So Timothy McVeigh was more of a threat than Hitler because he "killed more innocent Americans on our soil"? Or is Hitler somewhere between him and Bin Laden?

Great googly moogly our education system is failing worse than I understood.

gut;758493 wrote:So Timothy McVeigh was more of a threat than Hitler because he "killed more innocent Americans on our soil"? Or is Hitler somewhere between him and Bin Laden?

...

This is the logic that some trolls like to use!!

gut;758493 wrote:So Timothy McVeigh was more of a threat than Hitler because he "killed more innocent Americans on our soil"? Or is Hitler somewhere between him and Bin Laden?

Great googly moogly our education system is failing worse than I understood.

The question was "Who was a bigger enemy to the United States?", not "Who was more of a threat?".

sleeper;758519 wrote:The question was "Who was a bigger enemy to the United States?", not "Who was more of a threat?".

One who feels hatred toward, intends injury to, or opposes the interests of another; a foe. A hostile power or force, such as a nation. A member or unit of such a force = enemy

Yeah, I think most of us understood that it was enemy that was being discussed.

sleeper;758519 wrote:The question was "Who was a bigger enemy to the United States?", not "Who was more of a threat?".

Oh, ok. So it's sort of like CLE is a bigger rivalry to PIT but BAL is a biigger threat?

Otherwise I don't see the distinction - an enemy that is less of a threat is less of an enemy. Again, by the same logic you would argue Timothy McVeigh was a bigger enemy of the US than Hitler. And since Bin Laden is gone, the US now has no enemies, other than possibly Al Qaeda?

The question asked being specific to an "enemy of the USA," I actually have to say bin Laden.

A man bent on world conquest is far more dangerous, but unless I'm mistaken (and I may be), Hitler's place in the war was not as much "against" any other nation as much as it was "for" the advancement of his Third Reich.

Given that bin Laden displayed targeted hatred toward the USA with specificity, I'd say he was the greater ENEMY of the USA, while Hitler was easily the bigger THREAT to the USA.

gut;758525 wrote:Again, by the same logic you would argue Timothy McVeigh was a bigger enemy of the US than Hitler

Yes, this is the idea. If the question asked was which was a bigger threat, then it would have EASILY been Hitler. However, "enemy" conjures an element of hatred.

O-Trap;758562 wrote:The question asked being specific to an "enemy of the USA," I actually have to say bin Laden.

A man bent on world conquest is far more dangerous, but unless I'm mistaken (and I may be), Hitler's place in the war was not as much "against" any other nation as much as it was "for" the advancement of his Third Reich.

Given that bin Laden displayed targeted hatred toward the USA with specificity, I'd say he was the greater ENEMY of the USA, while Hitler was easily the bigger THREAT to the USA.

+12031281380

I think the distinction people are making between an enemy and a threat is a ridiculous notion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy

An enemy or foe is an entity that is seen as forcefully adverse or threatening. The term is usually used within the greater context of war, to denote an opposing group as a threat.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/enemy

1. a person who feels hatred for, fosters harmful designs against, or engages in antagonistic activities against another; an adversary or opponent.
2. an armed foe; an opposing military force: The army attacked the enemy at dawn.
3. a hostile nation or state.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/enemy

1 : one that is antagonistic to another; especially : one seeking to injure, overthrow, or confound an opponent
2 : something harmful or deadly <alcohol was his greatest enemy>
3 a : a military adversary
b : a hostile unit or force

Hell, for good measure

Black's Law Dictionary:

1. One who opposes or inflicts injury on another; an antagonist.
2. An opposing military force.
3. A state with which another state is a war. -- Also termed public enemy
4. A person possessing the nationality of the state with which one is at war. -- also termed enemy subject.
5. A foreign state that is openly hostile to another whose position is being considered.

To try to say one is less of an enemy just because they did less actual damage but were conceivably a bigger threat is just ridiculous.

I'm sure people were probably much more threatened by the Nazi regime and during the Cold War than people are from AQ. The idea of enemy often has a strong connotation of being an opposing military force. I wouldn't call AQ an opposing military force. Military force conjures up in the mind of going head to head (not 18th century line up and shoot) but at least fighting in a more open manner than hijacking planes and hiding in the desert.

The people on the idea that "Osama was more of an enemy" are silly playing a semantics game that ultimately doesn't mean much. Osama and AQ will go down in history, but they will not be nearly as talked about as Hitler in WW2 or the Cold War with the USSR.

On a some what separate note. The few who are claiming he is more of an enemy are falling to what I considered to be an odd human quality. People like to claim the events and people of their time generally as the best at what they do when there might be a chance for an argument.

I'm not sure why people do this, perhaps it is meaningful to an individual to live through something they think history will remember forever. People want to be linked with immortality somehow.

This trend (and especially on this message board) you see this a lot with sports. People always prematurely try to bring up how the next new big guy is the "GOAT/Best Ever" even when they are early in their career or not actually close. People generally want to be around history and get a glimpse of immortality.

Sonofanump;758013 wrote:I guess my professors failed me

I guess so.

"I think the distinction people are making between an enemy and a threat is a ridiculous notion. "

It is beyond ridiculous. By this reasoning any weirdo on a college campus protest that calls for the end of America is a HUGE enemy to the U.S. (maybe even more than Hitler!), despite the complete lack of threat since its just a guy off his meds ranting on a college campus.

I agree with con alma, I think most of us got the gist of the question, moreso than the person starting the thread, who apparently just wanted people to agree with him even if it means changing or torturing the logic of the question. If Sleeper were more honest, the poll should have been, "Hitler or Bin Laden, according to Sleeper who was the greater "enemy" (as defined by Sleeper) to the U.S.?"

From a personal standpoint, i'd say Osama. I lost an uncle on 9/11 and being deployed twice, I lost quite a few friends.

Like some of you said the thread is asking for the greatest enemy of the U.S. Considering Osama bin Laden was a part of Ronald Reagan's Afghan army who fought the Soviet Union and they were armed, trained and funded by the U.S, I consider bin Laden to be the bigger enemy.

JerseyBuck;758906 wrote:Considering Osama bin Laden was a part of Ronald Reagan's Afghan army who fought the Soviet Union and they were armed, trained and funded by the U.S, I consider bin Laden to be the bigger enemy.

You lost me at the end there. A complete 180 from where I expected you to end-up.

Fly4fun hit the nail on the head. Extremely difficult to distinguish greater threat and greater enemy. An enemy that is no threat is no enemy at all, really, but just a nuisance. And while Bin Laden was much, much more than a nuisance, the scale/magnitude of the threat he really posed was nowhere remotely close to Hitler. In that regard, Bin Laden actually is a lot closer to McVeigh than he was to Hitler.

gut;759106 wrote:Bin Laden actually is a lot closer to McVeigh than he was to Hitler.

+1

I judge this matter not by the sheer level of hatred for one another, but by who could have done the greater damage. The worst Bin Laden could have reasonably hoped to have accomplished was getting his hands on a dirty bomb and killing a million or so Americans.

Hitler, on the other hand, took the entire world to the brink. We should all consider ourselves fortunate that he was an idiot of a strategist, or too damn arrogant to realize how difficult it was to invade the USSR. Imagine if he had opted to focus solely on the UK, or gotten Japan involved with the USSR instead of us. In either scenario I think German engineers/scientists have the resources to complete many of their magnificent theories and projects. I once read Hitler's generals wanted to hold off on war until 1941 at the soonest, to become fully operational. Imagine the destruction.

Osama's lunacy will be undone by the unstoppable march of liberalism and the call for freedom. That march is evident across the Islamic world today.

Tobias Fünke;759114 wrote:Hitler, on the other hand, took the entire world to the brink. We should all consider ourselves fortunate that he was an idiot of a strategist, or too damn arrogant to realize how difficult it was to invade the USSR. Imagine if he had opted to focus solely on the UK, or gotten Japan involved with the USSR instead of us. In either scenario I think German engineers/scientists have the resources to complete many of their magnificent theories and projects. I once read Hitler's generals wanted to hold off on war until 1941 at the soonest, to become fully operational. Imagine the destruction.

I see. I must have misread the question, I thought it was about the US not the world, my bad.

The U.S. isn't part of the world? Obviously none of us have a Prof. Farnsworth Futurama "what if" machine, but if the Axis takes over western Europe, northern Africa and the East the U.S. would have been boned. We would have lost our greatest allies and trading partners. We would have collapsed internally and likely fallen into a faction of different states. We were just coming off of a great depression and the continuing economic hit would have absolutely destroyed what was left of the union.

WWII isn't taught nearly as well as it should be, it truly was a global war with humanity in the balance. OBL did damage, but living in NYC, two days later I took the subway to work, like millions of other New Yorkers. I'm guessing two days after 9/11 Sleeper was still in his mom's den drinking Mountain Dew and playing D&D with his friends. The fact is OBL had little effect on the day to day lives of most Americans. Hitler turned the country upside down.

And, if you want to get technical, Hitler is indirectly responsible for Israel, a major source of our conflict with radical Islam, which makes Hitler indirectly responsible for Bin Laden.

Q.E.D.

Fly4Fun;758614 wrote:On a some what separate note. The few who are claiming he is more of an enemy are falling to what I considered to be an odd human quality. People like to claim the events and people of their time generally as the best at what they do when there might be a chance for an argument.

I'm not sure why people do this, perhaps it is meaningful to an individual to live through something they think history will remember forever. People want to be linked with immortality somehow.

This trend (and especially on this message board) you see this a lot with sports. People always prematurely try to bring up how the next new big guy is the "GOAT/Best Ever" even when they are early in their career or not actually close. People generally want to be around history and get a glimpse of immortality.

Is it that people want be part of something big, or things they see and/or experience are more relevant to them?

FatHobbit;759234 wrote:Is it that people want be part of something big, or things they see and/or experience are more relevant to them?

Probably a bit of both to be honest. But I do think the first component (the component I spoke about) plays a large role that largely goes undiscussed.

Sonofanump;759176 wrote:I see. I must have misread the question, I thought it was about the US not the world, my bad.

People just want to prove me wrong, they don't actually care to even read the question, and then when called out on it they resort to semantics and "if" statements to try to justify their logic.

sleeper;758240 wrote:Get a life.

Says the troll.

sleeper;759436 wrote:People just want to prove me wrong, they don't actually care to even read the question, and then when called out on it they resort to semantics and "if" statements to try to justify their logic.

Maybe you shouldn't have asked such an open ended question. I understand it was a pole but the question wasn't defined very well. For example, you didn't define YOUR criteria for "enemy of the USA".

Fly4Fun;758614 wrote:On a some what separate note. The few who are claiming he is more of an enemy are falling to what I considered to be an odd human quality. People like to claim the events and people of their time generally as the best at what they do when there might be a chance for an argument.

I'm not sure why people do this, perhaps it is meaningful to an individual to live through something they think history will remember forever. People want to be linked with immortality somehow.

This trend (and especially on this message board) you see this a lot with sports. People always prematurely try to bring up how the next new big guy is the "GOAT/Best Ever" even when they are early in their career or not actually close. People generally want to be around history and get a glimpse of immortality.

I was thinking something else would be effecting the results of this poll. Since sleeper is such a trolling jerk, people would vote opposite of his opinion.

Sonofanump;759694 wrote:I was thinking something else would be effecting the results of this poll. Since sleeper is such a trolling jerk, people would vote opposite of his opinion.

I actually agree with many things sleeper posts on in the politics forum i.e. merit pay, SB5, unions, govt spending, etc. I just so happen to not agree with him on this subject. Voting against hime just because someone believes him to be a troll is stupid and I don't think most people here have done that, I think they truly believe Hitler was the greater enemy.