someone who's defended the US better than someone who's defended any other country?
Because someone who defended America is better than someone who defended Nazi Germany.

Im not proud of my nations past or present military activity, but every year i say thanks to those who thought against Hitler and his like.

Zippy.

[Moskitto]

Quote: from Zippy on 8:19 pm on Nov. 5, 2001

Quote: from Moskitto on 8:05 pm on Nov. 5, 2001
Why is someone who's defended the US better than someone who's defended any other country?
Because someone who defended America is better than someone who defended Nazi Germany.

Im not proud of my nations past or present military activity, but every year i say thanks to those who thought against Hitler and his like.

Zippy.

True, but were they defending America or were they defending Freedom? Defending Freedom though is a great reason to be a hero.

But what is Freedom? Some say it is freedom from exploitation and oppression, some say it is freedom to accumulate wealth, some say it is freedom to speak one's mind.

[Moskitto]

I think ranking Heroes is harder because unlike villains (who are normally exclusively considered to be evil) heroes are more distinctive to each person. For example you might know someone who is basically a hero through and through but no one else knows him.

As for people I would put into a top ten, I can only really think of 5 people (I won't include Jesus and other philosophers because I don't want to start a debate about what they say they did actually happened.) I think my top 5 would be

1) Raoul Wallenberg
2) Rosa Luxemburg
3) Martin Luther King jr
4) Mhatma Ghandi
5) Abraham Lincoln

The the sad thing is that 3 of them were assasinated, 1 was murdered (although some will probably dispute that) and one is rumoured by some to still be alive after nearly 50 years in a Russian Gulag (but probably died in about 1950)

[gooddoctor]

i personally think that ww2 was the only war that the uk couldn't avoid fighting in because our borders were threatened. all other wars were superfluous and imperialist.

[socialismnow]

Heroes:

William Morris
George Orwell
Fenner Brockway
Jean-Paul Sartre
Noam Chomsky
Robert Owen
(collectively) the Sandinistas, the Zapatistas, the Vietnamese people, Germans who resisted Nazism, the Spanish Republicans, the International Brigades etc.

Villains:

Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the Guatemalan, Salvadoran, Greek juntas, Somoza, Franco, etc. The US presidents, secretaries of state and CIA directors who gave such strong support to main of these must also rank quite high. Notably Nixon, Kissinger and Reagan.

[Drifter]

william wallace wasn't a bloody hero

[Zippy]

Quote: from Drifter on 11:21 am on Nov. 7, 2001
william wallace wasn't a bloody hero
Braveheart told me he was, so it must be so.

Zippy.

[Paul]

Other than the usual suspects
Top 5 bad guys
1. Christopher Columbus
2. Kissinger
3. James Madison
4. Andrew Jackson
5. Zbigniew Brzezinski

[Moskitto]

Other than the usual suspects
Top 5 bad guys
1. Christopher Columbus
2. Kissinger
3. James Madison
4. Andrew Jackson
5. Zbigniew Brzezinski

I only know who 1 and 2 are so I can't comment

[gooddoctor]

why wasn't william wallace a bloody hero, you ignorant english imperialist pig?! you'd better be able to back that up with some seriously solid facts because i just finished his section in scottish history. i can tell you, he was the first modern working class hero and never compromised his principles, as regards the aristocracy, which were rooted deep in defending the ordinary scottish people from destruction, full stop. there never was a greater hero!

(Edited by gooddoctor at 10:54 pm on Nov. 7, 2001)

[celticsocialist]

Drifter, this is twice I have had to pull you up on William Wallace bashing. This man was a true hero. He fought for nothing but the good of his people. He had nothing to gain as a commoner born in Elderslie. People chose to follow him and people like you think they know about him because they watched braveheart.
Wallace was a freedom fighter and never claimed to be anything else. The guardian of Scotland. Betrayed by his own people yet he never turned his back on Scotland.
He was the inspiration of The Declaration of Arbroath.


For so long as but one hundred of us shall remain alive,
we will never in any wise consent submit to the rule of the English.
For it is not for glory that we fight. nor honour or riches
But for freedom.. and that alone which no man will give up but with life itself.

I am over to Australia in March and if these attacks on the great man dont stop I will be personally looking for answers!

[El Commandante]

I've got a person to add to the list, former leader of Indoneisia, Suharto. I major player in the sweat shop business and exploitation of his people, he supported the new world order and used his army against peaceful protesters. This is the man who ordered the murder and abduction of many trade unionists and students. He was also supplied with weapons from the marvellous people in the UK government headed by that ***** Thatcher.

[Guest]

WOT! NO OLIVER CROMWELL!