Mephisto2

The BBC ran a very entertaining and educational series a couple of years ago with a view to identifying the Greatest Briton of all time. You can check the show's website here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/program...tbritons.shtml

In an attempt to get away from the factional bickering on this board as the election draws nearer, I was wondering if people would be interested in a thread that discussed the Greatest American of all time. Chances are politicians will make up a high number of nominations, so I'm posting this thread on this board. However, don't let that stop you from suggesting industrialists, military men (or women), scientists etc.

Personally, I feel there shall be some easy choices for the top 5 at least. These will probably include

Abraham Lincoln
Thomas Edison
Ulysses S Grant
Dwight D Eisenhower
Thomas Jefferson
John F Kennedy
and so on.

My nomination is Abraham Lincoln, probably the best President the US has ever had. The reasons should be obvious, but I shall list some of the more notable.

- He was a great leader during the countries most dangerous time.
- He was a politician who accepted he did not represent all Americans, but reached out to try to "save the Union."
- He alone (until US Grant) understood the gravity of the Civil War and what it would take to win it.
- He emancipated the slaves.
- He wrote some of the most moving, and still relevant, speeches in American political history.
- He was the master of the pithy remark.

Some interesting reading can be found at the following sites:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/al16.html (I find it surprising that Lynne Cheney's bio is linked off Lincoln's! But let's not get off topic)
http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/
http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln.html
http://members.aol.com/RVSNorton/Lincoln2.html



Who would you nominate and why? And if you disagree with my suggestion, please give reasons.


Here's hoping for a non-partisan, interesting thread in these stressful times...


Mr Mephisto

bling

Lincoln, yeah - the greatest President, by far. He's essentially mythological at this point.

Other great American's:

Benjamin Franklin, the greatest politician.
Grand Master Flash
Ted Williams
The pizza cook at Brothers Pizza just outside Philly. Though he may be an Italian national.
Tom Waits
Martin Luther King Jr.
Malcolm X
The guy that first started distributing Ketel One vodka

maybe not in that order ...

Mephisto2

Ahh... but you've got to pick one and give some reasons.

That's half the fun and is educational for the rest of us.


Mr Mephisto

bling

The pizza cook at Brothers Pizza just ouside Philly.

Man he could throw down some damn good pizza. For real, this guy was no joke.

guy44

Babe Ruth. He was the greatest American of his time, and probably all time. His story is legend and his myth is bigger than anyone in American culture. People who do great things are said to have completed a Ruthian feat. Nobody has ever been as ubiquitously followed in the U.S. Perhaps a different definition of "great" has to be used for him, but I think he counts.

I also think, in a more traditional way, FDR needs to be mentioned.

__________________
"You have reached Ritual Sacrifice. For goats press one, or say 'goats.'"

bling

Interesting stat about Babe Ruth - He hit more homeruns in one year than any other team, all players combined. And he did this twice.

Mephisto2

The Greatest American of all time was a baseball player?!

Well, I can't say I expected that nomination.

Spoiler: I wonder how long before someone nominates Bush?


We need reasons people! Please let them.



Mr Mephisto

Locobot

The answer is quite clear:


above all others there is only
Lovitz



I would say Mark Twain-Samuel Clemmons but I'm too tired to defend that choice at the moment.

roachboy

in addition to mark twain:
nathaniel west
dalton trumbo
orson welles
thomas pynchon
djuna barnes
gertrude stein

the greatest americans are those who oppose everything about america.
in the main, you do not hear much about them

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

irateplatypus

i hear variations of this from my most liberal aquaintainces. at best i feel the sentiment is hackneyed, at worst damaging.


Abraham Lincoln - easily my top choice for the reasons listed above

Honorable Mention:

Dwight D. Eisenhower
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Nathan Hale
Ronald Reagan
Thomas Paine
Frederick Douglas
Teddy Roosevelt
John Glenn

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

the_marq

Canada (the CBC) is actually running a progam that mirrors the BBC one from a few years ago. http://www.cbc.ca/greatest/standings/

I know not many Americans will know who's who on this list, with the one noteable exception of Gretzky, but it's a motherfuckin' tragedy that Don Cherry is even listed.

Anyway, you can now go back to your greatest American thread, I'm going to start a new thread in the Canada Forum.

__________________
The Truth:

Johnny Cash could have kicked Bruce Lee's ass if he wanted to.

#3 in a series

Harry Cox

Do you people realize that Abraham Lincoln never cared about freeing the slaves?

I would say that the greatest American is one who risks his/her life to give us the freedoms that we take for granted on a daily basis. I also have a lot of respect for guys like Malcolm X who were willing to sacrifice themselves to advance their cause. Who hear has read his "Ballot Or The Bullet" speech? It's too bad that he was a racist for most of his life and that no one really remembers the end of his life when he renounced his racist past.

roachboy

don cherry the trumpet player? or the hockey coach? or another don cherry?

irate:
if you understand that the best thing about america is the tradition of dissent, then there is nothing either hackneyed or damaging about it.
unless you dislike that tradition for some reason, in which case your objection can be reduced to an aesthetic one.

lincoln is easier to endorse as the finest american if you do not actually read his speeches--check out the debates with john calhoun over the question of slavery (0if you have not) and see if you still think lincoln was the best the americans have done.

i would take any of the folk on my list over him in a minute.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

tecoyah

I will nominate Stephen Hawking....but the reasons will not be clear for a couple decades.

__________________
Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

dksuddeth

Something I could never understand is how people think Lincoln was the greatest president ever. He wasn't about freeing the slaves, he was about keeping the Union together and practically threw away the US constitution to do so. Lincoln was probably one of the WORST presidents because of this.

Greatest american ever, in my opinion, would be FDR. Pulled the country out of the depression using extremely orthodox methods and helped fight tyranny in europe during WW2. Follow that with Truman, the man had balls of Steel to drop the bomb, twice, and take full responsibility for the decision.

hannukah harry

don't forget that lovitz played a particular religoius fellow of some distinction on SNL... i think his greatness transcends national boundries...

__________________
shabbat shalom, mother fucker! - the hebrew hammer

powerclown

To go along with the other recent, non-partisan threads you started?

Bush flip-flops on Iraq
Bush thinks God wants him as President
US Deficit Graph
Do you EVER listen to or accept a story from the "other side"?
Soldier files suit to avoid Iraq tour
CIA broke the Geneva Conventions... again
Bush predicted no casualties
Anti Kerry film cut
Interesting article on Afghanistan
Iran endorses Bush
Anti-Kerry film backlash for Sinclair
So who do you think won the third debate?
Rumsfeld admits no link between Saddam and Al Queda
US reports finds that Iraq had no WMD
Don't tax the rich says Bush - WTF?!
US Intelligence report on Iraq
Let's jump on the band wagon!! Or is it gravy train?
Now this is scary...
Why I believe Bush will win

You're quite the enigma, mephisto!

tecoyah

Now, Now...lets play nice

I was rather hoping for a non-partisan thread as well

__________________
Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

cthulu23

Greatest American? Why, Willam Katz, of course. He was the Greatest American Hero at the very least.

Kadath

How about Thomas Alva Edison?

For Presidents, FDR is the obvious choice.

Believe it or not, cthulu, it's just me.

__________________
it's quiet in here

roachboy

why edison? because of the incandescent light bulb?
if you are thinking in terms of people who have developed either objects or processing for producing them that have greatly influenced the way of life now, you probably would have to include henry ford in there.
for the assembly line.
for pioneering consumer credit
for the logic of high-wage jobs for working people.

but he was also a scumbag.
so i dont know.
the more i think about this, the more confused i get about the criteria for "greatness"

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Suave

Dave Chapelle, obviously.

Willravel

totally agreed! I second that nomination because Professor Stephen Hawking is more likely than anyone to unify General Relativity with Quantum Theory. That would arguabally be the most important accomplishment of science...ever. Physics Colloquiums - Quantum Cosmology, M-theory and the Anthropic Principle (1999) gave me goosebumps. The idea that strings are actually a super membrane and that there are 11 dimentions and possibily limitless amounts of other realities....*passes out*.

His dealing with his ALS is an inspiration in and of itself.

One problem. He's a brit!

aliali

Einstein over Hawking if you are going to go that way.

Twain over all others if you are going to go that way. (nathaniel west, dalton trumbo, orson welles, thomas pynchon, djuna barnes, gertrude stein???)

Carlin over Chapelle if you are going to go that way.

If you are serious about it, Grant and Kennedy don't make the list.

Irateplatypus has a good list, but the top two should be:

James Madison--Father of the Constitution (18th Century)
Lincoln--preserver of the Union (19th Century)

Honorable mention to MLK--(20th Century).

Any 21st Century nominations? (Bono is not an American).

Coppertop

Uh, not to nitpick, but Einstein and Hawking are not American, yes?

Here's my vote:

Coppertop

Or how about:



"... arguably the most important intellectual alive." -NY Times

mattevil

I'm going to nominate Mark Twain.
Personally I think Lincoln is overrated.

tecoyah

Guess I was just Wishing Hawking was American.......


All right....Carl Sagan
Got me interested in science as a kid.....very inspiring

__________________
Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

irateplatypus

roachboy,

i whole heartedly agree with you that one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) thing about America is the tradition of dissent. however, i believe the credit goes to those who love the American ideal enough to tolerate those who oppose her... not to those in opposition. if you endure the dissention of others, that is is what makes a great American. it takes no courage or greatness to step on toes, it does take greatness to have the crushing of your own toes taken with grace and civility.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

rukkyg

FDR.

But then, he came after Hoover, a perfect example of ineptitute. Sounds like a foreshadowing of events to come.

Kadath

Edison held over 1000 patents. To boil him down to the light bulb is pretty funny. Without him we wouldn't be even near where we are today, and he did it all without schooling.

__________________
it's quiet in here

Mephisto2

Well, thank you for going to the trouble of actually looking up my threads. Actually, should I say a LIMITED, FILTERED and therefore DOCTORED list of my threads.

It's nice to be the target of such a blatant troll.

If you actually read them (the ones you cherry picked there mate), you will see that unlike a lot of the Kerry supporters here, I explicitly, repeatedly and consistently state that I do not "hate Bush", that I believe he is supported by intelligent people, that lots of what Kerry stands for is debatable, that no one is perfect. I always so others respect and enjoy debating with them.

The basis for this thread, is to start a non-partisan, non-political debate... Something on the politics board that doesn't focus on the election. A "break" if you will. I find it amusing you miss the entire point.

If you have a problem with my threads, please refrain from posting or reading them. If you have something to contribute here, please play along.


Mr Mephisto


PS - I won't even start with actually analyzing my threads and asking how they are partisan. You will note that most of them begin with a news item and then ask others to debate or discuss the item. Yeah... I'm really a rampant political animal who has hidden agendas.... Good grief.


PPS - did you actually READ any or all of those threads? For example, the one "Do you EVER listen to the other side" was absolutely non-partisan and was soliciting negative comments about the reader's "own sides"... You miss the entire point. Political debate, by its very nature, is biased to a certain degree

powerclown

Sorry, did you want me include the porn threads you started, too?


My favorite, great Americans are the Three Stooges, as they suceeded so brilliantly at making people laugh.

quicksteal

Lincoln sure couldn't pick a general, but he was a great American.

For the greatest American, I'd choose Thomas Jefferson, because he was so forward-thinking. He wrote the Declaration of Indepencence so well, especially the part "all men are created equal," implying that slaves were people too. He was against slavery, and freed his slaves when he died. As president, he funded the Lewis and Clark missions, encouraging our spread into the rest of the continent. The Louisiana Purchase was such a bargain, and France was glad to give it to us. He founded the University of Virginia. Jefferson really pushed us forward from his role in America.

Mephisto2

What's your point? How about the threads and posts in the general board, the members board, the entertainment board, the motor board, the nonesense board, the computers board etc etc etc.

Or are you trying to pass a value judgement on the quality of people's contribution to TFP?

I apologised for an unwarranted snide comment. To be honest I don't expect the same from you.

OK

Mr Mephisto

roachboy

if edison is a great american, then--seriously---why not henry ford?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Mephisto2

Henry Ford, though a racist and a great exploiter of workers, could be described as a great American. He revolutionized the production cycle (actually, I think he more or less invented it!). The impact of his industrial vision was immense.

He just wasn't a nice guy.

Mr Mephisto

hannukah harry

i think you'll find that most people who acheive "greatness" were not nice people. luck and circumstance may allow the nice guy to become great at times, but many who make themselves great do it by stepping on those beneath them.

__________________
shabbat shalom, mother fucker! - the hebrew hammer

Mephisto2

That's a fair comment. But some of them are more "not nicer" than others... if you know what I mean.

Let's take Lincoln. He wasn't perfect, but I don't believe he had a bad bone in his body. He certainly did not stomp all over people like Ford.

Kennedy, on the other hand, is often described as a great American, yet he was a liar, a philanderer and (some could argue) brought the world close to nuclear war.

Good and bad. Two sides of the same coin.


Mr Mephisto

bling

Grand Master Flash was a nice guy.