Crime of the century

[Al_U_Card]

C'mon, you know you want to...

[gwnn]

I voted for Pol Pot, but the Armenian Genocide might have made it on that list...

[mike777]

"Now that some time has passed and perspective is giving us some insight, please vote for (or write in) your choice for the most heinous act"

 

LOL If you really want a heated discussion put legalized abortion worldwide on the list.

 

At the very least add to the list the elimination of the aboriginal problem in Europe and Asia. :)

[helene_t]

Difficult to compare. I voted for Mao who was the worst one in terms of inflicted human suffering (I might have voted holocaust if it were on the list, though).

 

I presume that the perverseness of the motivation should be taken into account as well but I really don't know what was going on in Mao's and Pol Pot's heads.

[hrothgar]

I have real issues with lists like this one

 

The Holocaust (which somehow did not make this list) was a horrific event. However, the scale and scope of the Holocaust doesn't make isolated/individual acts of murder any less horrible.

[mike777]

Agree Mao killed tens of millions but so did Stalin. Both more than the Nazis.

 

People may forget how Stalin fought WW11. He threw millions of soldiers at the Nazis, and put killing squads behind his own soldiers to shoot them if they retreated.

Later in the war the Soviets who had been taken prisoner were shot or sent to the gulag. Stalin did not trust them.

[sceptic]

How many christians thrown to the lions (this may predate but the point is the same)

How many jews gassed

How many killed by stalin

Yugoslavia ethnic cleansing

Africa (too many to mention)

How many innocent vietnaese killed by napalm

How many civilizations did the spanish destroy( this may predate but the point is the same)

And I am sure us Brits can't evade some kind of attrocity somewhere in our history

How about uprooting people to test nuclear weapons and poisoning the land

 

I would not like to pick a winner, I think this poll is quite sick

[Al_U_Card]

I did say "unpunished". The list is not sick but the acts were. Knowing more about them is the best way to avoid the next candidate for the list. (In this century, we already have quite a few, but punishment may take some time...)

[Al_U_Card]

I have real issues with lists like this one

 

The Holocaust (which somehow did not make this list) was a horrific event. However, the scale and scope of the Holocaust doesn't make isolated/individual acts of murder any less horrible.

Geez Richard, YOU have issues? rofl :lol:

[sceptic]

Al if you have ever eaten a McDonalds burger, what punishment can we inflict on you as the consumer is as guity as the perpetrator

 

or have you ever taken drugs and helped in aiding and abetting untold social suffering on a global scale

[sceptic]

but punishment may take some time...

 

How do we punish Hitler, Stalin etc or maybe they never got punished as it was God's will, maybe we should punish God

[Al_U_Card]

Well, not McDo but others yes. I like red meat (the antibiotics keep me healthy...)

My punishment is not being able to leave a legacy to my children (and soon to be grandchildren, I hope) that is more than what I received.

 

We punish the "bad guys" every time we refute their acts and influence. This also serves to head us in the direction that will be better for all. I resist the urge to succumb to paliatives when positive action is available.

 

God is responsible for all of it so maybe we are his punishment?

[jtfanclub]

LOL If you really want a heated discussion put legalized abortion worldwide on the list.

That's an interesting question. Which killed more people...legalized abortion worldwide, or legalized smoking? Certainly those have to be the top two man-made killers over the 20th century. For those who consider abortion killing, of course.

 

Reichstag? Archduke Ferdinand? JFK? May as well put 9/11 on the list. And don't tell me that 9/11 wasn't 20th century, neither was the 'aboriginal problem' in North America. Unlike Australia, which was still taking kids away from their moms in 1970, the main thing that North Americans did about aborigines in the 20th century was set up reservations and make them fabulously rich.

 

I don't think any of the top 5 most heinous acts in the U.S. in the 20th century even made the list.

[cherdano]

How many christians thrown to the lions (this may predate but the point is the same)

How many jews gassed

How many killed by stalin

Yugoslavia ethnic cleansing

Africa (too many to mention)

How many innocent vietnaese killed by napalm

How many civilizations did the spanish destroy( this may predate but the point is the same)

And I am sure us Brits can't evade some kind of attrocity somewhere in our history

How about uprooting people to test nuclear weapons and poisoning the land

 

I would not like to pick a winner, I think this poll is quite sick

I agree 100% with a post by sceptic in the Water Cooler!!

[sceptic]

How many christians thrown to the lions (this may predate but the point is the same)

How many jews gassed

How many killed by stalin

Yugoslavia ethnic cleansing

Africa (too many to mention)

How many innocent vietnaese killed by napalm

How many civilizations did the spanish destroy( this may predate but the point is the same)

And I am sure us Brits can't evade some kind of attrocity somewhere in our history

How about uprooting people to test nuclear weapons and poisoning the land

 

I would not like to pick a winner, I think this poll is quite sick

I agree 100% with a post by sceptic in the Water Cooler!!

first tme for everything :lol:

[hrothgar]

LOL If you really want a heated discussion put legalized abortion worldwide on the list.

That's an interesting question. Which killed more people...legalized abortion worldwide, or legalized smoking? Certainly those have to be the top two man-made killers over the 20th century. For those who consider abortion killing, of course.

 

Reichstag? Archduke Ferdinand? JFK? May as well put 9/11 on the list. And don't tell me that 9/11 wasn't 20th century, neither was the 'aboriginal problem' in North America. Unlike Australia, which was still taking kids away from their moms in 1970, the main thing that North Americans did about aborigines in the 20th century was set up reservations and make them fabulously rich.

To quote the immortal Chevy Chase "Jane you ignorant slut"

 

I've seen a lot of incredibly stupid comments here in the water cooler, but this one really takes the cake. In particular, its amazing galling to see comments like this one the day after a Federal judge ruled that the Department of the Interior may have mismanged a hundred billion dollars in trust funds.

 

http://news.findlaw.com/ap_stories/a/w/115...0163518_03.html

[mycroft]

What, no H word? What about Prohibition (in particular, as a crucible for distillation of organized crime)?

 

The ones that affect me most, however, seem to be the local ones - Eugenics and the forced sterilization of "deficient" women; Native Residential Church schooling (for its stated purpose as well as the abuse); the Chinese Head Tax and "Japanese" Canadian internment, as examples.

[jtfanclub]

To quote the immortal Chevy Chase "Jane you ignorant slut"

 

I've seen a lot of incredibly stupid comments here in the water cooler, but this one really takes the cake.  In particular, its amazing galling to see comments like this one the day after a Federal judge ruled that the Department of the Interior may have mismanged a hundred billion dollars in trust funds.

Let's see if I can simplify this for you:

 

19th century- Indian tribes were frequently wiped out to the last man, woman and child. Land was taken without compensation.

 

20th century- Indians have to go to court to get their funds given in compensation for their lands. Judge sides in favor of the Indians.

 

Yep, sure sounds equal to me!

 

EDIT: Or if you prefer...

 

20th century- Indians have to go to court to get their funds given in compensation for their lands. Judge sides in favor of the Indians.

 

20th century- Descendents of slaves who were worked to death still waiting for dollar one in compensation.

 

Yeah, big crime there against the Indians, only getting an offer of $6 billion and having to go to court to get more. My heart bleeds for them.

[luke warm]

i voted for the first one, but i'd have voted for the holocaust had it been there

 

fwiw i think the assassination of mlk was a more horrible act than that of jfk (or bobby), but not because the murder of one is any less heinous than the murder of the other(s)... what king taught died with him, regardless of what his "successors" would have us believe... he had the potential to be the greatest american who ever lived

[helene_t]

Well said, Jimmy.

[matmat]

How many christians thrown to the lions (this may predate but the point is the same)

How many jews gassed

How many killed by stalin

Yugoslavia ethnic cleansing

Africa (too many to mention)

How many innocent vietnaese killed by napalm

How many civilizations did the spanish destroy( this may predate but the point is the same)

And I am sure us Brits can't evade some kind of attrocity somewhere in our history

How about uprooting people to test nuclear weapons and poisoning the land

 

I would not like to pick a winner, I think this poll is quite sick

yeah... this is sort of like asking the mother of n-tuplets, who her favorite child is, except much, much, much sicker.

[vuroth]

Write-in vote for the Supertramp album.

[hrothgar]

Write-in vote for the Supertramp album.

I like Supertramp

 

Breakfast in America rocks

[Gerben42]

Abstain, this list is biased. I just want to quote this:

 

"If you kill one man, it is murder. If you kill a million, it's a statistic."

 

Sad, isn't it. Why can't we all just... get along?

[finally17]

To ask which of these is greater, either in the face of tragedy or separated from it by a month or a decade or a century, is to lessen the atrocities that you deem less great. They were not any less great to those who suffered them.

 

To assign blame for the greatest sin to this group and not that is almost an absolution. I don't want to give any one or group with murderous or genocidal intent grounds to say such as "We were not as bad as Hitler, the evil bastard. He was real evil, we are just the diet coke of evil."

 

If you can boil it down to a question of numbers (which is greater is a question of numbers), you're missing the point. It's not a question of individual or group, great or small; either human life is sacrosanct or not, there is no in between.

 

I abstain as well, but I am curious where the term "century of ingress" came from? It sounds like some apologist's attempt to demonstrate ideas I don't agree with at all, that the 20th century achieved some level of murderous hate that mankind had, in other centuries, failed to achieve.

 

It's not that we've gotten more hateful, or that groups persecuted in the 20th century were somehow more despised than those trod upon in the preceding generations. If anything I would argue that it's the other way around (but this is not either a debate I want to have). No, it's not that hate has increased, it's just that increased populations, population densities, and an improved machinery of war have allowed us to be vastly more efficient at our hatreds than our forerunners were capable of.