how do you know that if you DID off those on your list, someone even worse wouldn;t take their place?

I'm no fan of war, but much of the modern workd is a direct result of the world wars and the cold war. You go making huge drastic changes like the ones you proposed, and you have no idea what would happen as a result. We might all be dead, wiped out by plague. No penicillin. Who knows?

Besides, the rules say you are just a fly on the wall.

I don't. As I stated when I said...

I don't know that there wouldn't be anybody worse, but considering these are some of the worst people humanity has ever produced, the odds would be in my favor.

Anyone have any random speculation on how long slavery would have lasted in the US without the Civil War? And whether civil rights would have been smoother or rougher afterwards?

Slavery would have lasted less time in America and more time in the Confederate Union (a different country), but probably not much longer. The Civil war wasn't fought over slavery anyway.

yeah...oops!...missed that....

you're just looking for arguments about Lincoln and FDR being on your list anyway, so......I'm not taking the bait.

No, I'm not. In fact I'm pleased that someone isn't starting an argument with me, making childish insults, ignorant comments, baseless accusations, etc.

They are on my list for my own very good reasons. I'm sure you'd have a different list that I might disagree with. That's fine with me.

Right, but the ending of slavery was a Civil War gambit. And I wonder if the Civil War would have been postponed or prevented if Lincoln had lost the election.

lumberjim - Lincoln and FDR were libertarian nightmares.

Yassar Arafat is not a wonderful statesman but somehow I don't think he's quite hit the same league as Hitler, Pol Pot and Stalin.

This is like one of the silly IQ test questions: Which item doesn't below with the rest.

Stalin is someone, I must say, if removed at the right time would have been most likely replaced by someone wholely more moderate, I think anyone that has studied the russian revolution would agree with me on that.

Storming of the Bastille would have been cool, watching darwin work out evolution, wander though a real medieval castle in it's prime, debating between greek philosophers, the politics of the roman forums.....

*Reads Marx and Engels on the list of people who have led to harm in America and bites so hard on tongue a bloody strip falls out of mouth *

No, Marx & Engels have caused harm not only to America but to the entire world. Their incredibly flawed, and ignorant philosophy has cost millions of lives.

*Takes a deep breath and with an act of will says ....* Okay

Excellent show of restraint. :) I commend you.

Actually when people are writing stuff as Radar did it seems so stupid that I lose every pleasure to try to discuss such matters...

like many untrained animals he does tend to shit all over the place.