News Who is the Greatest American in History?

[McGyver]

How Do I Get on the List

I was wondering how I might get placed on this list?

I've done some very extraordinary things over the last 13 years in public policy, science, volunteering, and helping others in need - all after I suffered a 1992 brain injury, and without any financial remuneration. So I think I should be considered for this list of Great Americans.

I also did many remarkable things in earlier years - like save a man (stranger) while scuba diving who nearly killed us both, and fixed a demolished vehicle with a steak knife and electrical tape in Mexico in order to get a group of 5 women and teens back to the states.

I too would like consideration for this list.

Stephen Dolle
www.diaceph.com

 

[Astronuc]

I've done some very extraordinary things over the last 13 years in public policy, science, volunteering, and helping others in need - all after I suffered a 1992 brain injury, and without any financial remuneration. So I think I should be considered for this list of Great Americans.

I also did many remarkable things in earlier years - like save a man (stranger) while scuba diving who nearly killed us both, and fixed a demolished vehicle with a steak knife and electrical tape in Mexico in order to get a group of 5 women and teens back to the states.

You have my vote.

 

[SOS2008]

Back to the OP, while like most Americans I personally liked Reagan (for the most part), no modern person can be more revered than Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, etc. And as I said earlier in GD, Dubya hasn't even finished his second term, and much more time is needed to know how he will be viewed historically. As someone posted, the results of this poll probably reflects a lack of historical knowledge among Americans, which is sad.

Aside from that, Reagan was not responsible for the collapse of the USSR anymore than Dubya can take credit for elections in Lebanon or anywhere else. These presidents are only legends in their supporter's minds.

 

[kaos]

The greatest American? The native american chief that got Custer. Now that's something. Too bad his success was not repeated often.

 

[McGyver]

Thanks for the vote, Astronuc. As I'm an optimist, that means I'm tied for last place, but now moving up on the list.

 

[russ_watters]

My position is that the transition to democracy and free market system could have been handled differently and with a better outcome. Instead the West (US included) made big mistakes in allowing the USSR to collapse as quickly as it did. Neither Reagan or Bush saw it coming and were unprepared to lend proper assistance. The result has been an unnecessary and avoidable amount of suffering, and much less security in the world.

I don't know if it would have been possible for the US to intervene to help stabilize the USSR or not, but I do think that it was far more important to us to ensure that the USSR did collapse.

And Reagan most certainly did see it coming. One of the links I provided is about the flip-flop of the Democrats: while Reagan claimed that collapse was inevitable and a final push by us could topple the USSR quickly, a great many Democrats claimed that the USSR was economically and politically stable. Then after the collapse, many of the very same people flipped and started saying it was inevitable and Reagan did little to nothing to effect it. Whether they actually believed it was stable in 1980 or just said it to counter Reagan is irrelevant - they said it.

As for Belgrade, I think you meant 'Bucharest'. The Romanias marched on Buchrest (Bucuresti).

No, I meant Belgrade - Milosevich was taken down by a popular revolt following us cutting him off at the knee with our bombing campaign.

No, the many are not doing better, as I have witnessed in person.

And I've been to Poland and Lituania. But that's all just anecdotal anyway. While its true that the situation for many Russians, specifically, has worstened, there are a good dozen other countries that were behind the iron curtain or were part of the USSR. Whether the overall situation behind the iron curtain is better or worse than in 1988, I honestly don't know, but I suspect it is better - either by total population or country by country (but of course, Russia is the largest). And I'm actually more concerned with those other countries than Russia itself because of the way they were raped by the USSR.

 

[Informal Logic]

...you could claim it was all part of a long, slow decline starting they day after the revolution ended (which, frankly, I believe)...

Yep, this is what I claim (does that make me a kettle?).

...Here's the first reasonable link I found: http://wais.stanford.edu/History/history_ussrandreagan.htm )...

From your link:

Several WAISers disagreed with Christopher Jones, who denied Reagan's role in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Harry Papasotiriou writes: "The Soviet Union certainly collapsed of its own weight, but Reagan helped speed up the process. The following paragraphs are from a forthcoming book that I am co-authoring.

Reagan’s conviction that the Soviet Union was both a dangerous military power and a collapsing economic system derived not from any deep knowledge of the Soviet Union. Yet he proved to be the proverbial right man in the right place at the right time.

To clarify all this, if the USSR had been stable before Reagan became president, do you think he could have caused a collapse? No. He could only push over what was already toppling. Even as highlighted in your other source, at best Reagan can only be given credit for accelerating the collapse. So what are you arguing?

Back to the OP, do you feel Reagan should be #1 -- ahead of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, etc.? Because I do not, and this is really the point I was making.

 

[russ_watters]

Yep, this is what I claim (does that make me a kettle?).

No, it just makes you miss the point.

To clarify all this, if the USSR had been stable before Reagan became president, do you think he could have caused a collapse? No. He could only push over what was already toppling. Even as highlighted in your other source, at best Reagan can only be given credit for accelerating the collapse. So what are you arguing?

That is precisely what I'm arguing: that Reagan accelerated the collapse of the USSR. Its what I said in post 25 in response to someone else's claim that Reagan had "nothing to do with the fall of the [USSR]". That assertion is false and you seem to agree that its false since you seem to agree that he helped accelerate its collapse. If you don't disagree with my claim that "Reagan help[ed] to destroy the USSR" (ie, he "accelerated" it, as you suggested), why are you arguing with me?

Back to the OP, do you feel Reagan should be #1 -- ahead of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, etc.? Because I do not, and this is really the point I was making.

No I don't - a question which I answered in post 31

 

[quetzalcoatl9]

Oliver Evans, the inventor of the refrigerator.

I believe that this is an invention which does not get the credit due. The refrigerator has made starvation a thing of the past for countries with energy/electricity. It also made food a semi non-perishable, so that most of us can devote our lives to things other than gathering food and leave that to others in a more manageable way.

 

[Art]

I believe that this is an invention which does not get the credit due. The refrigerator has made starvation a thing of the past for countries with energy/electricity.

Isn't that the food replicator in Star Trek you're thinking of jk

 

[Mercator]

Werner Von Braun. I cannot think of a man who symbolizes the true American spirit more.

 

[Art]

Where did you get this from? I've been looking up sources to be sure, and everything I come up with says that Ransome Olds was the first manufacturer to use an assembly line and that Henry Ford was the first to use an assembly line on a conveyor belt, which is when modern factory techniques really took off. Whitney may have started mass production, but you might be giving him too much credit to give him the assembly line.

Didn't Whitney invent the concept of geometric tolerances (limits and fits) thus allowing the interchangeability of parts?

 

[russ_watters]

Oliver Evans, the inventor of the refrigerator.

I believe that this is an invention which does not get the credit due. The refrigerator has made starvation a thing of the past for countries with energy/electricity. It also made food a semi non-perishable, so that most of us can devote our lives to things other than gathering food and leave that to others in a more manageable way.

Yeah, its often the little things we take for granted that have the most profound impact.

 

[FredGarvin]

Didn't Whitney invent the concept of geometric tolerances (limits and fits) thus allowing the interchangeability of parts?

Limits and fits is very diffferent than GD&T. I have a few sources on GD&T and I can't nail down a single "inventor" of GD&T. Although, e-funda has about the best short description:

Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing symbols have been in use since at least the turn of the century. GDT was especially important during the Second World War in relation to extremely high volume production of Liberty Ships, aircraft, and ground vehicles. The automotive industry, with its high volumes, has also benefited from GDT. The computer industry, in particular mass storage manufacturers, have used GDT extensively to increase their yields of high-volume and low-margin hard disk drives. However, as with most engineering and scientific methodologies, GDT was not rigorously established and documented until later in the twentieth century. The American National Standards Institute publication in 1982 of ANSI Y14.5M-1982 was a turning point in the rigorous, unambiguous standardization of the methodology.

I think the big swing in the development came when Taguchi came about with his pre six sigma quality stuff at Motorola.

 

[Art]

Limits and fits is very diffferent than GD&T. I have a few sources on GD&T and I can't nail down a single "inventor" of GD&T. Although, e-funda has about the best short description:

I don't understand why you say they are different? Limits and fits as devised by Whitney to allow the mass production of muskets is a system which acknowledges the impossibility of ever making 2 parts identical and so instead limits the degree of variance to specific parameters, i.e. dimensions are specified in the form 100 +/- 0.01 for example. Geometrical tolerances is an expansion of this idea using standard notation to cover the 4 areas which an engineering machinist might want to control. These are;

a. Location
b. Form
c. Runout
d. Orientation

 

[Informal Logic]

...That is precisely what I'm arguing: that Reagan accelerated the collapse of the USSR.

So helping and causing are two different things, and 'helping' was only possible due to timing. That means Reagan was not responsible for the collapse of the USSR, in that you have to be the cause of something to take credit for the effect.

No I don't - a question which I answered in post 31

I only asked this because it seemed some were arguing that Reagan should be #1 because he was responsible for the collapse of the USSR. I just wanted to clarify consistency in position on both of these arguments.

And as was posted earlier, the same 'cause and effect' logic applies to Bush in regard to "democratic practices" such as elections, specifically in the Middle East. These are all the same kind of reasoning/arguments running through several threads.

Once again, in regard to the OP, Reagan was #1, and I think Bush was #6. These presidents--along with Clinton--should not be so highly ranked. It is absurd, and so are the reasonings people are giving to support such rankings.

 

[FredGarvin]

I don't understand why you say they are different? Limits and fits as devised by Whitney to allow the mass production of muskets is a system which acknowledges the impossibility of ever making 2 parts identical and so instead limits the degree of variance to specific parameters, i.e. dimensions are specified in the form 100 +/- 0.01 for example. Geometrical tolerances is an expansion of this idea using standard notation to cover the 4 areas which an engineering machinist might want to control. These are;

a. Location
b. Form
c. Runout
d. Orientation

GD&T is a much more precise tolerancing scheme that accomplishes things that standard limit tolerancing can not. It's based on a part's function or it's relation to another part. For example, you can not (or would be extremely difficult) to limit tolerance the position of a hole to three datums, which you can do with one callout in GD&T. The two are completely separate beings. They are used in conjunction.

 

[Andy]

Well as far as I am concerned there is only two candidates for the greatest American.

1, Homer Simpson.
2, Al Bundy.

 

[russ_watters]

So helping and causing are two different things, and 'helping' was only possible due to timing. That means Reagan was not responsible for the collapse of the USSR, in that you have to be the cause of something to take credit for the effect.

That depends on what specifically you are talking about him "causing". He certainly "caused" the acceleration of the collapse. He certainly "caused" the USSR to collapse sooner rather than later. He is therefore certainly responsible for that effect.

And since I am the one who made the specific claim and you are the one responding to it, you need to follow my meaning: that Reagan caused the acceleration of the collapse. Otherwise, you're arguing a straw-man.

I only asked this because it seemed some were arguing that Reagan should be #1 because he was responsible for the collapse of the USSR. I just wanted to clarify consistency in position on both of these arguments.

No problem - just don't jump to conclusions about my opinions. This shouldn't be an issue because I am very open about them.

And as was posted earlier, the same 'cause and effect' logic applies to Bush in regard to "democratic practices" such as elections, specifically in the Middle East. These are all the same kind of reasoning/arguments running through several threads.

It depends on what you mean there - with Bush and, say, Lebanon, the only effect Bush could have had was indirect (ie, that he scared Syria into leaving without doing anything specific to actually threaten them). While it may be true it is impossible to prove unless 20 years from now a Syrian leader writes a book and says 'we left Lebanon because we were afraid Bush would attack us if we didn't.' Reagan had a direct effect on the USSR in that they changed internal policy in response to his policies - and years later, Russian officials did say precisely that.

 

[SOS2008]

Well as far as I am concerned there is only two candidates for the greatest American.

1, Homer Simpson.
2, Al Bundy.

It's "greatest" not typical.

 

[Andy]

I think they atleast deserve to be in the top 5.

 

[Informal Logic]

That depends on what specifically you are talking about him "causing". He certainly "caused" the acceleration of the collapse. He certainly "caused" the USSR to collapse sooner rather than later. He is therefore certainly responsible for that effect.

Are you really so bored that you argue in circles?

And since I am the one who made the specific claim and you are the one responding to it, you need to follow my meaning: that Reagan caused the acceleration of the collapse. Otherwise, you're arguing a straw-man.

You may believe you are dictator of the world, but no, I don't need to do anything.

No problem - just don't jump to conclusions about my opinions. This shouldn't be an issue because I am very open about them.

Just policing the police. Is it annoying? Now you know how it feels.

It depends on what you mean there - with Bush and, say, Lebanon, the only effect Bush could have had was indirect (ie, that he scared Syria into leaving without doing anything specific to actually threaten them). While it may be true it is impossible to prove unless 20 years from now a Syrian leader writes a book and says 'we left Lebanon because we were afraid Bush would attack us if we didn't.' Reagan had a direct effect on the USSR in that they changed internal policy in response to his policies - and years later, Russian officials did say precisely that.

Indirect is the key word. The bottom line is that all other variables needed to be in place, meaning timing in the chain of events (in the case of Lebanon, the death of Arafat, etc.). Economic decline, corruption, death of leaders either naturally or by assassination, wars, religion, etc., etc., etc. are much stronger catalysts for such events. But you will believe what you want to believe about your precious Republican presidents.

 

[Mercator]

Well as far as I am concerned there is only two candidates for the greatest American.

1, Homer Simpson.
2, Al Bundy.

Your forget Archie Bunker, he comes close to my proposal, Werner Von Braun, only he was smarter and imported from Germany. He was an example of how the US deals with dictator's akolytes. I just wonder how many captured Iraqi Baathists are working in the States now.

 

[The Smoking Man]

Your forget Archie Bunker, he comes close to my proposal, Werner Von Braun, only he was smarter and imported from Germany. He was an example of how the US deals with dictator's akolytes. I just wonder how many captured Iraqi Baathists are working in the States now.

Well, if that is the new chriteria then I nominate Shiro Ishii.

Without his help, McArthur would never have realized the advances in biowarfare that took America into Korea only a decade later.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/740572/posts

 

[Yaaks]

For me, Richard Feynman was the Greatest American of all time..
Truly GODlike!..

 

[Anttech]

As for other Americans, how about -Alexander Graham Bell

2) Bell was a Canadian.

He was SCOTTISH! Born and bred, he emigrated to Canada and USA later but was born and educated in Edinburgh, Scotland

Anyway I aggree he was a great man, just not an American/Candadian great man!

 

[Townsend]

E Pluribus Unum

America...no, I don't think so.

The United States of America.

The greatest American is an honor that that should not exist. In fact, I don't think 'greatest' is a term that should be applied to people at all. It takes all kinds of people to make the world go around. Like it or not, we don't live in a vacuum.

Just my opinion of course.

Regards,