The 100 Greatest Americans

[Rinnhart]

Discovery's doing a special on the "100 Greatest Americans".

Link.

Check out that list. Wow. Just freaking wow. 229 years of history and it's all actors and modern politicians. Hell, is there even a single Civil War era leader besides Lincoln?

A few redeeming selections mixed in with the criminals, traitors, and completely bizarre nominees. Very happy to see Tesla rubbing shoulders with such movers and shakers as Tiger Woods and Martha Stewart. :wacko:

[FenrisWulf]

Wow, agreed. This list confuses me. John Edwards? Hugh Hefner? Pat Tillman? Dr. Phil?!?

Note: while I do honestly respect Pat Tillman for the sacrifice that he made, giving up a lucrative football career to fight and die for his country, does that really place him among the 100 Greatest Americans ever?

[Nystul]

It's a strange list at face value, but it's not surprising if the list was compiled by asking each person to name the greatest American and tallying the results. If a single person made a list of 100, it would be quite different. But with a bunch of people making nominations, it is natural that people will be inclined to pick someone they have witnessed firsthand. And for those who don't go that route, the odds of picking Lincoln as the greatest historical figure are extremely high.

If they did this again in 50 years, Tiger Woods might still be on the list. I don't think John Edwards or Laura Bush would make it, though. ;)

[Occhidiangela]

Discovery's doing a special on the "100 Greatest Americans".

Link.

Check out that list. Wow. Just freaking wow. 229 years of history and it's all actors and modern politicians. Hell, is there even a single Civil War era leader besides Lincoln?

A few redeeming selections mixed in with the criminals, traitors, and completely bizarre nominees. Very happy to see Tesla rubbing shoulders with such movers and shakers as  Tiger Woods and Martha Stewart. :wacko:
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Well, I'm not on that list, how valid could it be? Oh, wait, by that I am not inferring that I am old enough to have been in the Civil War.

*ducks*

Occhi

[Kylearan]

Hi,

It's a strange list at face value, but it's not surprising if the list was compiled by asking each person to name the greatest American and tallying the results.  If a single person made a list of 100, it would be quite different.

Agreed. We had something similar last year, a "Our [Germany's] Greatest ..." series. The organizers compiled a list of 300 persons, then people had time to propose other names for the list, which had about 1300 names in the end. Over 90,000 votes were counted, and the resulting top 10 surprisingly didn't contain a single living person: Konrad Adenauer, Martin Luther, Karl Marx(!), Hans & Sophie Scholl, Willy Brandt, Johann Sebastion Bach, Goethe, Gutenberg, Bismarck, Einstein.

Too bad you Americans barely managed to get a list of only 100 nominees worthy of being called "America's Greatest". :P I'm curious to see the results, although in general I don't like this kind of non-representative polls.

-Kylearan

P.S.: Another installment of "The Greatest..." was about books, not restricted to German books this time. IIRC it had a lot more votes, and I was very pleased to see that The Lord of the Rings won, and that the Bible only came in second... :D

[eppie]

  I don't think John Edwards or Laura Bush would make it, though. ;)
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I would vote for Laura Bush...you must be a great person to be married to that... :D



We also had this in Holland....and I'm really ashamed of my fellow country (already before the election though). Willem van Oranje, the father of the nation came in second, first was a politician that was killed a few years ago, and had never been in the parliament even.

[Doc]

I am grossly offended that the Bush family has appeared with the likes of X or MLKjr.

That whole list... Just annoys me.

Ignorant little monkey fornicators.

[ShadowHM]

Discovery's doing a special on the "100 Greatest Americans".


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CBC did a similar poll last fall, on the top 10 Canadians. DeeBye must have been happy - Don Cherry was on the list. :P

The winner was: Tommy Douglas, inventor of our national medicare system.

Other nominees were:

John A. MacDonald - first Prime Minister
Terry Fox - fundraiser for Cancer research who tried a run across the country despite having lost a leg to cancer
Wayne Gretzky - hockey superstar
Lester B. Pearson - Prime Minister who got a Nobel Peace prize for inventing the concept of U.N. Peacekeeping
Frederick Banting - Nobel prizewinner for discovery of Insulin
Alexander Graham Bell - (despite the fact that he was an ex-pat for most of his life)
David Suzuki - environmental activist
Pierre Elliot Trudeau - flamboyant Prime Minister who, among other things, finally got our Constitution home

[Occhidiangela]

I am grossly offended that the Bush family has appeared with the likes of X or MLKjr.

That whole list... Just annoys me.

Ignorant little monkey fornicators.
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OK, if you are going to get offended, Doc, I will get offended that Malcom X is on the list. MLK was a leader who had a moral backbone. Malcom X was IMO little better than a punk in comparison. "By any means necessary?" OK, the ends justifies the means, Malcom, you and the KKK are from the same cut of cloth, just different colors.

Occhi

[jahcs]

The list is probably loaded with fluff because if you surveyed most Americans they probably couldn't remember 100 names that haven't been a major part of media coverage in the last 6 months.

[Doc]

OK, if you are going to get offended, Doc, I will get offended that Malcom X is on the list.  MLK was a leader who had a moral backbone.  Malcom X was IMO little better than a punk in comparison.  "By any means necessary?"  OK, the ends justifies the means, Malcom, you and the KKK are from the same cut of cloth, just different colors. 

Occhi
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I agree with you completely Occhi. The commonly remembered bits about X are not the picture of a good man.

But at the end of his life he saw the error of his ways. He changed. He recanted much of what he said. He expressed that, perhaps, violence was a mistake and there was a better way. He spoke out and attacked his own creation, the militant movement that he himself had spawned. He spoke out against the Nation of Islam. He said, quite movingly, that he had acted in error. And then he was murdered. X shouldn't just be remembered for his life, but also for his death and the events and the turning of the tables that led up to it.

X may have been a punk, but so was I at one time. I believed I would never get a fair shake as a minority, so I did the whole "By any means necessary." Malatov cocktails, violence, beating, burning, and looting. I started down the slippery slope of racism. I started believing the only way to get a fair deal was to put the Fear of God into Whitey. I too, believed it was time to rise up from the fields, kill all the house negros, and kill the Massah. I believed that minority empowerment could only come at gunpoint. For a very brief time in my life I plunged deeply into every last bit of anger and frusteration I had bottled up in my soul. It was raw, emotional, and very powerful. It felt so much like the right thing. How could anything that felt this good, this right, be wrong? I went down that path. But I got rescued. I got snatched. And I had somebody get it into my thick skull that this was WRONG! I changed. Men change. X changed. And that should be remembered. It took some BIG brass balls to turn traitor to the Nation of Islam, and speak out that it was WRONG to do these things. Doing so put his life in danger, put his family in danger, and ultimately cost him his life.

Occhi, I ask, would you have the courage to do the same? In the end, it's God who judges, not us. And thank goodness for that. If my whole life was remembered, discounted, and condemned by a few of my actions from when I wasn't as old and wise I am now, well, I don't know what I would do.

Some of us live greater lives simply because we spent so much of our lives living as punks. We spend the rest of our days making up for that.

Something to think about my friend.

[Lady Vashj]

I could go through and list everyone who I think should be taken off the list, because they have no value except cash. Starting with Tom Cruise and Brett Favre. But that would take too long.

I will tell you one thing. Donald Trump and Harriet Tubman should not be compared. They are not the same caliber of person. It's like comparing Alexander the Great to St. Peter.

[Occhidiangela]

Some of us live greater lives simply because we spent so much of our lives living as punks. We spend the rest of our days making up for that.

Something to think about my friend.
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Doc

Food for thought indeed, amico mio.

Leadership puts a greater burden on the Leader than it does on his flock. Leading people astray is a greater crime than following the straying leader, since it most often takes time to realize that the leader is, uh oh, lost.

So, yes, it is a credit to Malcom X that he grew as a man, and learned. Likewise to you, and to any of us who accepts the blessings of wisdom as we stumble across it, rather than rejecting it out of emotional selfishness.

I had plenty of juvenile delinquent tendencies, and have indeed acted uncharitably in my life. I also don't presume to be a leader of a social movement on like Malcom X. If I choose to go down that path, and can find anyone to follow me, I had better have my crap together and be morally consistent and forthright, or I will earn every syllable of scorn that is cast at me.

Occhi

[Rinnhart]

Wow, agreed. This list confuses me. John Edwards? Hugh Hefner? Pat Tillman? Dr. Phil?!?

Note: while I do honestly respect Pat Tillman for the sacrifice that he made, giving up a lucrative football career to fight and die for his country, does that really place him among the 100 Greatest Americans ever?
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Now, I can see a decent reason for including Pat Tillman; in being the uncommon man turned common soldier it could be said that he exemplifies the popular image of the American GI.

But- there are so many more heroic "common soldiers" in America's past.

[Minionman]

Laura bush beats George Bush. interesting, unless I read the lsit backwards.

In terms of politics, there's also some cabinet people and congresspeople that people don't know about, but who came up with a lot of the programs that are known well. I remember Marshall and whoever HDR's treasury person was as people who came up with useful programs, wish I could remember more.

[Dozer]

Look at what the page title is:

"AOL Television: ..."

enough said.

[Nystul]

Laura bush beats George Bush.  interesting, unless I read the lsit backwards.
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I'm not sure what list you are looking at. All I saw was 100 nominees in alphabetical order....

[Minionman]

I'm not sure what list you are looking at.  All I saw was 100 nominees in alphabetical order....
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That would explain it. :blush:

[Occhidiangela]

Laura bush beats George Bush.  interesting, unless I read the lsit backwards.
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OK, do you have evidence of this on film, or is this just more liberal rumor mongering! :D Or do you mean that this would only be interesting if you had read the list backwards. How does your reading order influence their . . . well, you get the idea. :o

Occhi

[whyBish]

Well, I'm  not on that list, how valid could it be?  Oh, wait, by that I am not inferring that I am old enough to have been in the Civil War.

*ducks*

Occhi
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Neither am I. Pity that time doesn't run backwards :P