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So uhm, Hitler, Stalin, Nero, Pol Pot, and Mao Zedong.
It seems that the criteria is having led to the deaths of the most people.
Nero should certainly not be on this list. Most of his bad reputation is due to exaggerations and myths. He ruled for around 14 years, the first half of which effectively. In the second half of his reign he lost the confidence of the Senate (the senatorial class wrote much of the history) and, towards the end, of the army which led to his undoing. Even if he did deliberately "burn Rome" or "feed the Christians to the lions", the number of deaths caused would have been trivial compared to the number caused by other leaders being mentioned in this poll.
Contemporary leaders have a particular responsibility because they control industrialized means that can be, have been, and are still used, to deliver death to thousands and thousands of people, even at one stroke. This is no joke.
By this general criteria, Hitler certainly deserves to be at the top of the list: though perhaps not the first to industrialize war in the contemporary era, he brought it to a new level and unleashed a war that led to the deaths of up to 50 million people by some counts.
I'm not sure that any ancient war-monger would have had the means to kill that many people.
But we could also try to define another criteria or introduce some kind of proportionality into the measure, though any such exercise could quickly become needlessly morbid.
By the way, to all the people saying Bush, I don't know how he's even comparable to people like Mugabe or Kim Jon Il. . .
Edit: Oops, I skipped over the part that stated that time doesn't matter. So uhm, Hitler, Stalin, Nero, Pol Pot, and Mao Zedong.
The Village Idiot is on the same level as those he's just sneaky about it. Tends to give "reason" why all the people in Iraq need to die along w/our men and woman. He is becoming a dictator but "SOME" people tend to close a blind eye to it because you know nothing like that could happen in here in the US it only happens to other countries.
is on the same level as those he's just sneaky about it. Tends to give "reason" why all the people in Iraq need to die along w/our men and woman. He is becoming a dictator but "SOME" people tend to close a blind eye to it because you know nothing like that could happen in here in the US it only happens to other countries
He is not "becoming a dictator" because Congress approved both the war with Afghanistan and Iraq and because his presidency expires in Jan., 2009.
We must not forget the evil little troll Dick Cheney ..though he is not leader per se (yeah right) we know he is behind most of what is going on.
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nothing like that could happen in here in the US it only happens to other countries.
