Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

I would like to begin by naming Mahatma Ghandi. Although he died in 1948, which is a little before my time. I wanted to list him. Thanks, sassyliberal

* I should SURELY have also said that he would have never considered himself to be great.

Ronald Reagan, Menachem Begin, Rudy Giuliani, Natan Sharansky, George W. Bush.

Jack,

The use of the word “hero” seems a bit overused. Some of us have greatness thrust upon us, through no fault of our own.
While I don’t nescessarily disagree with your choice of Reagan, I belive that without the people he surrounded himself with, he would have been a lesser light.

Will Rogers,
“Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.”

J. Robert Oppenheimer,
When asked by a senator how to contain the nuclear arms race, Oppenheimer answered, “It’s 20 years too late. We should have done it the day after Trinity.”

President Eisenhower, his service to the world during WW2 and his later warnings about the Military Industrial Complex.

I am assuming we want to avoid duplication. Several names already listed would qualify on many lists but, here are mine :
Jonas Salk, Billy Graham, Christian Barnard, Winston Churchill, Mother Theresa

Dr’s Bardeen/Brattain/Shockley (Inventors of the Transistor),
Dr. Norman Borlaug (“Inventor” of dwarf wheat),
Steven Hawkings (advancements in physics),
Bill Gates/Steven Jobs/… (advancements in personal computing),
and finally,
Dr. C. Everett Koop (advancements of public health initiatives in the US)

Jack my friend,

Just the other day I was elevated from being a hayseed, to being “Prairie-Esque”, I really liked that one UNTILL you came out with the “worlds smallist giant” title, that sounds kinda cool and would fit right in with my sense of humor.

On a more serious note, I understand your point, However, Can we go back into history(old or current)to find those we admire, while saying that only those that were admired/lucky/in the news will likely ever make it on the list of choices?
Its kinda like an “I.Q.” test, you could never score higher than the person/group that designed the test, if you could it would mean they shouldn’t have designed it anyways!

Great article BTW, very thought provoking, however, I may have to go back to being a hayseed, its easier to spell and you don’t have to explain the term, it means dumb and I can live with that.

Also in the interest of avoiding duplication, I would add to the list Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison.

“Being boring is a sin in and of itself in my book.”

I could possibly make the longest list of great American Men and Women ever compiled! But I wouldn’t want to bore you, Jack. ;^)

Thomas Paine/Common Sense

Beagle:
Beagle
“Just the other day I was elevated from being a hayseed, to being “Prairie-Esque”“

:^) Actually Beagle, it wasn’t YOU I was calling Prairie-esque, it was the way you’d written my name: Adreline — that sounded to me like one of those names you might find in historical accounts of American pioneers heading west and the hardships that were involved in settling on the Prairie.
But if you consider yourself a hayseed, yet prefer the elegance of Prairie-esque, please feel free to use it!

Jack -

Nice article. I likewise mourn the death of greatness and it’s unholy marriage to celebrity.

I would add Lech Walesa to the list, as well as some lesser lights: historian David McCullough, filmmaker Steven Spielberg, and Fed chairman Alan Greenspan are the greatest Americans in their respective fields, and will be remembered by history as such.

And among the 20th century dead, Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, and Eleanor Roosevelt certainly deserve to be on anyone’s list.

Greatness is most often achieved posthumously, and for good reason. The present demands ever critical evaluation to stay ahead of the curve of Murphy’s Law.

I would have to put Jimmy Carter on my list. Of course, his greatest imperfection was his Presidency. :-)

Of my top 5, he’d be the only politician.

…except perhaps Mikhail Gorbachev.

I would also argue that there really are no Great Men, but simply Ordinary Men performing Great Deeds.

Rob,
Funny, I thought about mentioning Jimmy Carter too. As the years go by I suspect his reputation will soar.

Until recently, I would have included Churchill. But did you know Windston Churchill was an enthusiastic advocate of gassing Iraqi’s The Brits lacked the ability to deliver mustard gas & phoshene (?) through aerial bombardment in 1920-21. Some Brits in the military opposed the idea, suggesting it would be an ineffective way of eradicating Iraqi insurgents. By 1924, when the Brits developed the capability, the situation in Iraq had already been resolved.

Churchill could still be considered great, I suppose, but there’s an awful lot of darkness on his record.

Ayn Rand knew the difference between greatness and celebrity. I’d add her to the list along with Alan Greenspan, longtime associate of Rand’s.

The programs on the History Channel are soap operas with period costumes and props. All the beauty of their presentation makes them hard not to watch, of course. I think they should come with a disclaimer. “This slanted and narrow view of history is not meant to represent the whole picture.”

Warren Buffet, and Harry Truman should also be placed on this list of heroes, w/Reagan and others.

Monica, Alan Greenspan who told Bush and this Republican Congress they should not borrow in order to extend tax cuts? Blasphemy!

As should Alan Ginsberg and Lenny Bruce! Oh, yeah, and of course, Bob Dylan.

I would definately have to second Mother Theresa!
(People may not be aware that she recently died….it was the 5 sec. blip on your television amidst the Princess Diana hooplah!):)

Chops:
“Fed chairman Alan Greenspan are the greatest Americans in their respective fields”

I think John Kenneth Galbraith would be my choice in the field of economics.

Good lists.

Rob, I think there are great men.

It is complicated. A potentially great person can’t become great without a great challenge or accomplishment. But when we believe that great men are CREATED by great events, we make a mistake.

When we look carefully at the great men seemingly created by great deeds, we often find that they were not the destiny’s first choice or that there were other contenders whose flaws were fatal to their greatness. Consider the contrast between Benedict Arnold and George Washington and Washington could have become nothing more than another in the long line of leaders who seized and held power, but his greatness made him spurn the opportunity and his spurning the opportunity made him great.

I don’t think we can always think in a linear fashion about accomplishments. They person who does great deeds needs the opportunity, but his character helps create the opportunity that helps him do great deeds etc.

It is only after the fact that we can’t see that other choices could have been made. Lincoln, for example, could have just let the south go. It was a plausible and logical course of action. If Churchill had been of a different character, he could have accommodated Hitler and put an end to the war. How different history could have been.

People become great by making the hard and usually unpopular decisions.

I agree that there are more people who could be great than have the opportunity to actually become so. But many others don’t have the character that would allow them to be great even if it was thrust on them.

Great people are not just ordinary people doing great things.

David

I had lunch with Alan Ginsburg once. Not greatness material.

Rachel Carson, for making America aware of the dangers of pesticides and our general impact on the environment.

FDR, for everything he did for this country.

Karl Marx (his greatness may not be appreciated on this blog).

Ernesto “Che” Guevara

Robert McNamara (sp?) for coming forth in The Fog of War

also, everyone who fought against Nazi Germany

Ant

Marx was great in the sense of Hitler. No doubt he affected the world, but not in a positive way.

Guevara is great in the sense of Elvis, without the talent. He looks good on pictures and posters, but it is hard to think of any of his accomplishments short of getting killed by the Bolivians.

Vaclav Havel
Nelson Mandela
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Jonas Salk
James Watson/Francis Crick
Jacques Cousteau

Great people? I can only think of one.

John (Jane) Blow.

For their everyday persistance, for living one more day to make this world better, for working to provide us with our standard of living, for not giving up and shooting themselves, for trying to bring up the next generation the best they know how, for being liberal, for being conservative, for trying to be honest, for being outraged at atrocities, for the tear in their eye when the cops found an 8 year old girl in a garbage bin and for the joy when the cops found out she was still alive, etc., etc., etc.

John (Jane) Doe, you are and will always be great.

Great people? I can only think of one.

John (Jane) Doe.

For their everyday persistance, for living one more day to make this world better, for working to provide us with our standard of living, for not giving up and shooting themselves, for trying to bring up the next generation the best they know how, for being liberal, for being conservative, for trying to be honest, for being outraged at atrocities, for the tear in their eye when the cops found an 8 year old girl in a garbage bin and for the joy when the cops found out she was still alive, etc., etc., etc.

John (Jane) Doe, you are and will always be the only great person I know.

Lots of great names on this list already. I’d add that many of them had moments of greatness as opposed to a lifetime of greatness.

Brett Favre…now there’s a great man.

Can you tell where I’m from?

Greatness isn’t achieved by “going with the flow” or “towing the party line”. Greatness isn’t achieved by doing what everyone else wants you to do. Greatness is achieved by doing what you believe is right when everything is against you. It’s achieved by making hard decisions and sacrifices.

Three examples:

1) In WWII, Winston Churchill ordered the RAF to destroy the French navy, in order to ensure that it didn’t fall into the hands of the Nazis. This decision resulted in killing many of his own allies. It was a hard decision, but it was the right thing to do. It was a moment of Greatness.

2) Harry Truman made the decision to use nuclear weapons on Japan at the end of the war. This decision resulted in the deaths of thousands of people. Many people (myself included) have questioned whether it was the right thing to do. It certainly wasn’t the easy way out.

3) Many consider Ronald Reagan’s “tear down this wall” speech as a great moment. I simply consider it politically expedient — it was what his people wanted him to do. The real hero in that story was Gorbachev, who had to fight against his own party to do what was right.

Greatness is one of those middle scale qualities that are so hard to define. It’s not a generalizable quality, nor a specifiable one.

I don’t think men are great by themselves. Have Lincoln born in the East, rather than the Midwest, ten years later or earlier, and even if all else remained the same, Lincoln might not have been great. I think the qualities of a person are important, but also their circumstances and education. Additionally, it’s subjective, not necessarily tied in to any benefit for the common good, and all too often a self-applied pretension, especially among today’s Republican leaders.

I think greatness is a concept best left to historians. I think making that determination about somebody now can be a harmful distraction from needs of the present. Yes, it’s good to have the best, the elite, the revolutionaries at work, but this measure of greatness doesn’t always work to reveal what’s going on when the great things are actually at hand.

I think we should start at competence and work our way up. Even with all the chances the leaders of the past took, many of them were fairly committed to getting things done right, rather than merely catering to the political versions of success and error. Greatness, if does truly exist, is the ability to let slide those measure of events that don’t count towards the needs of a time, while at the same time, taking care of the unglamorous business that nobody sees, but that these events need to be pulled off. Greatness is making monumental changes in history look easy, despite the situations being the opposite.

A great person in everyone’s daily life…

His last name is Crapper (I forget his first name).

He invented the commode (toilet seat)

Steve-

I believe his first name was Thomas.

Stephen~
Geez we finally have a light hearted discussion going and along comes eeyore!

Jack said: “I had lunch with Alan Ginsburg once. Not greatness material.”

Sometimes greatness is not defined by a person’s life or even their character, but, by a singular act or period of a person’s life. Kaddish and Ginsberg’s role in the protest movements of the ‘60’s were seminal in moving college students toward the civil rights movement and against the Viet Nam War.

Ultimately, greatness is defined by those who come after a person’s action who attribute their improved condition to that person’s action.

If Crapper’s first name is Thomas, why do they call his invention the JOHN? As someone with that given name, I would like to find out who is responsible.

David you are right. But I can’t get over him complaining that the potato pancakes were too greasy.

I guess that is also the thing about greatness. Sometimes it looks better a ways off than close up. There is that other saying that no man is a prophet in his own village.

Jack~
I believe it was because of you…lol! I love when you let your humor show!:)

Jack,

I have also heard it called the crapper. Then the term became synonomous with the entire restroom.
Where are you going ?

I’m going to the crapper.

This whole thing is subjective to each individual’s definition of “greatness.”

“I would like to find out who is responsible.”

I believe that’d be Sir John Harrington, godson to Queen Elizabeth. Another great man ridiculed in his own time.

http://www.plumbingsupply.com/pmtoilet.html

Rob,

I agree with your last post. I’ve never really took the time to think of the Gorbachev situation. Yes, I would say he truly makes the list when thought of in that light.

Steve,

I couldn’t agree with you more. It would really stink to have to use an out-house (I mean that litterally and metaphorically).

The greatest of all….Jesus Christ.

Sure, I wasn’t walking the earth when he was physicallly here; but, he’s still here spiritually. In that light….hands down he is GREAT. The measuring stick no one will ever measure up to.

The greatest of all….Jesus Christ.

I prefer to leave Him off the top 5 list, if for no other reason than I can’t find 4 other people worthy of sharing the list with Him. ;-)

“I have also heard it called the crapper.”

I once read somewhere that WWI American doughboys brought that term back with them from England after seeing Crapper’s name boldly emblazoned (no doubt flush with pride over his invention…, groan. :^) on those huge over-head toilet tanks with the pull chain (which you can still occasionally find when traveling in the more rustic areas in England and Scotland). Hence, “the crapper” for a toilet, and “crap” for anything that belongs in one.

Jack,

His name was indeed John Crapper, they even have a musumn in Pittsburg Pa. dedicated to flush toilets, named after him.

I even have a hat that came from there that reads…”Crap happens in the underground”.

Adrienne said: “Hence, “the crapper” for a toilet, and “crap” for anything that belongs in one.”

But, they still haven’t made a crapper big enough for Congress, I mean look at the overflow that comes out of there everyday they are in session.

See, that’s what you get. Someone invents a device which we all use every day and one that makes our lives a lot more pleasant, and what does it get? His name is sh*t.

By speaking of which, is anyone here a graduate of the Sam Houston Institute of Technology?

“The greatest of all….Jesus Christ.”

Tom L,

I will probably be eviserated for posting this….
Oh well, such is life.

Can anybody, anywhere, show me any place, other than the Bible, to prove that this man actually existed?

Jack,

I belive that venerable institution is now called Rice University.

Good one.

I would add Ann Coulter, who reminds us of the foundations on which this country flourished, as many are attempting to destroy it out of envy, jealousy, greed, and/or ignorance, because they lack the ability or intent to contribute something beneficial to the country as a whole.

One more crime for the hangman.

Ann Coulter!!?? Have we sunk that low?

eviserate, eviscerate sorry.

Rocky,

I hereby eviserate you.

Don’t play golf in a lightning storm HE always has the last stroke.

The amazing thing is all you have to do is ask for forgiveness and it appears. Unlike asking a politician to tell the truth.

steve,

Belive me I have had the occasion to be playing golf when a lightning storm came up. I live in Phoenix. The desert gives good lightning.

That still doesn’t answer the question. No offence meant. I am not asking for forgiveness, I am asking for documentation.
Heresy, maybe, I guess I will have to deal with that in my own time.

Rocky,

I can’t speak with certainty on this (my expertise in history is elsewhere) but I believe if one delves deep enough into Roman history… particularly the province of Judea… one can find reference to the name of Jesus. Someone more knowledgeable of this part of history can help me here.

It may interest you to know that I am a left-leaning moderate. A christian that believes that church and state should be separarted (both ways). The mission of the church is to spread the Gospel to one heart at a time. This charge was made by Christ himself. He didn’t say use the democrats or republicans….he charged the CHURCH.

That said….I still say….Jesus Christ is the greatest of all. I agree with Rob….no one is in the same ballpark.

Ann Coulter? What would Jesus think?

Sorry but I sense Jesus has a fine sense of humor based on those parables, and I imagine He is simultaneously amused and appalled by today’s Republican right wing and the legions of dittoheads.

Would He vote Democratic? Naw. Independent, I suspect. But I’m pretty sure He’d lean toward those most concerned with social justice, poverty, and the elimination of war. The bloggers would detest Him even more than they do McCain. Let’s hope forgiveness really is divine.

Jesus would vote Green if he were physically manifested today. But let’s not get too offensive here.

Jesus probably wouldn’t vote at all. His mission wasn’t to change the world through government (like many Republicans today think it is). It was to die for the world’s sin and let the people, by their own free will, ask him into their heart and accept his free gift(his life’s sacrifice to atone for our sin). By accepting this gift and understand he was the Son of God (God in the flesh) who rose on a third and appointed day and now sits at the right hand of God.

Government….I’m sure he could care less. Cleansing hearts and providing an eternal life…that was his concern.

Martin Luther King Jr always bubbles to the top of my list.
Marian Wright Edelman for her tireless advocacy of children.
Can’t argue with Mother Teresa speaking of tirelessness.
Nelson Mandela certainly gets a nod, along with F.W. DeKlerk and Desmond Tutu. It certainly took more than one extraordinary individual to keep that country from descending into chaos after the transition of power.
Like DeKlerk, Gorbachev had the grace to play an important role and then step aside. A lesson from our own George Washington perhaps.
Wangari Maathai.
Einstein (no one’s mentioned him!), Bohr, Tesla, Linus Pauling.
Kathy Kelly for sheer nutty guts.
Bill Moyers for fearlessly speaking truth.
Vaclav Havel for incredible flexibility in playing many roles for the betterment of his people.
Benjamin Mays for his influence on others.
Rosa Parks for her preparation work and preparation BEFORE the famous incident.
Alice Walker.

Jack, you are right about the flaws. It’s important to realize that greatness comes in spite of them lest great potential go wasted by assuming that one’s own flaw precludes their acting in any heroic way. We mythologize our heroes, but they were flesh and blood and erred before they were ever well known. There is no shortage of inspirational people still moving among us, and it is short-sighted to see only doom when there is no way to predict who will act and how to affect unanticipated changes.

Of course there are hundreds more, but I can’t resist adding:
Aung San Suu Kyi
Chico Mendes

Kurt Vonnegut, Frank Herbert, George Carlin, Camille Paglia.

Oh, yeah, and of course, Bob Dylan.

Add that to mine, too. Thanks, David.

Steven Hawkings (advancements in physics)

It’s Stephen Hawking (don’t take this wrong, I rarely point out spelling errors), and yeah, that’s a good choice. I even met the guy.

(Okay, now I’ll read the rest of the comments…)

Okay, I thought the assignment ;) was to list those in living memory. Thus I haven’t listed many of the others listed here like Ben Franklin or R Buckminster Fuller (though he was alive while I was, I didn’t really know about him and his work until he was dead). I also avoided political contributors since I don’t respect any politicians in my lifetime. To be honest, there are millions of great people we will never know. Andre Agassi and Steve Nash, as two top-of-my-head examples, are two athletes who do an incredible amount of philanthropy with a humble and compassionate spirit with little or no wide-spread publicity and, except for their fame, represent the greatness that I believe most of us are capable of.

And seriously, what would Crapper be without Joseph Gayetty, Walter Alcock, and Thomas, Edward and Clarence Scott (inventors of toilet paper)?

What is the difference between Great and Good? I define greatness by the impact and scope of ones deeds in ones own time, and their long-term effect on the world. The deeds do not necessarily have to be beneficial to be great. By that standard, my list takes on a decidedly darker tone…

So in addition to the many Good people already mentioned, I would like to (controversially) add these names to the list of Great men:
Stalin
Hitler

Well, Rocky, if you want documentation, you can go to Josephus, who recounts a little episode involving the followers of “Chrestus” in the Synagogues of the time.

Historians generally believe Jesus of Nazareth existed. There’s no reason to make him up, really. Paul’s letter to the Romans showed up about twenty years after his death, and that’s the earliest writing.

The Trouble with documentation about Jesus is that he doesn’t really become an important person to Roman society as a whole until later. Until then, he’s much like many others of the lower classes in that time, save the fact that he has a few devoted followers to write about his life and exploits.

The real Jesus is much more problematic to dismiss than the cartoon version either side in politics portrays him as. The love he preaches is an uncompromising, difficult love, not the easy affection we have for those close to us.

The forgiveness he preaches is not free and easy- it comes at the cost of the forgiveness of others, and at the cost of true repentance that comes from one’s soul. Paul speaks about dying to the flesh, dying to one’s sins- the implication being that one makes a radical change in one’s life, not simply adding the faith on the side as a way to cover one’s bases. Money or good deeds don’t buy your way to salvation- it’s the faith that undergirds one’s charity, one’s good works that matters.

All in all, what drew a formerly agnostic liberal fellow like myself to feel it proper to give myself over to this faith, was the notion that this wasn’t a religion where you got something for nothing. What I saw was a religion of integrity, of real redemption, rather than simple ritual cleansing.

What I saw was a religion where what was in your private heart mattered more than what you did in front of everybody else, especially for everybody else’s benefit.

It wasn’t, as I had thought, a religion built the merciless application of religious laws, nor something that could be reduced in complexity to simply following ten commandments. The wisdom in the bible that I read extended beyond simple protestations of faith, it was something that could live beyond the dusty distant texts of the past. It was about the life behind the dry words, rather than just the words themselves.

But saying all that, I would not talk about Jesus in terms of greatness. I would not do so because Jesus didn’t change things, or because he didn’t have a profound effect on history, nor because his teachings lacked wisdom and applicability, but because his teachings were not about his greatness. It is said in the bible that Jesus emptied himself, and took on the form of a slave, that he humbled himself rather than claim equality with God.

Greatness was not what he sought, but rather salvation for the world. If he had wanted worldly greatness, he would have been born the son of an Earthly king, raised in royal surroundings, and died in bed an old man with conquests and the baubles of fame and fortune.

Greatness is only a virtue when it is not the first thing on people’s minds when they are taking their actions. The greatness of a person’s soul is measured by how true they are to other virtues in going about the business of their lives. Historians and politicians can argue about greatness- let’s talk about what’s the right thing to do.

SD,

Beautifully written. I would add that all of what you said about Jesus is what made him great. He didn’t seek to be great. He didn’t seek fortune or fame. He served….from the heart. He died for everyone. That is more great than anyone could realize.

Joseph, society never needed toilet paper. The romans used sponges. All we needed was sponges, and an antiseptic soak between uses, a separate sponge per person would have been good for business. But, think of vast environmental savings the Roman method would have yielded.

Crapper would still have been famous and he didn’t need no steenking toilet paper clogging up our pipes and sewers and decimating woodland diversity and dumping bleaching byproducts into our rivers and lakes.

Just trying to pull your chain :-)

Add Vonnegut and Herbert to mine, Joseph, thanks. I was between 19 and 20 (1969 or ‘70) when I read Dune. That book and its sequels are stories, allegories and metaphors I carry around in my head on a daily basis even today.

The order of the Orange Catholic Bible still pops into my head when reading and discussing the merging of relgion and politics to this day.

Stephen,

Thank you for your eloquent response. Please belive me when I say I respect your inner faith.

After seeing that Jesus was named to the list of all time greatest, I thought I would try an exercise. Mind you, the purpose of this exercise wasn’t to denigrate those that responded, rather it was to gauge the perception of the beliefs of those that did respond.

Any of you that responded to my question please don’t take offence at what I write, for that is not why I write.

Stephen you are correct in your mentioning of the “cartoon Jesus”. I myself was raised a Catholic, was an Alter boy, and spent my formative years under the tuteledge of the Sisters of Saint Francis and the Holy Ghost Fathers. I went to church every day except Saturday, and went to confession once a week.
The Jesus I learned about in grade school didn’t prostelitize, he didn’t need to. He didn’t care about whether or not you prayed to him, he only cared about what was in your heart, and how you treated other people. When I reached high school this all changed.

When I studied world history, the images, and the messages of Christianity changed. How through the Crusades, the places of Christ became more important than the message of Christ. How through the Inquisition the message was perverted even further. How through the discovery of the new world those that would not convert were made slaves or worse. And how through Manifest Destiny America was built at the expence of living cultures as old as mankind themselves.

It didn’t take me long to realize that through Christianity, the message of Christ had been forgotten. That what mattered was what was in your heart, and how you treated other people.

With the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the “Christian Right” over the compromise that was reached in the Senate, I see that those that complain the loudest claim to be Christians. James Dobson, for instance, has threatened the seats of those that compromised. This is the “Christian attitude” I speak of.

Jesus was asked if he was the son of God, he said,”That is what you say”.

I would submit that if indeed he did at one time exist, he would say that his message was more important than he was.

Jesus wasn’t a great man, he was a humble carpenter. He met with the dregs of society and called them his friends.

Great …. famous, or just great?

Famous: Jonas Salk, and many of those mentioned already.

Known by category but not (mostly) personally famous: the firemen and police who lost their lives on 9/11 trying to save the lives of others; for that matter, police and firemen who go out every day and risk their lives for the safety and lives of others; soldiers who defend each other and our people and even the lives and safety of people in other countries whose lives and safety they could so easily not think worth risking much of anything for - but they do, and sometimes they die for that.

Women who have children, and the men who support them and the children.

Not famous at all (except among those who know / knew them: Edna Elizabeth Lovegren Bruce, who taught my disabled brother to read; August Lovegren, who came to America after the Civil War for the freedom to worship as he chose, fathered 11 children and provided for them and their mother through his entrepreneurial skills and managed to do it without compromising his principles; Hilma Nelson Lovegren, who bore 11 children and buried 2 of them before they were old enough to read, but raised the others in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and gave an example of industry and thrift that my mother remembered with awe, even in the last years of her 94-year life; Levi Lovegren, missionary to China, who was imprisoned by the Red Chinese but miraculously survived; his daughter Mildred Lovegren, also a missionary to China, though in her case to Hong Kong, who led tours in Red China and gave aid and communication to persecuted Christians in Red China; the list goes on and on.

And yeah, Iesua ben Miriam of Nazareth is beyond great; He did what nobody else could do.

Rocky, you want documentation? There’s plenty. I recommend to you The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. Strobel is yet another former atheist who set out to discover the truth about Christ and Christianity and found that he couldn’t deny it when he found the proof for it. It happens that way from time to time. Annoyed atheists searching for facts to refute Christ / Christianity is one of Christianity’s occasional sources for brilliant apologists. Heh.

ET

Madeleine Albright, John Glenn, Ceasar Chavez, Vaclav Havel, and Emmitt Smith. Plus many of the others mentioned above.

Here’s an interesting twist: How about people who could have been great, but just weren’t up to it. Yasser Arafat and Michael Jackson top my list.

Here are a couple of more names to add to the list. General of the Army Douglas MacArthur and John Edgar Hoover

Did I miss it or has everyone missed the obvious - William Jefferson Clinton. Yes I’m serious.

I’ll second Clinton, Tom G. Good catch!

Tom G and American Pundit,

By what barometer are you measuring Clinton’s inclusion on this list?

David J. Gross, H. David Politzer,

Frank Wilczek, Alexei A. Abrikosov,

Vitaly L. Ginzburg, Anthony J. Leggett,

Raymond Davis Jr., Masatoshi Koshiba,

Riccardo Giacconi, Eric A. Cornell,

Wolfgang Ketterle, Carl E. Wieman,

Zhores I. Alferov, Herbert Kroemer,

Jack S. Kilby, Gerardus ‘t Hooft,

Martinus J.G. Veltman, Robert B. Laughlin,

Horst L. Störmer, Daniel C. Tsui,

Steven Chu, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji,

William D. Phillips, David M. Lee,

Douglas D. Osheroff, Robert C. Richardson,

Martin L. Perl, Frederick Reines,

Bertram N. Brockhouse, Clifford G. Shull,

Russell A. Hulse, Joseph H. Taylor Jr.,

Georges Charpak, Pierre-Gilles de Gennes,

Jerome I. Friedman, Henry W. Kendall,

Richard E. Taylor, Norman F. Ramsey,

Hans G. Dehmelt, Wolfgang Paul,

Leon M. Lederman, Melvin Schwartz,

Jack Steinberger, J. Georg Bednorz,

K. Alex Müller, Ernst Ruska,

Gerd Binnig, Heinrich Rohrer,

Klaus von Klitzing, Carlo Rubbia,

Simon van der Meer

(Nobel Prize in Physics winners since I’ve been born)

The barometer of performance.
Things like:
8 years of increasing prosperity, job growth (even while increasing min wage), disappearing deficits (as opposed to exploding deficits), strengthening foreign ties, tripling the counterterrorism budget, creating a top level national security post on counter-terrorism, stockpiling vaccines - and on and on.

And W’s claim to greatness is he doesn’t change his mind.

Tom G,

I understand your listed barometers. Obviously mis-use of power/position to demonstrate morality in office as Governor and President (Monica and lying about Monica), State Troopers bringing him “some action” in Arkansas.

The impeachmnent proceedings does not evidently tarnish the greatness catagory.

Add to the list the Peace Pilgrim (www.peacepilgrim.org) — Rocky and Stephen, if you would like to see the modern embodiment of someone who LIVED Christ’s teachings, you would do well to visit the site and read up on her (Peace Pilgrim).
From 1953 to 1981 a silver haired woman calling herself only “Peace Pilgrim” walked more than 25,000 miles on a personal pilgrimage for peace. She vowed to “remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace, walking until given shelter and fasting until given food.” In the course of her 28 year pilgrimage she touched the hearts, minds, and lives of thousands of individuals all across North America. Her message was both simple and profound. It continues to inspire people all over the world:

“This is the way of peace: overcome evil with good,
and falsehood with truth, and hatred with love.”

I was wondering when someone would bring up Clinton, and what the response from the right would be. — I agree with Clinton, Carter, and I would personally add Nixon (now what about the response from the left)
Talk about mixing greatness with great personal faults, Nixon is the poster child.

I have long been disgusted with the organized “Christian” religions as they were anything BUT following Christ’s teachings, most are intolerant at best.
And the worst of the bunch are the fundamentalists that proclaim the loudest about their spirituality and rightousness and condemn any and all “non-belivers”.
Thanks

Another person to add to the list:

I do not know his name, he is (or possibly was) a Hindu who actually rolled on the ground for an incredible amount of miles and/or many years. It is my understanding that he did so to demonstrate a complete devotion as a servant of his faith. He too had little rest and minimal food. I believe he depended upon followers of his faith for sustinance. I have tremendous admiration for this man.

Pat Tillman

I understand your listed barometers. Obviously mis-use of power/position to demonstrate morality in office as Governor and President (Monica and lying about Monica), State Troopers bringing him “some action” in Arkansas.

The impeachmnent proceedings does not evidently tarnish the greatness catagory.

Clinton did some terrible things. So did Lincoln. So did Jefferson. If doing Bad Things (tm) makes you ineligible, then the list would only have One person on it!

That being said, I think one of the things that helped Clinton be great was a Republican Congress that kept him on a tight budget. His extremist urges (in politics, at least) were moderated by the GOP — a perfect example of Checks and Balances working properly for a change.

Bill Clinton is a tragic figure.

He was a good president and one of the most intelligent men ever to hold the office. But he got there too soon and too easily. What would Nelson Mandela been if he had been elected president 20 years earlier or Winston Churchill before his time in the wilderness?

Clinton needed a little more time on the outside. He needed to mature to reach his full potential, to build his character and maybe let his libido subside a bit. Had he been elected in later, he would have been great. In 1992 he was picked before his time. It would have been a great blessing to him and our country to have been defeated in 1992 and then come back chastened and stronger to win in 1996.

This listing greatness from the beginning of time is tough. Here’s my preliminary list discounting the ones I’ve already listed (except Ben ‘cause he was so cool).

The kids who invented language, the folks who domesticated animals, the guys who invented basic machines, that dude who invented writing (I think his name was />^`\:)), Hammurabi, Xeno, Diophantus, Lao Tzu, Zarathushtra, Mohammed ibn-Musa al-Khowarizmi, Ghengis Khan, Copernicus, Vasco da Gama, Michelangelo, Leo da Vinci, Shakespeare, Rembrandt van Rijn, Galileo, Kepler, The chic who invented teriyaki, Mozart, Brahms, Bach, François-Marie Arouet, Ben Franklin, Geo Washington, Tom Jefferson, Tom Paine, Clara Barton, Sojourner Truth, Charles Darwin, Vincent Van Gogh, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Oswald Avery, Linus Pauling, James Watson, Francis Crick, Max Plank, Neils Bohr, Schrodenger, Heisenberg, Picaso, James Joyce, the Professor and Marianne

This is, of course, incomplete and rather glib at points. Great fun nevertheless.

I can hardly wait until Hillary comes marching in. Maybe she learned from Bill’s shortcomings and, the timing will be right. I guess Bill will have the distinction of being the country’s FIRST MAN. Either way you guys will get your wish because he will be perceived by most to be the real president anyway.

The SNL show is probably writing the skits now.

Lest us not forget Charles Schultz who brought us Charlie Brown, Lucy, Snoopy (there is even a blimp named for him), Linus, Beethoven, etc. All characters who are timeless.

Dr. Suess would be a good one as well.

Jack,

Nelson Mandela is an interesting choice for these times. I agree with that he is a great man, but you are correct to say that he was a terrorist, albeit a relatively harmless one. After reading a biography recently (which was written by a personal friend of his), I was struck by the fact that his long imprisonment was not really that unjust. The truth is if an American did the same things these days that he did in the sixties in South Africa, the person would be lucky to even get a trial (rather than disappear forever into Gitmo). The fact that Mandela went on to unify the country should serve as a warning against “with me or with the evildoers” thinking.

As for Clinton, I don’t think he was a great president, but he was a good one. I fault him for not doing enough for the people who brought him into office. If we are going to disqualify him because of his libido, we have to disqualify Thomas Jefferson for having a very public sex scandal during his presidency.

I don’t really see the argument for JP II being a great public figure. It seems like the most popular argument in his favor was he helped overthrow Communism, but that was really only in Poland. Gorby was far more instrumental.

Thatcher I don’t really see as being great either, because she didn’t make a big mark outside the UK.

Let me defend my picks.

Mandela, I think we agree. The time in prison probably is what built his character and made him great. It is a big price to pay, but it seems to be one that Mandela thinks was worth it and I think the world is better off.

JP II helped bring down Communism in Poland and then in E. Europe. This is what cracked the evil empire. Gorbachev’s contribution to this is much overrated. He never dreamed that Communism would collapse. He goal was to restructure it and the whole situation just got out of hand. Gorbachev’s greatness lies not in the fall of Communism (which he resisted) but in the fact that he recognized that the game was up and did not do as the Chinese did. Of course, those who thought Communism and the Soviet Union a good thing would just see him as a screw up who allowed the situation to get out of hand and then gave up. As you know Putin thinks the fall of the Soviet Union was a tragedy.

Thatcher is just one of my favorites. She helped create and legitimize conservative ideas. She strengthened the spine of George Bush 41 in Gulf I and was a partner to Ronald Reagan. I recall what poor shape the UK was in 1979. It was becoming a socialist country and nothing was working. She started the hard road that brought it back. I also believe that Thatcher was instrumental in crippling socialist ideals all over Europe. Socialist all over now talk of the third way. Everyone believes in the market, it is now mostly a matter of commentary. They didn’t before. The whole debate has shifted and she helped do it.

For Clinton, libido was just a symptom of his general lax will power. He was fat and sloppy and he was too amorous. We are not talking one scandal, but several. I don’t hold against him the acts themselves, but the judgment of doing something so reckless in the Oval Office.

He could have been a great president, but his character flaws limited him to only good.

Thatcher I don’t really see as being great either, because she didn’t make a big mark outside the UK.

Margaret Thatcher’s biggest worldwide footprint is that she showed the world that a woman can lead a country as effectively as a man can. After her, talk of a woman in the White House has lost its novelty.

Warning: this post contains explicit religious content relating to perceived intolerance. If that’s going to bother you, skip over this, please. FWIW, I do this in response, not pre-emptively.

Russ posted: I have long been disgusted with the organized “Christian” religions as they were anything BUT following Christ’s teachings, most are intolerant at best. And the worst of the bunch are the fundamentalists that proclaim the loudest about their spirituality and rightousness and condemn any and all “non-belivers”.

Interestingly enough, Jesus Himself saved his harshest criticism for members of the religious establishment who got so involved with pride and self-righteousness that they lost track of God’s simple message: caring.

Don’t single out the fundamentalists. In my youthful search for a denomination to call home, I learned that there are caring, Christ-oriented believers in every denomination, and also there are proud, self-righteous, condemnatory people not only in every even nominally Christian denomination I’ve come across, but in every non-Christian religious group I’ve run into so far.

I’ve had the privilege of knowing a number of fundamentalists who were/ are sweet, caring, generous. I also have been privileged to know sweet, caring, generous pagans.

I’ve lost friends when they realized that I firmly believe that all religions are NOT equally valid. They called that intolerant.

I call it realistic. I don’t think the world is flat; I don’t believe that the sun is only a myth and an illusion; and I don’t think that other religions (except for Judaism, perhaps) are just as valid for their believers as is Christianity.

But condemnation of persons, in any eternal sense, is God’s sad duty. I am not God, to know with certainty the heart and soul of any other person or to know how a person’s choices will work out in his/ her soul in the end.

Some people don’t believe in an Alternate Destination. It seems to me that once one is clear about there being a hereafter and a God who is a Person rather than a mere Force, the existence of an Alternate Destination is a logical necessity, unless one postulates that God is the moral equivalent of a rapist.

I believe that God knows how to take NO for an answer, and I believe that the torment of the Alternate Destination is unavoidably intrinsic to separation from God, not infinite punishment of finite sin.

Some people believe that souls get recycled through life after life until they finally get it right. I’d like to believe that. But it doesn’t seem at all provable, and there’s Scripture that suggests that reality is not like that.

I don’t choose to risk my soul, or the souls of my beloved non-Christian friends and family, by pretending that I don’t think it matters what one believes. If I don’t let them know, who know I love them, that it makes a difference, who *can* credibly tell them? I want my dear ones to be with me in eternal joy when the Time comes.

ET

Joseph, good list. Susan B. Anthony belongs on there too.
I think we’ve forgotten way too many Artistic American’s of True Greatness.
So submitted for your approval, these people were (or are) true American artistic originals in my opinion:

Architects:
Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Bernard Maybeck, Julia Morgan, Neutra, Charles and Ray Eames.

Artists:
John Singleton Copley, Bierstadt, Audubon, Winslow Homer, Mathew Brady, Thomas Eakins, James MacNeill Whistler, Mary Cassat, Louis C. Tiffany, John Singer Sargent, Remington, Edward Curtis, Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keefe, Maxfield Parrish, John Sloan, Joseph Stella, Edward Steichen, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Edward Hopper, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Henry Moore, Thomas Hart Benton, Ansel Adams, N.C. and Andrew Wyeth, Norman Rockwell, Alexander Calder, Louis Nevelson, Willam de Kooning, Isamu Noguchi, Romare Bearden, Fairfield Porter, Dorothea Tanning, Jackson Pollack, Helen Frankenthaler, Richard Diebenkorn, Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Christo, Chuck Close, Robert Maplethorpe, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cindy Sherman, The Starn Twins.

Musicians:
Bix Biderbeck, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louis Jordan, Gene Krupa, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Billie Holliday, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughn, Peggy Lee, Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Chet Baker, Bo Diddley, Ray Charles, Tito Puente, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, The Everly Brothers, Howlin Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Koko Taylor, Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Doc Watson, Roy Orbison, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, Al Green, (Bob Dylan - already mentioned), Dick Dale, Neil Young (or was he born in Canada?), The Meters, Marvin Gaye, Carlos Santana, Bruce Springsteen, The Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Television, The Ramones, Blondie, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Tom Waits, Violent Femmes, REM, Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Grandmaster Flash, L.L. Cool J, Beastie Boys, NWA, Eminem, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Pixies, Camper Van Beethoven, Rage Against the Machine, Elliot Smith, Mary J. Blige, Beck, and a current favorite of mine The Shins.

Film Makers:
Billy Wilder, William Wyler, Frank Capra, John Ford, John Huston, Orson Welles, Martin Scorsese, John Sayles, Jim Jarmusch.

Poets and Writers:
Edgar Allen Poe, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Langston Hughes, (Ginsburg already mentioned).
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Edith Wharton, O. Henry, Stephen Crane, John Steinbeck, Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, Jack London, Upton Sinclair, Thomas Wolfe, William Faulkner, Raymond Chandler, Zora Neale Hurston, Willa Cather, Langston Hughes, Isacc Bashevis Singer, Alex Haley, Walker Percy, Ken Kesey, Stephen Millhauser, (Alice Walker - already mentioned) Amy Tan.

That’s are all I can think of at the moment — but I’m sure I’ve forgotten a huge number of great American artistic geniuses…

Margaret Thatcher’s biggest worldwide footprint is that she showed the world that a woman can lead a country as effectively as a man can.

A point in her favor, but don’t forget Indira Gandhi and Golda Meir.

So much of today’s systems seem to be designed or just happen to prevent individual greatness. This applies to every walk of life. Corporate and Government rules seem to frustrate and discourage greatness in the name of making the organisation as a whole greater or more efficient, with less disonance between its parts.

In science, where Einstein wrote his work in spare time in a patent office, modern science departments have incredibly expensive equipment like electron microscopes, mass spectrometers, and relevant to Einstein, access to data from space telescopes and other spacecraft.

But no one could ever build or even operate a space telescope on their own, so we form groups to do these things which dilute individual excellence in pursuit of a higher goal. Who is individually greater out of Darwin (evolution), Franklin, Wilkins, Crick, Watson (DNA), or each individual member of the human genome project? But whose work is greater in scope and ambition?

Are organisations wrong to frustrate individual greatness? Dostoevsky in Crime and Punishment wrote how great individuals, leaders of men, were allowed to disregard ordinary rules of law and morality in order to accomplish higher goals. He cited Napoleon, but if we pluck a few names that have been mentioned here - Bill Clinton caused the deaths of an estimated 10,000 innocent people by bombing a medecine factory in Sudan, Pope John Paul is partially responsible for the deaths of thousands of AIDS victims for his stance against contraception, Nixon completely destroyed an entire country, Vietnam, killing literally millions of people, and also killed thousands more in illegally bombing Cambodia and Laos. Aren’t free markets now supposed to take big economic decisions out of the hands of individuals? No more Roosevelts or Bevins (founder of the National Health Service in the UK) who are both undoubtedly great men. Only Margaret Thatchers who won’t take responsibility for ruining thousands of lives by sacking breadwinners because they can hide behind the market, and countless indistiguishable and undistinguished individuals who work ceaselessly to change the world with the free market taking the credit.

So be careful in talking about greatness. Maybe you could be a miner under Thatcher, a Vietnamese under Nixon, or maybe you could work all day providing for your family and producing life saving drugs for thousands of people, in a factory in Sudan…

And all that just because I couldn’t think of anyone to nominate… Ok, I’ll go for Enzo Ferrari (fascist collaborator and founder of the company which created some of the most beautiful objects ever), Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (anti-semite, alleged KGB informant and author of the Gulag Archipelago) and Kurt Cobain (drug addict, suicide, and superb musician)

George Patton
John F. Kennedy
Ronald Regan

No one from our current crop of politicians, that’s for sure!

Rocky,

No offense taken. Please keep looking for the evidence of Christ. As you go on your search there is a good chance you may well find him and accept him. He will then be with you…in your heart.

You are correct that the actions taken throughout history in the “name” of Christ have stained the actual message of Christ.

One cannot legislate morality….as some would like to do. One does not have to even be a Christian to have morals. However, when one finds Christ and accepts Him…the inner Morals will follow. Yes, we need laws that are justly enforced. But, as Thomas Jefferson elluded to…government’s legitimate power should be to protect us physically and fiscally. Let each go on a search for his God. Hopefully, the message of Christ will find those who are searching…and they will find their inner peace.

After this experience if there were a ban on making lists I would vote in favor of the ban. True, some of the postings have been genuine and even got some of us thinking and, some have been humorous which is always good for the soul.

As time went on however I think the original intent got lost in the shuffle. Mammoth lists began to appear and then catagorized by field. Sadly we then had posts to challenge the validity of another person’s candidate (I myself am guilty). We were invited to submit names of 5 or so people we considered great, we all took license to expand the process into first a contest of coming up with obscure names and second a forum for debate.

IMO what started out to be a fun and interesting challenge evolved into rather dry reading.

In my lifetime, I would like to submit the mortal names of:

Mother Theresa
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Both of whom sacrificed their lives for a greater cause.

In my lifetime, I would like to submit the mortal names of:

Mother Theresa
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Both of whom sacrificed their lives for a greater cause.

Posted by: Tom L at May 26, 2005 04:11 PM

I left off my previous post exactly what Tom posts here…. redundancy. You could commit suicide by jumping off a pile of paper with the names of Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King Jr. written on them.

I heard mention of Jesus Christ here, but nobody seems to think that someone like Siddhartha Gautama would compare? Great man, in his own respect.

Further, I saw an earlier comparison between Hitler and Marx. There is no comparison between the two, in fact Communism, as Marx saw it, has never truly existed. It’s failings are the same failings that you see in Capitalism, people are greedy.

My list is:

Marx - Government form analysis
Plato - Rational Thought
Peter Singer - Modern reverse utilitarianism (modern ethics)
Darwin - For forcing us to think
My Wife - for dealing with me.

Jack,

If we want to bring up Karl Marx, then why not Groucho?

Rocky

Karl was the only one of the Marx brothers who wasn’t funny at all.

Paul

Marxism doesn’t even work in theory even if all people were good and not greedy. It doesn’t have a mechanism for communicating relative scarcity. The free market does this via prices. Marx postulates an unworkable labor theory of value, which seems to make sense, but doesn’t contain any useful information.

Adrienne,

Joseph, good list. Susan B. Anthony belongs on there too.

Oh yeah! I knew when I listed Clara Barton that I was forgetting someone in the genre. You’ve got a great list, too. I was going to try to get to architects and more artists and writers (and scientists and…) after work but now I don’t have to ;). Initial thoughts, I’d add David Lynch (!!!), Sam Raimi, Francis Ford Coppola, and Stanley Kubrick to film makers.

Jack,

I have just gone back through this whole thread, and to my suprise, no one mentioned John Lennon.
Love him, or hate him, you always knew where he stood. And he wrote some damn good music too.
Also, Mark Twain.

Daavid,

I was between 19 and 20 (1969 or ‘70) when I read Dune. That book and its sequels are stories, allegories and metaphors I carry around in my head on a daily basis even today.

His insights into humanity are extraordinary and timeless. His literary skill is easily comparable to Shakespeare. Dune and God Emperor of Dune are still applicable today, if not more so.

I didn’t read all of the posts, but by the given at the start we should mention Joseph Stalin, Tito, Idi Amin, Kim Jong Il, Pol Pot and of course Adolph Hitler. I guess they were “great” men as well, by this definition.

They didn’t listen to anyone around them, were completely filled with their own vision for the world and did their best to inact it. Oh, yes, George W. Bush would fit in, as well as John Ashcroft and Vice President Cheney.

It can’t happen here.

I didn’t read all of the posts, but by the given at the start we should mention Joseph Stalin, Tito, Idi Amin, Kim Jong Il, Pol Pot and of course Adolph Hitler. I guess they were “great” men as well, by this definition.

They didn’t listen to anyone around them, were completely filled with their own vision for the world and did their best to inact it. Oh, yes, George W. Bush would fit in, as well as John Ashcroft and Vice President Cheney.

It can’t happen here.
Posted by: Will Hughes at May 27, 2005 03:41 AM

Well said, Will.

You forgot to mention these guys also, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton. Reagan for not being able to recall, anything. Bush 1, For leading us into at least 3 wars/conflicts, and right before Clinton taking over telling the country, “Oops, we are sorry the budget deficit is almost double what we told you it was”. Clinton for looking me in the eye, pointing his finger and then stating ” I did not have sex…”, you know the rest.