Aladdin Sane

I didn't realize He was American.

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hannukah harry

not to split hairs, but the thread is "america's greatest hero." not "greatest american hero." maybe it's semantics, but my interpretation is who america idolizes/adores most. i don't even think jesus is real, but even so, he's got quite the following in the US...

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girldetective

Good point Harry. You may have won the prize for picking america's greatest hero.

I think Ill stick with the way the thread is going though and in addition to Ben, Ill raise you two - Lewis and Clark.

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Tully Mars

I think it's a close tie between Jefferson and Franklin. Though I do have a soft spot for L&C, their winter camp is just down the road from my house in Oregon.

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Aladdin Sane

It was intended as a silly quip. Nothing more.

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dlish

well the way god speaks to president bush in giving him guidance, jesus may as well be american!

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Vigilante

LOL, on other sites, that would be WWIII. Not for me, but you know...

On this one, we can take it with a grain of salt

Ben F. is my guy though, still. If I had to pick another more modern hero, it would be plural. I would say any and all school teachers that actually try to do the right thing. I know for a fact they have it tough, and yet they keep on trying.

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ottopilot

Sacajawea was way hot.

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greytone

What makes America great is the idea that the power of government is derived from the consent of the governed. The original way that this idea was made real through the constitution supports some of the greater minds of the constitutional congress in the lead for this title. But the fact that Washington chose to limit his power in both scope and duration by setting the 2 term precedent may mean he is the greatest of many heros in American history.

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suman12

Interesting question. I would have to go with George Washington.

ironpham

For no reason whatsoever, I've been thinking somewhat hard on this question. Maybe it's because I'm really bored at work. Anyways, the first person I thought of was Bruce Lee. The only thing is, this thread is about American heroes. Bruce Lee, is of course Chinese (though an American citizen). I figured I should keep to those who were strictly born in the USA.

So, I go on to ask myself, what makes a hero? I guess there are 2 categories of heroes that I can think of. The first is what most people here have thought of - a man/woman who has done something huge for this country. The other was someone who people idolize. I could pick one from each category, but that's no fun. In the end, I would pick someone that people idolize - Michael Jordan. I pick him because he is someone that America's youth can learn a lot from. He makes many of them strive to be better at not only basketball (for those inclined), but also whatever else they want to be good at.

...Yay work.

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jorgelito

Dude, Bruce Lee is American (born in San Francisco). As American as Michael Jordan or George Washington.

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dlish

or as aussie as me!

i'd actually be quite offended if i wasnt thought of as australian just because my parents came from lebanon, even though i was born in australia.

to be denied something because of your ethnicity is bordering on racism. This IS about americas greatest hero, so if you're an american citizen, you shant be denied!

heck if jesus can be nominated, why cant bruce!

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An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere

I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay?
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ironpham

Then I take back what I said and pick Bruce Lee (I thought he was born in China for some reason).

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Willravel

My hero is ironpham.

biznatch

Abe Frohman, the sausage king of Chicago.

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jorgelito

I tip my hat to you sir.

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ItWasMe

Harriet Tubman.

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Aladdin Sane

Ayn Rand is a great American hero.

Ayn Rand was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on February 2, 1905. At age six she taught herself to read and two years later discovered her first fictional hero in a French magazine for children, thus capturing the heroic vision which sustained her throughout her life. At the age of nine, she decided to make fiction writing her career. Thoroughly opposed to the mysticism and collectivism of Russian culture, she thought of herself as a European writer, especially after encountering Victor Hugo, the writer she most admired.

During her high school years, she was eyewitness to both the Kerensky Revolution, which she supported, and—in 1917—the Bolshevik Revolution, which she denounced from the outset. In order to escape the fighting, her family went to the Crimea, where she finished high school. The final Communist victory brought the confiscation of her father's pharmacy and periods of near-starvation. When introduced to American history in her last year of high school, she immediately took America as her model of what a nation of free men could be.

When her family returned from the Crimea, she entered the University of Petrograd to study philosophy and history. Graduating in 1924, she experienced the disintegration of free inquiry and the takeover of the university by communist thugs. Amidst the increasingly gray life, her greatest pleasures were Viennese operettas and Western films and plays. Long an admirer of cinema, she entered the State Institute for Cinema Arts in 1924 to study screenwriting. It was at this time that she was first published: a booklet on actress Pola Negri (1925) and a booklet titled “Hollywood: American Movie City” (1926), both reprinted in 1999 in Russian Writings on Hollywood.

In late 1925 she obtained permission to leave Soviet Russia for a visit to relatives in the United States. Although she told Soviet authorities that her visit would be short, she was determined never to return to Russia. She arrived in New York City in February 1926. She spent the next six months with her relatives in Chicago, obtained an extension to her visa, and then left for Hollywood to pursue a career as a screenwriter.

On Ayn Rand’s second day in Hollywood, Cecil B. DeMille saw her standing at the gate of his studio, offered her a ride to the set of his movie The King of Kings, and gave her a job, first as an extra, then as a script reader. During the next week at the studio, she met an actor, Frank O’Connor, whom she married in 1929; they were married until his death fifty years later.

After struggling for several years at various nonwriting jobs, including one in the wardrobe department at the RKO Radio Pictures, Inc., she sold her first screenplay, “Red Pawn,” to Universal Pictures in 1932 and saw her first stage play, Night of January 16th, produced in Hollywood and then on Broadway. Her first novel, We the Living, was completed in 1934 but was rejected by numerous publishers, until The Macmillan Company in the United States and Cassells and Company in England published the book in 1936. The most autobiographical of her novels, it was based on her years under Soviet tyranny.

She began writing The Fountainhead in 1935 (taking a short break in 1937 to write the anti-collectivist novelette Anthem). In the character of the architect Howard Roark, she presented for the first time the kind of hero whose depiction was the chief goal of her writing: the ideal man, man as “he could be and ought to be.” The Fountainhead was rejected by twelve publishers but finally accepted by the Bobbs-Merrill Company. When published in 1943, it made history by becoming a best-seller through word of mouth two years later, and gained for its author lasting recognition as a champion of individualism.

Ayn Rand returned to Hollywood in late 1943 to write the screenplay for The Fountainhead, but wartime restrictions delayed production until 1948. Working part time as a screenwriter for Hal Wallis Productions, she began her major novel Atlas Shrugged, in 1946. In 1951 she moved back to New York City and devoted herself full time to the completion of Atlas Shrugged.

Published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged was her greatest achievement and last work of fiction. In this novel she dramatized her unique philosophy in an intellectual mystery story that integrated ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, politics, economics and sex. Although she considered herself primarily a fiction writer, she realized that in order to create heroic fictional characters, she had to identify the philosophic principles which make such individuals possible.

Thereafter, Ayn Rand wrote and lectured on her philosophy—Objectivism, which she characterized as “a philosophy for living on earth." She published and edited her own periodicals from 1962 to 1976, her essays providing much of the material for six books on Objectivism and its application to the culture. Ayn Rand died on March 6, 1982, in her New York City apartment.

Every book by Ayn Rand published in her lifetime is still in print, and hundreds of thousands of copies are sold each year, so far totaling more than 25 million. Several new volumes have been published posthumously. Her vision of man and her philosophy for living on earth have changed the lives of thousands of readers and launched a philosophic movement with a growing impact on American culture.
Source: The Ayn Rand Institute: A Brief Biography of Ayn Rand

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Sue

My boyfriend. Seven years in the Marine Corps, and made it home safely after 2 tours to Iraq.

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Walt

Well played. Though its a well known fact that Abe was a fucking nihilist! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.

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levite

I'm tempted to just +1 for Lincoln, since, regardless of his various flaws and mistakes, I do believe he tried the hardest of any American elected leader to do the right and the good, to never betray his public trust, and to serve the common people of the nation.

That said, I am going to put my vote in for FDR. We could use a little of his populist mojo right now....

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mandy

Thats shocking, no one mentioned Oprah!!! so did a bit of googling since i'm not American but wanted to know who the top 10 greatest americans are, and they are as follows...

1 Ronald Reagan
2 Abraham Lincoln
3 Martin Luther King
4 George Washington
5 Benjamin Franklin
6 George W Bush
7 Bill Clinton
8 Elvis Presley
9 Oprah Winfrey
10 Franklin D Roosevelt

and waddya know...Oprah is one of them...so she's my choice

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Tully Mars

Where did you get this list?

I'm not buying Presley (or any entertainer) as a hero. That includes Oprah. I know she does charitable things- but greatest hero? Certainly not my vote. And Reagan, Bush and Clinton? Not in my book. As far as I'm concerned they laid a lot of the foundation that created the economic melt down we're in now.

Overall there's way too many politicians in the top ten for me. I could see FDR, Ike, Washington and Lincoln (no particular order here.) But Bush, Clinton and Reagan? Reagan thought trees produced more pollution then cars and ketchup was a vegetable. Say what you want about Clinton but to me his pardon list on the way out the door confirmed to me his true colors. I could care less who blew him when or where. And "W" seriously? I could go into why I think that's insane but I'm not sure there's enough space left on the internets.

Personally when I see these lists I'd like to see more people like Harriet Tubman, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, The Wright brothers or even Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.

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mrklixx

I guess you have to be shot at to be in the top 3.

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vermin

Every person on this list.

Except Duke Cunningham. Fuck him.

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mandy

BBC NEWS | Americas | Reagan voted 'greatest American'

there ya go...but seriously, who am i...i'm a South African...so what do i know?

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Tully Mars

Well I'm opposed to putting entertainers on any list of "heroes." Unless it's a cast list for the TV show "Heroes."

As for being from South Africa I think we get educated largely on our geographic location. There's a thread on here somewhere discussing what the rest of the world is taught about the American Revolution. Turns out not much. At the same time I'm the product of the US public education system. I don't know jack about the history of most other countries. If you asked me any question regarding South African politics my only answer would likely be Nelson Mandela.

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dlish

you slacker...

my answer would be nelson mandela and morgan tsvangarai..oh hang on he's zimbabwian.

ok so i lied..i do know a bit about sth africa. i have a lot of sth african friends so it rubs off. steve biko is another legend of sth africa that we dont hear about.

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I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay?
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