The Generals' War

You can say a lot of bad things about a lot of good men.

George Washington owned slaves, did not free them on his death, and was a traitor to the British. Lincoln, for all that he won the American Civil War, nevertheless was the man on duty when America split in half. Better diplomacy on his part could have spared America what's probably its most destructive conflict. Reagan's policies led to the erosion of the American middle class and an explosion of national debt. Nixon was an effective leader, but slimy and amoral. JFK talked good talk, but wasn't able to achieve his goals effectively in his lifetime. George Bush Sr. broke major campaign promises. Clinton showed a distinct lack of moral decency at times in his terms of office.

Theodore Roosevelt was not a perfectly good man. Neither was Pope John Paul II, neither was Winston Churchill, neither was George Washington, neither was Princess Diana, etc. No one ever is, and we all tend t be products of our time. But he was a man who cared deeply for his country, who fought corruption and injustice as he saw it, who was relentlessly intellectually curious, and who was personally and politically brave. He didn't have the intellectual heft of Jefferson, he didn't have the oppertunity to save the world that FDR did and he didn't have to make the impossible decisions that Truman and Lincoln did. He was in power in a time of relative peace, and he left office having made the world a safer place, and he left office leaving the wellfare of the average American better than it had ever been before. All things considered, I don't think that he's underrated. He's one of the greats, and he could TOTALLY take any of the other greats in a fight.

 

I don't know if enough people really know about all the different English monarchs there have been to make that a viable game. We could try, I guess, but I just don't think it would get much steam.

One preliminary idea I had is that we could do civilizations/extinct nations/city-states/etc... obviously America would have to be left out of this one (kind of like the way Obama was left out of this game), but it could consist of all the great ancient civilizations like Rome, Egypt, Persia, Chinese dynasties, etc... in addition to some of the nations that are still around but have already declined (Britain comes to mind). I just thought of it, so I haven't really gotten to thinking about the downsides yet.

What are everyone else's ideas?

 

Rulers?

+2 Djenghis Khan, -2 Adolf Hitler

 

Generals? Washington, Patton, Montgomery, Zhukov, Lee, Rommel, Napoleon, Wellington, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Alexander, Richard I, Hannibal, Pyrrhus, Scipio, Belisarius, Marlborough, Saladin, Mao, etc.

 

I grew bored with this game long ago, but I gotta say, I'm loving it that two Canadians (Zaz & Raven) are arguing over who was the best American president of all time.

 

It was GW and AL who saved ze Republic as it was going down for the count. All other revolutions of this type ended in military dictatorship; not the States, and it was GW who saved it, by his own stature. AL is not to blame for the Civil War...the groundwork was laid many moons before. He was told to postpone the 1864 election, which he was expected to lose. He refused. A mensch. And Washington and Lincoln could both take that asthmatic little prig Roosevelt in a fight, so there.

I vote Generals...Napoleon, Wellington, Davout, Eisenhower, Cromwell, Maurice de Saxe, Marlborough, Frederick the Great, Montrose, Edward 1st, William the Conquerer, Hannibal, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, U. S. Grant, Sherman, Patton, Saladin, Joan of Arc, Attila the Hun, George Washington, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Guderian, Von Manstein, Belisaurius, Rommel, Zhukov, Scipio Africanus, Gustavus Adolphus, Wallenstein, Eugene of Savoy, Suleyman the Magnificent, Jan Sobieski.

I'm sure I missed a lot.

 

And yet, as I said, Washington owned slaves, and he betrayed the British Empire. What he did was treason, pure and simple. The British were responding to American demands leading into the Revolutionary War, and rather than to seek a peaceful transition to either being a full fledged self governed state (like most developed British colonies did in the 1800s) or an equal part of the British Empire, Washington choose to back those who supported violent revolution. Lincoln expanded the powers of the Presidency beyond what Americas founding fathers intended for it to have, he imprisoned nearly 20,000 people on suspicion of being Confederate sympathizer, and he suspended habeas corpus.

Of course, if you take the viewpoint that for the victor all is forgiven...

 

It certainly helps.

 

I'm sorry, but that statement is false.

Lincoln became President on March 4, 1861. By that time, seven states has seceded from the Union, starting with South Carolina on December 28, 1860. They established the Confederacy on February 4, 1860, a month before Lincoln entered office.

James Buchanan was the "man on duty when America split in half", not Lincoln. Lincoln entered office to an already divided nation.

Kimball Kinnison

 

Typical Canuck! Knows nada about American history!

 

I can't believe I didn't get to finish a single darn president.

 

Well, neither did I.

 

Yeah, but I worked so hard on Kennedy

 

You can finish off a president without being the final eliminator. Being the person to take the last two points is mostly just luck anyway. I don't know why people are making a fuss over it.

 

The latter point is very true

 

Same here. I think a couple of people are just reading way too much into the elimination thing - it was only intended for a bit of fun.

 

FWIW, I'm thirding the motion that we start a new game on generals/commanders.

 

I finished of W, so I feel great

 

Another measurement to consider noting is who took the most points away or gave the most points to an eliminated subject. For me, this is more significant than who took the final 2 points away. For example, Lowie wasn;t the final eliminator of JFK, but he took the bulk of the points away. That single minded, determined, spiteful and persistant animosity should be recognised.

 

Truer words were never spoken.

So, can we explain votes now?

 

I tried, too, but all most of the nimrods (you will forgive my plain speaking, gentlemen) wanted to do were eliminations.

 

I find it amusing that everyone seems to be wanting to quantify points and the like as some sort of scoring contest. To me that's just mucking with the simple but workable formula. But if we're all wanting recognition I'll state my own case - I deserve points for nearly single-handedly sinking Lincoln considering at one point I had 3-4 posters working against me.

As for voting intentions, I've already stated mine (Teddy to win, sink everyone else). Please do share your own though.

 

I had no real voting intentions. I'd never heard of most of those Presidents and they meant nothing to me. I liked Carter for his human rights work and his work on behalf of the Palestinian people. I liked George HW Bush because he was never beholden to the Israeli lobby and I didn't really care either way about the rest. I think JFK was a real shmuck who has become a romanticized figure because of the nature of his death.