Top Ten evil people of 20th century


Ranked by number of people put to death under their regime, at ReasonableCitizen.

Accurate?  What do you think?

Oh, no, of course Rachel Carson is nowhere on the list.  This guy is looking for real evil, not imagined evil.

Other resources:

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 3:06 am and is filed under Genocide, History, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to Top Ten evil people of 20th century

  1. sheldon nixson says:
    March 4, 2009 at 10:22 am

    i think that the stuff that we have going on today is going to reflect alot of stuff in the next five to ten years

    Like

  2. John Moeller says:
    June 2, 2008 at 12:02 pm

    No, I don’t think that the list author is asking for retribution either. I was perhaps going a bit far afield of what you were discussing.

    To get back to the point, I agree with the list author that these men perpetrated horrific crimes upon their fellow human beings; their own countrymen, for the most part. But I have a hard time measuring their evil by the numbers of people that they killed. What about the survivors?

    For example, what about people who are dismembered or disfigured? Some still suffer to this day with their horror. What about “child soldiers” who are forced into service and brainwashed and drugged and convinced to perpetrate their *own* evil? I simply think that the idea of measuring something like evil is ultimately futile.

    As for what you said about McNamara’s comments, I think that it does raise the question of what justifies force. You can’t measure intent, so you have to examine what is gained. Certainly, the men on the list gained personal power or wealth from their actions, and Roosevelt, we’re pretty sure, acted on behalf of others. Can we say the same for all of our military leaders at the time? Did some gain personal glory? That also raises another question: for example, in the case of Mao (who was certainly brutal), can we say that all the blame can be laid at his feet personally? And does that make him more or less “evil” than Hitler or Stalin?

    Like

  3. Ed Darrell says:
    June 2, 2008 at 10:26 am

    I didn’t get the idea that the list’s author is asking for retribution, nor is the Genocide Watch list. I certainly agree with you that it’s the human factor that we need to work on. There are at least two facets, though — the people who commit the crimes, and the rest of us who let it happen.

    I’ve blogged about it before: When does the “never” in “never again” begin?

    Robert McNamara and others in the U.S. war effort noted that, had we lost the war, Americans would have been prosecuted for war crimes, as Germans were at Nuremberg and as Japanese officials were. The firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo, for example, are not easily defensible in light of the civilian casualties.

    So, it’s an interesting list. A thought provoker. A debate provoker, I hope.

    What should we learn from it?

    Like

  4. John Moeller says:
    June 2, 2008 at 10:13 am

    To be honest, I disagree with any particular “measure” of evil. In fact, I don’t really know if I believe that “evil” is a useful term at all. While we keep demonizing human beings that do atrocious things to other human beings, we remain naive to the fact that human beings are the ones doing the deeds. That is, if we call people “monsters,” or “evil,” we lose sight of the fact that it’s a person perpetrating a vicious crime upon another person, and therefore we somehow convince ourselves that it can’t happen again. Or worse, that it’s acceptable to mete out inhumane treatment upon those people in retribution, because they’re somehow less then human.

    Like

  5. Pseudo-Polymath » Blog Archive » Monday Highlights says:
    June 2, 2008 at 7:46 am

    […] top 10 “evil men” list … correlate with […]

    Like

  6. Stones Cry Out - If they keep silent… » Things Heard: e20v1 says:
    June 2, 2008 at 7:45 am

    […] top 10 “evil men” list … correlate with […]

    Like

Please play nice in the Bathtub -- splash no soap in anyone's eyes. While your e-mail will not show with comments, note that it is our policy not to allow false e-mail addresses. Comments with non-working e-mail addresses may be deleted.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.