If you could go back in time and kill some people, who would it be?

lew · 07-04-2008, 01:38 AM

This is obviously a somewhat silly (though also somewhat serious) thread. Let's ignore the impossibility of it and the morals of it...who do you think are the worst people in modern history (let's say, last 300 years or so) that you would have liked to have blinked out of existence?

My list off the top of my head:

Karl Marx
Abe Lincoln
Winston Churchill
Adolf Hitler
Stalin
Pol Pot
Lenin
Teddy Roosevelt
Wilson
FDR
Mussolini
Castro
William Sherman
Robespierre
Leopold II
Hirohito
Osama bin Laden
Goebbels
Mao
Adolf Eichmann

Libertaire · 07-04-2008, 08:55 AM

lew,
I think you're list is mostly sufficient. However, I may not go so far as to kill them, but would find a crucial point in their lives and redirect them somehow where they never end up in the political or military arena.

lew · 07-04-2008, 10:09 AM

Originally Posted by Libertaire

lew,
I think you're list is mostly sufficient. However, I may not go so far as to kill them, but would find a crucial point in their lives and redirect them somehow where they never end up in the political or military arena.

Something like that would work fine too.

I was being a bit over dramatic with the whole killing thing.

lew · 07-04-2008, 10:18 AM

To the list, I'd probably also add:

Hamilton
Henry Clay
Keynes

SoFlaJDM · 07-04-2008, 10:37 AM

Ron Paul

lew · 07-04-2008, 10:57 AM

Originally Posted by SoFlaJDM

Ron Paul

I knew that one was coming

Libertaire · 07-04-2008, 11:44 AM

Originally Posted by lew

To the list, I'd probably also add:

Hamilton
Henry Clay
Keynes

You beat me to it. I was just about to add Hamilton.

thatguyoverthere · 07-04-2008, 12:08 PM

Man, I wish I could go back in time and kill Abe Lincoln! I was just thinking to myself "Boy, I wish someone could go back in time to kill Lincoln." The fourth of July makes me misty like that. And thirsty. Thirsty for blood, especially that of our long dead presidents. What can I say? I'm a true patriot. Hey, if God did not want me to wear four flag pins, He wouldn't have given me two lapels and two nipples. But, back to that rat bastard Lincoln, skinny logsplitting fairy... My friend John has a time machine, and I suggested using the time machine to go back in time and kill Lincoln, and John thought it was a really great idea too! Now, he won't return my calls!

Originally Posted by Libertaire

lew,
I think you're list is mostly sufficient. However, I may not go so far as to kill them, but would find a crucial point in their lives and redirect them somehow where they never end up in the political or military arena.

Now we need a thread where we take each other's lists and then put their alternate career path:

Karl Marx - Comedian
Abe Lincoln - Butt-scratcher salesman
Winston Churchill - Yak herder
Adolf Hitler - Interior designer
Stalin - Interior designer
Pol Pot - Cooking show host
Lenin - Musician
Teddy Roosevelt - Mailman
Wilson - Volleyball
FDR - Athlete
Mussolini - Dogcatcher
Castro - Batboy

6SpeedTA95 · 07-04-2008, 12:41 PM

Teddy Roosevelt one of the worst people in modern history?

details please?

SoFlaJDM · 07-04-2008, 12:42 PM

Originally Posted by lew

I knew that one was coming

lol not really... he's not as bad as mccain

Libertaire · 07-04-2008, 01:10 PM

Originally Posted by thatguyoverthere >Man, I wish I could go back in time and kill Abe Lincoln! I was just thinking to myself "Boy, I wish someone could go back in time to kill Lincoln." The fourth of July makes me misty like that. And thirsty. Thirsty for blood, especially that of our long dead presidents. What can I say? I'm a true patriot. Hey, if God did not want me to wear four flag pins, He wouldn't have given me two lapels and two nipples. But, back to that rat bastard Lincoln, skinny logsplitting fairy... My friend John has a time machine, and I suggested using the time machine to go back in time and kill Lincoln, and John thought it was a really great idea too! Now, he won't return my calls![/quote/]

Sic semper tyrannis.

Originally Posted by thatguyoverthere

Now we need a thread where we take each other's lists and then put their alternate career path:

Karl Marx - Comedian
Abe Lincoln - Butt-scratcher salesman
Winston Churchill - Yak herder
Adolf Hitler - Interior designer
Stalin - Interior designer
Pol Pot - Cooking show host
Lenin - Musician
Teddy Roosevelt - Mailman
Wilson - Volleyball
FDR - Athlete
Mussolini - Dogcatcher
Castro - Batboy

ROFL

.
Especially "Castro - Batboy.

lew · 07-05-2008, 01:21 AM

Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95

Teddy Roosevelt one of the worst people in modern history? details please?

He was basically the first fascist. He was certainly the first person to think the President could do anything he wanted.....Congress and the Constitution be damned.

While Lincoln strengthened the centralized state to a very large degree, it could still be somewhat excused because he was in the middle of a war.

Teddy has no such excuse.

He was the first President to call for Universal Health Insurance. He was a huge Progressive and, as such, thought the State was the answer to all of life's problems.

Wilson and FDR greatly admired his extreme views on the Presidency, which is enough for me.

He was a great interventionist in foreign affairs. He always wanted to be "busy."

He fought greatly against Big Business and was no friend of capitalism or the free market. He very heavily regulated many industries, stifling the markets.

He put Lincoln on the penny. (

)

He always wanted to be the very center of everything, something I do not want in a President. His son remarked "Father always wanted to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral."

He himself stated "Under this interpretation of executive power I did and caused to be done many things not previously done...I did not usurp power, but I did greatly broaden the use of executive power."

During the United Mine Workers strike in 1902, he intervened and ordered the mine owners to agree to arbitration. If they refused, he was going to send in the army to take over the mines. When told the Constitution doesn't permit confiscation of private property he remarked, "To hell with the Constitution when the people want coal!" In the strike, he told General John Schofield "I bid you pay no heed to any other authority, no heed to a writ from a judge, or anything else excepting my commands."

He was the first President to issue a large amount of executive orders. Presidents Hayes and Garfield issued no executive orders. Arthur issued 3, Cleveland 77, Harrison 4, McKinley 51. Teddy issued 1,006.

He told George Otto Trevelyan "Whenever I could establish a precedent for strength in the executive, as I did for instance as regards external affairs in the case of sending the fleet around the world, taking Panama, settling affairs of Santo Domingo and Cuba; or as I did in internal affairs, in settling the anthracite coal strike, in keeping order in Nevada this year when the Federation of Minders threatened anarchy, or as I have done in bringing the big corporations to book - why, in all these cases I have felt not merely that my action was right in itself, but that in showing the strength of, or in giving strength to, the executive, I was establishing as precedent of value."

Mark Twain declared Teddy "clearly insane."

And on it goes. Liberals that hate Bush for his executive abuses and conservatives that hated Clinton for his executive abuses can all thank Teddy for the precedents.

lew · 07-05-2008, 01:30 AM

Here's some good articles on Teddy:

Bully Boy: The Neocons’ Favorite President by Thomas DiLorenzo
Theodore Roosevelt and the Modern Presidency by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

Dumpy Dooby · 07-05-2008, 03:28 AM

Holy shit that summary of Teddy Roosevelt was hilarious.

My list:

Karl Marx
Abe Lincoln
Winston Churchill
Adolf Hitler
Stalin
Pol Pot
Lenin
Teddy Roosevelt
Wilson
FDR
Mussolini
Castro
William Sherman
Robespierre
Leopold II
Hirohito
Osama bin Laden
Goebbels
Mao
Adolf Eichmann

Plus..

Trotsky
Isaiah Berlin
John Nash (yes, Russel Crow's character)
McNamara
Franklin Pierce
Hamilton
Keynes
The Apostle Paul (

)

Bah. I'm sure I could come up with more, but that's all I could think of for now.

lew · 07-05-2008, 12:19 PM

Originally Posted by Dumpy Dooby

Trotsky

I had thought about Trotsky, but didn't put him on the list for some reason.

Originally Posted by Dumpy Dooby

Isaiah Berlin
John Nash (yes, Russel Crow's character)

Why?

Originally Posted by Dumpy Dooby

McNamara

Who?

Originally Posted by Dumpy Dooby

The Apostle Paul ()

Stylerod · 07-05-2008, 01:28 PM

Originally Posted by lew

McNamara

Who?

The guy that was really responsible for us staying in Vietnam, and fighting half assed, for as long as we did.

lew · 07-05-2008, 01:47 PM

Originally Posted by Stylerod

The guy that was really responsible for us staying in Vietnam, and fighting half assed, for as long as we did.

oh ok

Fed Up · 07-05-2008, 02:01 PM

Is this a setup for being convicted under S. 1959 when it passes?

I think I'll pass...don't want to be called a "domestic terrorist" on a retroactive basis.

Fed Up

Libertaire · 07-05-2008, 04:38 PM

Originally Posted by Fed Up

Is this a setup for being convicted under S. 1959 when it passes?

I think I'll pass...don't want to be called a "domestic terrorists" on a retroactive basis.

Fed Up

The "Retroactive Domestic Terrorist Bill" should come out next Session (right after Reparations).

Dumpy Dooby · 07-05-2008, 04:57 PM

Originally Posted by lew

I had thought about Trotsky, but didn't put him on the list for some reason.

Well I would estimate that the world has fallen in love with Trotskyism, so I think he should definitely be on the list.

Why?

Berlin for presenting the theory