What is History's greatest lie? (state, Russia, conquer, Germany)

[loose cannon]

Originally Posted by curiousgeorge5

Why Watergate?

Watergate happened to silence Nixon about leaking the truth regarding both Kennedy assasinations. They did not want to take him out. It was agreed that watergate would be sufficient enough and then Gerald Ford could become President which was promised to him for his silenceregarding JFK being assasinated.

[Unsettomati]

Originally Posted by loose cannon

Watergate happened to silence Nixon about leaking the truth regarding both Kennedy assasinations. They did not want to take him out. It was agreed that watergate would be sufficient enough and then Gerald Ford could become President which was promised to him for his silenceregarding JFK being assasinated.

Ah, the quintessential conspiracy theory -- one that makes not a lick of sense.

In 1963, Richard Nixon had been out of public office for three years and would not be in it again for another five years, and so was in no particular position to have any special knowledge about the JFK assassination. Thus, presumably this wild-eyed line of thinking goes something along these lines: whenever a new President comes into office, they're allowed access to all the amazing secret stuff. The alien corpses and their reverse-engineered technology. The time machine. The secret carburetors that would allow cars to get 150 mpg. And, of course, the JFK whodunnit. Which makes one wonder why all the super-secret stuff is given to new Presidents. That would serve no purpose, and just make the conspiracy all the more vulnerable to exposure.

And that makes Nixon no different that Johnson and Ford and Carter and Reagan and GHW Bush and Clinton and GW Bush and Obama. Why didn't/don't they blab? They weren't driven from office.

Aside from that, Nixon somehow was unable to reveal the secret for the 5+ years in was in office? Or, you know... for the remaining 20 years he lived after resigning? Makes no sense at all. For that matter, nor does the idea of Ford being offered the Presidency in exchange for his silence. That would require Nixon - the guy who nominated Ford to be Vice President after Agnew's resignation - to be part of the anti-Nixon conspiracy. Surely, the insanity of that idea is self-evident. It also makes one wonder how Ford was kept silent from 1964 (when the Warren Commission wrapped up its business) until over nine years later when Agnew finally resigned the Vice Presidency. What, he wasn't a risk to spill the beans for all those years?

Nor does the idea that forcing Nixon to resign would somehow assure that he keeps his secret. How does that work? It's like killing your hostage - once you do that, you've got no leverage. Well, once Nixon is driven from power, once the long-sought prize of the Presidency is wrested from him, what was the leverage? No one iota of logic there. None at all.

Like almost all conspiracy theories, this one sounds like it was dreamed up by Wile E. Coyote.

[citoyen]

That white are the bad guys.

[jgn2013]

Originally Posted by citoyen

That white are the bad guys.

Definitely not the bad guys if we go back to the cave man days. However if we're starting at the year 1500, I'd say white guys are in first place on the 'Bad Guy' scale. Can't try to take credit for all the inventions, scientific discoveries etc., and then absolve oneself from the negative. And frankly, if you take away the guns and smallpox, it's a crap shoot at best.

[jgn2013]

Originally Posted by MinivanDriver

That's easy. The current school of thought that blames Western civilization for all the world's ills, from colonialism to slavery to war to whatever. People who actually buy into this line of thinking don't know very much about history. Slavery existed world wide. Nations have been conquering other nations in every corner of the world. And there's not a nation around today that doesn't have a good bit to be ashamed of, whether we're talking about the U.S., the UK, Germany, Russia, China, Burma, you name it.

Sure slavery existed worldwide, but in the context of any discussion about Western Civilization, it's going to be one of the most important topics. You can't extol the virtues of WC but ignore its' ills.

You also have to acknowledge that luck & chance played a big role in the hegemony of Western nations over the world. The Pilgrims landed in North America about 100 years after Columbus hit the shores of Hispaniola. What would have happened if the Native people were somewhat immune to smallpox? If the Pilgrims faced a fully populated North America instead of a continent that only had about 10% of it's original inhabitants by the time of the Mayflower?

[jgn2013]

Originally Posted by gentlearts

Probably that slavery was only an American thing. Slavery in America was small compared to other countries, including Africa.

Everyone knows that Africans, Arabs, the Greeks, East Asians etc., had slaves. The difference is that our slaves were integral in the forming of our nation. They also were completely stripped of their identity in a way that was not common in other parts of the world. The U.S. idea of slavery was that you, your kids and all of the offspring thereafter would be slaves (once slave owners became dependent on the labor). This wasn't necessarily the case in other parts of the world.

Our slavery was also more racial. Other cultures would make anyone a slave, whereas in the Americas, it was almost entirely blacks. White slave catchers weren't running around Boston trying to drag Irish people down South (without their consent) to make them slaves. There weren't enough Native Americans to make slaves and the Irish/Scottish that were slaves did so of their own accord and were never slaves for life.

[jgn2013]

That Africa doesn't have a history outside of Egypt.

That Egypt is somehow not really African yet Ancient Rome and Greece are quintessentially European.

People not realizing that the Arabs and Chinese invented so many things we attribute to Western Civilization.

[jimrich]

This is 12 inches, honey!

[katygirl68]

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

Yeah, I'll go with god is real. That whopper has created more misery than any other lie in history, and billions of people still believe it.

The earth is flat thing was invented by 19th century school teachers. The ancient Phoenicians knew it was a sphere, and Eratosthenes did a good job of measuring the circumference in 240 BC.

Human nature creates misery. People are idealogical and naturally seek answers to big questions. No one can deny that one of the greatest miseries forced on man was communism, which killed millions upon millions of people and did not allow religion. In my opinion, if it wasn't religion, it would have been something else. At least religion gives hope to believers.

[rancenc]

The biggest lie is the evolution of the homo sapian.....we were genetically manipulated by beings outside of this planet. The current hypothesis on how modern humans evolved is utter nonsense!!