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100 Greatest Americans

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Kung Fu Jedi

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I did a search and didn't see anything on this, so I thought I'd start a thread. This weekend, the Discovery Channel is airing a show called The 100 Greatest Americans. Sounds interesting, right? Well, they were voted on by regular people off the street, like you and me. The problem I have with this, is that regular Joe American doesn't have a f-ing clue about history/politics, etc. I don't trust them to make a proper list at all, and as soon as I heard that it was "voted on", I knew this couldn't end well.

So, the list is posted here:

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/greatestamerican/top100/top100.html

Don't believe my lack of faith is founed? Here's a few names from the list, and remember, this is not living Americans, but a list of from all of American History.

Maya Angelou
Geroge Bush (Jr and Sr)
Laura Bush
Bill Clinton
Hillary Clinton
Tom Cruise
Ellen Degeneres
John Edwards
Brett Favre
Mel Gibson
Micheal Jackson
Rush Limbaugh
Condoleeza Rice
Arnold Schwartzenegger
Pat Tillman

Amongst man others. Ugh!
 
I know. I'm going to be so fucking pissed off if Ben Franklin doesn't win.

But what the fuck? George W. Bush?
 
Kung Fu Jedi said:
I
Geroge Bush (Jr and Sr)
Laura Bush
Bill Clinton
Hillary Clinton
Tom Cruise
Ellen Degeneres
John Edwards
Brett Favre
Mel Gibson
Micheal Jackson
Rush Limbaugh
Condoleeza Rice
Arnold Schwartzenegger
Pat Tillman
Click to expand...

BRETT FAVRE? was this list made by madden??

btw all garbage
 
I guess 'greatest impact' is most fitting. But 'greatest'?
Excuse me while I choke on my vomit.
 
http://tv.channel.aol.com/greatestamerican?page=nominees&subpage=jordan

Michael_Jordan.jpg


Where's your god Magic at, bionic?
 
Wendo said:
I know. I'm going to be so fucking pissed off if Ben Franklin doesn't win.

But what the fuck? George W. Bush?
Click to expand...

I was thinking Thomas Jefferson myself, but I could live with Ben Franklin. :) But remember, this is the average citizen voting here, so who knows who will come out on top. If I wer to venture a guess, I'd say George Washington. Not that he had a particularly great presidency, but you know... he was..uh..the first! :) Is biggest accomplishment as President was stepping down at the end of his term.
 
Guzim said:
I dunno.

But how can Bob Hope be on the list if he was born in Great Britain?
Click to expand...

Good question, but hey, Arnold made the list so, perhaps it's "American" in the very broadest sense. :lol

Not sure how they came up with this criteria for who could be nominated, but as I said in my first post, any time you get the general public at large involved in the voting/selection process, it can't end well.
 
Screw 'em all. As long as Ben Franklin's on the list, I have no problem with whatever other clowns get voted in.
 
There is criteria that would justify John Edwards being on the list when even Kerry isn't on the list. Not that Kerry should be on the list, but if they were just going to current name recognition as their criteria to justify Edwards, at least it would have been consistent.
 
That is quite possibly the worst list in the entire history of lists. It makes those "top 100 songs EVAR" lists seem rigorous by comparison. I wouldn't even know where to begin if I wanted to critique it.
 
I put my three votes in (you can only vote out of the top 25) for Neil Armstrong, Walt Disney, and FDR. If FDR doesn't take #1 in the end I will be very surprised. I don't know how the fuck George W and Clinton made the top 25. People are retarded.

Also, a lot of people are missing from the top 100. Hemmingway, Pollack, Andy Warhol, all missing. In fact, there isn't a single artist on the list.

Just an FYI: Please don't blame The Discovery Channel for this list. The whole thing was voted on by the citizenship of America. Blame us, not them. They wouldn't have gotten it wrong.
 
Kung Fu Jedi said:
Well, they were voted on by regular people off the street, like you and me. The problem I have with this, is that regular Joe American doesn't have a f-ing clue about history/politics, etc. I don't trust them to make a proper list at all, and as soon as I heard that it was "voted on", I knew this couldn't end well.
Click to expand...


So basically, this is sort of a Tonight Show "Jaywalking" list of the 100 greatest Americans.
 
How does Condi Rice make the list, but Henry Kissinger does not? I mean, if you're going to pic a Sec. of State, Kissinger is light years ahead of Rice.

Edit: StrikerObi: That's why I've been saying all along that this fact that the "average citizen" voting can only result in bad things. I mentioned in the post that started this thread that the voting was based on the general public.
 
StrikerObi said:
Just an FYI: Please don't blame The Discovery Channel for this list. The whole thing was voted on by the citizenship of America. Blame us, not them. They wouldn't have gotten it wrong.
Click to expand...

Oh, well that explains a lot, as sad as it is regardless. :D
 
Looking at the amount of actors on that list is fucking depressing. Not enough writers, philosphers, etc. I'm just gonna ignore this shit.
 
Giuliani, Rudolph
Click to expand...
I LIVE in New York and I know this guy's a phony. he'll just do whatever the Republican party tells him. I hope he's not elected in 2008.

Bush, George W.
Click to expand...
Because being responsible for all the terrorist attacks in Iraq makes you a good american.

Favre, Brett
Click to expand...
Maybe the voters just liked There's Something About Mary that much....

Stewart, Martha
Nixon, Richard
Click to expand...
So being a criminal makes you a good american now?

Limbaugh, Rush
Click to expand...
Ditto the criminal comment here, but besides that, this guy's just a complete nut. Whoever voted for him must be just as nuts.
 
Ali, Muhammad
Angelou, Maya
Anthony, Susan B.
Armstrong, Lance
Armstrong, Neil
Ball, Lucille
Bell, Alexander Graham
Bush, Barbara
Bush, George H. W.
Bush, George W.
Bush, Laura


Carnegie, Andrew
Carson, Johnny
Carter, Jimmy
Carver, George Washington
Charles, Ray
Chavez, Cesar
Clinton, Bill
Clinton, Hillary
Cosby, Bill
Cruise, Tom

DeGeneres, Ellen
Disney, Walt
Douglass, Frederick
Earhart, Amelia
Eastwood, Clint
Edison, Thomas Alva
Edwards, John
Einstein, Albert
Eisenhower, Dwight

Favre, Brett
Ford, Henry
Franklin, Benjamin
Gates, Bill
Gibson, Mel
Giuliani, Rudolph
Glenn, John
Graham, Billy

Hamilton, Alexander
Hanks, Tom
Hefner, Hugh
Hepburn, Katharine
Hope, Bob
Hughes, Howard
Jackson, Michael
Jefferson, Thomas
Jobs, Steve
Johnson, Lyndon B.
Jordan, Michael

Keller, Helen
Kennedy, John F.
Kennedy, Robert F.
Kennedy Onassis, Jacqueline
King Jr., Dr. Martin Luther
Limbaugh, Rush
Lincoln, Abraham
Lindbergh, Charles
Lucas, George

Madonna
Malcolm X
McGraw, Dr. Phil
Monroe, Marilyn
Moore, Michael
Murphy, Audie
Nixon, Richard
Obama, Barack
Owens, Jesse

Parks, Rosa
Patton, George
Powell, Colin
Presley, Elvis
Reagan, Ronald
Reeve, Christopher
Rice, Condoleezza
Robinson, Jackie
Roosevelt, Eleanor
Roosevelt, Franklin D
Roosevelt, Theodore
Ruth, Babe

Sagan, Carl
Salk, Jonas
Schwarzenegger, Arnold
Sinatra, Frank
Smith, Joseph
Spielberg, Steven
Stewart, Jimmy
Stewart, Martha
Tesla, Nikola
Tillman, Pat
Truman, Harry
Trump, Donald
Tubman, Harriet
Twain, Mark

Walton, Sam
Washington, George
Wayne, John
Winfrey, Oprah
Woods, Tiger
Wright, Orville & Wilbur
Yeager, Chuck

I highlighted the ones I feel are truly 'great'. So out of 100 people, only 57 of those I could find as being great. Though I was tempted to leave Spielberg and Lucas off the list, their influence on our culture, as well as the rest of the world is just too monumental.


Just for argument's sake, some other important Americans:

Aaron Copeland
John D. Rockefeller
Ray Kroc
Fredrick Douglass
Aimee Semple MacPherson
Fulton J Sheen
John Marshall
Richard Rodgers
Gene Roddenbury
John Quincy Adams
Robert E. Lee
George Custer
George Gershwin
Jonas Salk
Samuel Clements
Andrew Jackson
Sitting Bull
Joseph Smith
Laura Ingles Wilder
George Whitefield
Lewis and Clark
Stonewall Jackson
Hank Aaron
Louis Armstrong
Hank Williams
Bob Dylan
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Crazy Horse
Margaret Sanger
Daniel Boone
Thomas Paine
David Sarnoff
Thurgood Marshall
Douglas McArthur
Henry Thoreau
Mickey Mantle
Duke Ellington
Irving Berlin
Milton Berle
Ulysses S. Grant
Isaac Asimov
Milton Friedman
Vince Lombardi
Earl Warren
J. Edger Hoover
W.E.B DuBois
Edgar Allen Poe
Nathaniel Hawthorne
James Madison
Norman Rockwell
Walt Whitman
Earnest Hemmingway
Norman Vincent Peale
William Buckley
Flannery O'Connor
Jim Thorpe
Humphrey Bogart
Oliver Wendell Holmes
William R. Hearst
Frank Lloyd Wright
Joe Louis
Jim Henson
Ella Fitzgerald
John Harlan
Booker T. Washington
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Woodrow Wilson
 
SonicMegaDrive said:
I highlighted the ones I feel are truly 'great'. So out of 100 people, only 57 of those I could find as being great. Though I was tempted to leave Spielberg and Lucas off the list, their influence on our culture, as well as the rest of the world is just too monumental.
Click to expand...

Sam Walton has to be included, simply for his massive impact. He turned an small Arkansas retailer into the world's most massive corporation, although I guess his "greatness" can be debated.

Lists like the "most influential" are much more useful, anyway. Everyone can agree on influence (for the most part), but "greatness" is such a subjective term.

(why do I always end up posting in retarded "list" threads like this? they're solely meant to stir up arbitrary controversy...)

And if I had to pick a top five:

FDR
Jefferson
Franklin
Edison
Gates

These people seemed to have the largest (mostly) positive impact on the nation and world.
 
SonicMegaDrive said:
I highlighted the ones I feel are truly 'great'. So out of 100 people, only 57 of those I could find as being great. Though I was tempted to leave Spielberg and Lucas off the list, their influence on our culture, as well as the rest of the world is just too monumental.
Click to expand...

Why Tiger Woods, but not Lance Armstrong?
 
sonarrat said:
Why Tiger Woods, but not Lance Armstrong?
Click to expand...

Yeah, you're right. If I had to choose 100 of the "greatest Americans", I'd choose only 5 athletes. Who would you choose?

Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan HAVE to be on there. I guess Muhammad Ali and Jesse Owens should be top 5 as well. What about football? Definitely not Brett Farve. How about Jim Brown?
 
SonicMegaDrive said:
Yeah, you're right. If I had to choose 100 of the "greatest Americans", I'd choose only 5 athletes. Who would you choose?

Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan HAVE to be on there. I guess Muhammad Ali and Jesse Owens should be top 5 as well. What about football? Definitely not Brett Farve. How about Jim Brown?
Click to expand...

MIKE TYSON! :D
 
SonicMegaDrive said:
Yeah, you're right. If I had to choose 100 of the "greatest Americans", I'd choose only 5 athletes. Who would you choose?

Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan HAVE to be on there. I guess Muhammad Ali and Jesse Owens should be top 5 as well. What about football? Definitely not Brett Farve. How about Jim Brown?
Click to expand...

The only name in football that really resonates with me is Joe Montana. That may be a really dilettantish choice, but if I had to pick one (American) football player, it would be him. But fortunately I don't. I would go with cyclist Lance Armstrong, tennis star Pete Sampras, and legendary auto racer Carroll Shelby.
 
Why are celebrities on that list? I can see Oprah, but come on.
 
Schwarzenegger is the greatest American ever. It's like he says:

If you give a man a jingle,
he'll jingle for a day,
but if you teach that man to jingle...
....HE'LL JINGLE ALL THE WAY! ARGHHGARAHGHGHHHAHGARHARHG
 
Here's the top 20 from a similiar thing done by the BBC in the UK (also voted by the public):

1 Winston Churchill
2 Isambard Kingdom Brunel
3 Diana Princess of Wales
4 Charles Darwin
5 William Shakespeare
6 Isaac Newton
7 Queen Elizabeth I
8 John Lennon
9 Horatio Nelson
10 Oliver Cromwell
11 Ernest Shackleton

12 Captain James Cook
13 Robert Baden-Powell
14 Alfred the Great
15 Duke of Wellington
16 Margaret Thatcher
17 Michael Crawford
18 Queen Victoria
19 Paul McCartney
20 Alexander Fleming

It's been a while sicne it was on, and I can't find the whole top 100, but I believe we also had very, very few artists.

Fucking hell at Diana. We'll get over her one day.
 
Jeez. And I thought the Greatest Canadians List was bad.


I mean, we had some hockey players, but BOY.......... :)
 
Here they are, out of order:

Alfred the Great
Julie Andrews
King Arthur
David Attenborough
Jane Austen
Charles Babbage
Robert Baden-Powell
Douglas Bader
Neville Barnes Wallis
David Beckham
Alexander Graham Bell
Tony Benn
Tim Berners-Lee
Aneurin Bevan
Tony Blair
William Blake
William Booth
Boudicca
David Bowie
Richard Branson
Robert the Bruce
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Richard Burton
Donald Campbell
William Caxton
Charlie Chaplin
Geoffrey Chaucer
Leonard Cheshire
Winston Churchill
James Connolly
Captain James Cook
Michael Crawford
Oliver Cromwell
Aleister Crowley
Charles Darwin
Diana, Princess of Wales
Charles Dickens
Francis Drake
King Edward I
Edward Elgar
Queen Elizabeth I
Queen Elizabeth II
Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother
Michael Faraday
Guy Fawkes
Alexander Fleming
Bob Geldof
Owain Glyndwr
George Harrison
John Harrison
Stephen Hawking
King Henry II
King Henry V
King Henry VIII
Paul Hewson (Bono)
Edward Jenner
TE Lawrence
John Lennon
David Livingstone
David Lloyd George
John Logie Baird
John Lydon (Johnny Rotten)
James Clerk Maxwell
Paul McCartney
Freddie Mercury
Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery
Bobby Moore
Thomas More
Eric Morecambe
Admiral Horatio Nelson
Isaac Newton
Florence Nightingale
George O'Dowd (Boy George)
Thomas Paine
Emmeline Pankhurst
John Peel
Enoch Powell
Walter Raleigh
Steve Redgrave
King Richard III
Cliff Richard
JK Rowling
Robert Falcon Scott
Ernest Shackleton
William Shakespeare
George Stephenson
Marie Stopes
Margaret Thatcher
William Tindale
JRR Tolkien
Alan Turing
Unknown soldier
Queen Victoria
William Wallace
James Watt
Duke of Wellington
John Wesley
Frank Whittle
William Wilberforce
Robbie Williams

It's not THAT bad, though Beckham, Robbie Williams and King Arthur do rather jump out at you.
 
That list from the UK is much better than the sad US list. It shows a lot more respect for history and the place those people had in it. Fucking Americans! (Of which I'm one! :( )
 
Not a single athlete or celebrity deserves to be on that list.

(okay, I could think of maybe a few)

But good grief, half of that list is athletes and celebrities.
 
StrikerObi said:
I put my three votes in (you can only vote out of the top 25) for Neil Armstrong, Walt Disney, and FDR. If FDR doesn't take #1 in the end I will be very surprised. I don't know how the fuck George W and Clinton made the top 25. People are retarded.

Also, a lot of people are missing from the top 100. Hemmingway, Pollack, Andy Warhol, all missing. In fact, there isn't a single artist on the list.

Just an FYI: Please don't blame The Discovery Channel for this list. The whole thing was voted on by the citizenship of America. Blame us, not them. They wouldn't have gotten it wrong.
Click to expand...

So we shouldn't blame Discovery Channel... for basing their "Top 100" on the opinions of the unwashed masses? And putting their name on it? I would've taken one look and said "Nuh-uh, gurl. Get the fuck off the train."
 
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