mein kampf

[Stonecold54]

George Washington was a great leader. agreed.

and yes, i sure would put some of those names in his league. are you implying that Alexander or Caesar are not in the same league as George Washington?!?

i wasn't commenting on the other names besides hitler. I have never read enough about their exploits or achievements to hold an opinion on them.

[mindstar]

Oh, and as an aside, I would say that FDR was a great leader...in how I understand the term.

[mindstar]

for me a great leader is one who leads for the betterment of his people, and in such a way as not to overly oppress others while doing so.

The sum of Hitler's leadership lead to the ruin of his people much like Scrumhalf said. Not only that, but it was something that echoed with east Germans for 50 years.

Coming from nothing might be remarkable, but it is not great. And motivating a population through hate, fear and coercion is not leadership, it makes you merely a tyrant. Hitler practiced the worst kind of politics, that of exclusion. Every time someone in power seeks to solve problems by blaming minority groups for their society's ills they are taking both a cowardly and intellectually dishonest stance. Real courage and truly great leadership overcomes problems without blame and scapegoating...true leadership seeks to solve the problem for the betterment of all people.

Yes, Hitler was the 'man of the year' in the 30's, but he was judged so by an anti-semetic world, many of whom agreed with his policies.

And let's be honest here, Hitler's plans to exterminate an entire group of people was born out of the same nationalist and anti-immagrant rhetoric that can still be found everywhere today. Think of it this way, currently, "real Americans" (or other natianalities...the logic is the same) are defined a certain way. In the early part of the last century, 'real Americans' were an entirely different group of people. Historically, Italian Americans and Irish Americans were not always seen as legitimate additions to your country. They were, by way of a crude analogy, their day's Mexicans. You can't admire Hitler's exclusionary and xenophobic policies without thinking them through to their logical end, which was the holocaust. The latter was born of the former.

[Bouncer]

i couldn't comment on any of them because i didn't know them. what you are doing bouncer is taking different contexts of the term and applying it universally. I will say hitler was good at what he DID....whatever that was. he was well on his way to his GOALS of exterminating other races.

why don't you tell me what is wrong with my definition. George washington was a great leader....are you honestly telling me you would put some of those other names in his league? building a nation is more of a business...so I would say hitler is more of a driven businessman. he had goals and was trying to reach them by any means necessary.

George Washington was a great leader. agreed.

and yes, i sure would put some of those names in his league. are you implying that Alexander or Caesar are not in the same league as George Washington?!?

[Stonecold54]

do you believe that Alexander, Caesar, or Napoleon were great leaders?. explain to me how Hitler was different from any of them.

who would you consider a great leader?

i couldn't comment on any of them because i didn't know them. what you are doing bouncer is taking different contexts of the term and applying it universally. I will say hitler was good at what he DID....whatever that was. he was well on his way to his GOALS of exterminating other races.

why don't you tell me what is wrong with my definition. George washington was a great leader....are you honestly telling me you would put some of those other names in his league? building a nation is more of a business...so I would say hitler is more of a driven businessman. he had goals and was trying to reach them by any means necessary.

[Bouncer]

Coming from nothing to being powerful has nothing to to with true leadership. Sorry, you're arguments seem very distorted. Was he cunning, clever, manipulative, etc...yes. Leader of greatness not even close.

do you believe that Alexander, Caesar, or Napoleon were great leaders?. explain to me how Hitler was different from any of them.

who would you consider a great leader?

[blm]

going from nobody to VERY powerful = great leader.

Coming from nothing to being powerful has nothing to to with true leadership. Sorry, you're arguments seem very distorted. Was he cunning, clever, manipulative, etc...yes. Leader of greatness not even close.

[Bouncer]

he was a dictator plain and simple not a leader in the sense that I have defined that word.

you can be the leader of a mob (Carlo Gambino). you can be the leader of a Colombian cocaine cartel (Pablo Escobar). if you take that mob or cartel to great power, you are a great leader. makes no difference if the intentions are for good or for absolute evil.

[Bouncer]

To their eventual ruin? I guess you and I will have agree to disagree then on what great means in this context.

"Alexander" also known as "Alexander THE GREAT" and his army's killed and stole entire countries simply because they wanted too. they had no right to just take things because they wanted to.

same goes for Julius Caesar or countless other roman emperors. they killed countless numbers of their own people simply because they would breath the wrong way.

these people are largely considered by society to be "Great leaders".

this is the same as the Time Magazine argument. people say, "why make hitler time magazine man of the year", "why make John Gotti time magazine man of the year." its not about the good or bad they do, its about the impact and power they have.

[Stonecold54]

defining "great leader" would be important in this post, lol.....to me a leader is someone who inspires by moral superiority and unquestionable honor and ethics....someone that other people WANT to follow not out of fear but out of respect. I have to agree with BBexcursion that he was a dictator plain and simple not a leader in the sense that I have defined that word.

[Scrumhalf]

going from nobody to VERY powerful = great leader.

great does not = good person or did good things in person. great leader is about getting that power and making other believe and follow.

To their eventual ruin? I guess you and I will have agree to disagree then on what great means in this context.

[Bouncer]

Well, I guess we disagree on what is meant by GREAT.

If a great leader is one that has become all-powerful by subverting the agenda of any reasonable country - to do good and provide for a better life for all its citizens - and to build this country in his perverted view on the bones and ashes (literally) of millions of his citizens, then yes, Hitler was one of the greatest leaders of all.

However, in my book, the GREATNESS of a leader is judged by his legacy. Lincoln was a great leader. Washington was one. And if you want to look at Germany, Bismarck was a million times greater leader than Hitler.

going from nobody to VERY powerful = great leader.

great does not = good person or did good things in person. great leader is about getting that power and making other believe and follow.

[Scrumhalf]

missing the point once again.

the fact that he went from nobody to one of the worlds most powerful men makes him a great leader. sure, it ultimately lead to complete destruction. but almost all "great leaders" come to an end. take a look at Napoleon. i think most consider him a great leader. he died embarrassed and shamed exiled on an island..

forget about "good" or "bad" that is irrelevant.

Well, I guess we disagree on what is meant by GREAT.

If a great leader is one that has become all-powerful by subverting the agenda of any reasonable country - to do good and provide for a better life for all its citizens - and to build this country in his perverted view on the bones and ashes (literally) of millions of his citizens, then yes, Hitler was one of the greatest leaders of all.

However, in my book, the GREATNESS of a leader is judged by his legacy. Lincoln was a great leader. Washington was one. And if you want to look at Germany, Bismarck was a million times greater leader than Hitler.

[Bouncer]

I couldn't agree more completely. Hitler was a despot and a tyrant. His brand of using ultranationalism to further his ends has been emulated by other tyrants through the ages (Milosevic, for example) to disastrous results. If Hitler is a great leader, so is Kim of Korea, Pol Pot and Stalin. And look what each of them did to their respective countries.

Hitler ruined Germany. He systematically ran it into the ground - the notion that Hitler was good for Germany at any level is preposterous. By the Holocaust, he systematically rid Germany of many of its best and brightest citizens - scientists, artists, musicians, public servants.

Plus, he was a piss poor military leader. Other than the initial blitzkrieg, the course of WWII is littered with the bad decisions he made to the eventual ruin of the Axis (which of course turned out to be a good thing).

missing the point once again.

the fact that he went from nobody to one of the worlds most powerful men makes him a great leader. sure, it ultimately lead to complete destruction. but almost all "great leaders" come to an end. take a look at Napoleon. i think most consider him a great leader. he died embarrassed and shamed exiled on an island..

forget about "good" or "bad" that is irrelevant.

[Scrumhalf]

Hitler was a horrible leader. He had a bunch of desperate people that were open to taking a scapegoat. He was no better than the average idiot running for class president making outrageous promises that couldnt be kept. He was a master of propaganda and after taking power he censored everything from books to plays. Religious beliefs were banned, people were forced to work for the labor party and children were forced to join hitlers youth. He ran a police state and criticism against the government was punishable by death, they even had narcs running around reporting it to secret police.

Just mentioning his name in a sentence with great leader is a disgrace. He was a powerful dictator and responsible for some of the most heinous crimes known to man. He took advantage of a post war country in shambles and took advantage of those situations to gain political power.

Look what he did to his country and his people, then ask yourself if he was a good leader. Its disgusting to even suggest such a thing.

I couldn't agree more completely. Hitler was a despot and a tyrant. His brand of using ultranationalism to further his ends has been emulated by other tyrants through the ages (Milosevic, for example) to disastrous results. If Hitler is a great leader, so is Kim of Korea, Pol Pot and Stalin. And look what each of them did to their respective countries.

Hitler ruined Germany. He systematically ran it into the ground - the notion that Hitler was good for Germany at any level is preposterous. By the Holocaust, he systematically rid Germany of many of its best and brightest citizens - scientists, artists, musicians, public servants.

Plus, he was a piss poor military leader. Other than the initial blitzkrieg, the course of WWII is littered with the bad decisions he made to the eventual ruin of the Axis (which of course turned out to be a good thing).

I will make one point of dissent with BBE though. I wouldn't classify the Germans, at least in the interwar years, as innocent in this regard, forced unwillingly to their ruin by their leader. While Hitler demagoguery found purchase with a desperate people who got shafted by WWI and the Treaty of Versailles and subsequently with the ineffective Weimar Republic, the German people had a history of antisemitism and a latent nationalism of a disturbing kind that made them ripe for picking, so to speak, by a leader of Hitler's charisma.