On a more positive note: Who is your favorite historical American & why?

[StellaBlue]

My vote goes to:



because he said:

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

"I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.

"It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the trade of a priest for the sake of gain, and in order to qualify himself for that trade, he begins with a perjury. Can we conceive any thing more destructive to morality than this?"

[Baselinereality]

1. Yeah, But I Don't Know Who That Guy Is.

He looks like Harry Shearer to me.

My vote would have to be for the Abe. Honest Abe.

[theanarch]

2. He's Thomas Paine...

...which was going to be my answer..."The Age of Reason" is perhaps the most important book ever written, at least in the European canon of literature.

[Baselinereality]

4. Ah. First, I Thought John Locke Wrote "The Age of Reason"

And wasn't Thomas Paine Scottish?

Although I have no idea why I'm being such a pain about this. I actually like the topic.

Thomas Paine was a very crucial figure in our history.

Wow. Doesn't that line sound like the beginning of a crappy 11th grade essay?

He was though.

[theanarch]

8. English...not Scottish...

...very good, and fairly recent, biography on him: "Thomas Paine, A Political Life"...except i cannot now recall the author. Makes the claim that Paine was Europe's first, "modern" celebrity; rather compelling arugement.

[StellaBlue]

9. He was from Thetford, in Norfolk, England.

I finally went there after living in the UK for more that three years! Got my photo taken with his statue. The town is now depressed, but it was cool, nonethless. I would post the pic, but I am using a friend's Mac, as my PC is flatlining.

[Baselinereality]

10. He's Still Relevant Today.

These are the times that try men's souls. That was him, wasn't it? It's been so long since I've read 'Common Sense' that I can't speak with any conviction. But, it is a pamphlet that in many ways pertains to the progressives' current struggle in America against the tyranny of the ultra-right. I've been thinking about Thomas Paine a lot lately. Even though I didn't know what he looked like our what country he was from.

[StellaBlue]

14. Yep, that's him.

And there are still no monuments, schools, etc. named after him. The Greatest American, IMHO.

A radical even in a radical age.

[Baselinereality]

18. Yep. I Don't Think The Aristocrats Had Much Use For Him, Though.

[niyad]

13. "common sense" ranks up there, as well.

[theanarch]

17. yes, "Common Sense",

"The Crisis Papers", "The Rights of Man" (written in response to Edmund Burke's reactionary jerimiad against the French Revolution), "The Age of Reason", and one of his more neglected works, "Agrarian Justice", published in 1802 or '03, which outlined the basis for Social Security, only one didn't have to wait for retirement to get it--to be paid on an annual basis upon reaching one's majority.

[jobycom]

3. Frederick Douglass

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.

I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.

The soul that is within me no man can degrade.

The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning.

We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.

[StellaBlue]

5. The more I read of/about Douglass

the more I admire him. A truly brilliant, and humane man.

[jobycom]

23. I think his historical memory has been supressed

Not so much now, but during and after Reconstruction, and especially after the SCOTUS killing of the first Civil Rights Movement (with Civil Rights Cases in 1885 and Plessy in 1892). History swallowed up black leaders the way it swallowed up positive Native American images, and replaced them with benificent whites who freed the poor black slaves. Fredrick Douglass became a footnote-- a writer who influenced Lincoln a little bit, the way Squanto became a clever Indian who helped out the Pilgrims in his own, rustic, simple way.

This whole mythology was furthered by the psuedo-scientific theory of "race," which saw the white man as the protector of the world. People like Frederick Douglass didn't fit the mold, so his story was re-written.

People who rail against "multi-culturalism" just don't get it. America has always been multi-cultural, "mono-culturalism" was the distortion.

[Bluzmann57]

6. Ok this may seem weird but...

I'm going with Jackie Robinson. I love baseball and Mr. Robinson put up with a lot of shit that no other ballplayer, let alone human, should have to put up with. Even if you don't like sports, you must admit that Jackie Robinson was a trailbalzer in American history. Very few people could have kept their temper like he did when being taunted like he was.

[StellaBlue]

7. Not weird at all

I didn't mean to limit this thread to just overtly political Americans. Go on, people, make your case for Andy Kaufman.

[Baselinereality]

12. LOL--Gawd, Please, Nooooooo!

[StellaBlue]

15. I can't stand him, personally

Just sayin'...

[niyad]

11. victoria woodhull.

[Baselinereality]

16. Man I Love Google.

[AusTexDem]

38. Thanks for teaching me something today.

Bring back the Equal Rights Party !

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, who said:

I have carried a heavy load on my back ever since I was a boy. I realized then that we could not hold our own with the white men. We were like deer. They were like grizzly bears. We had small country. Their country was large. We were contented to let things remain as the Great Spirit Chief made them. They were not, and would change the rivers and mountains if they did not suit them.

I am tired of fighting.... from where the sun now stands, I will fight no more.

Our fathers gave us many laws, which they had learned from their fathers. These laws were good. They told us to treat all people as they treated us; that we should never be the first to break a bargain; that is was a disgrace to tell a lie; that we should speak only the truth; that it was a shame for one man to take another's wife or his property without paying for it.

Suppose a white man should come to me and say, "Joseph, I like your horses. I want to buy them."

I say to him, "No, my horses suit me; I will not sell them."

Then he goes to my neighbor and says, "Pay me money, and I will sell you Joseph’s horses."

The white man returns to me and says, "Joseph, I have bought your horses and you must let me have them."

If we sold our lands to the government, this is the way they bought them.

I am not a child, I think for myself. No man can think for me.

If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace. Treat all men alike. Give them a chance to live and grow.

All men were made brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born free should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.

If you tie a horse to a stake, do you expect him to grow fat? If you pen an Indian up on a small spot of earth, and compel him to stay there, he will not be contented, nor will he grow and prosper.

The earth and myself are of one mind.

We were taught to believe that the Great Spirit sees and hears everything, and that he never forgets, that hereafter he will give every man a spirit home according to his deserts; If he has been a good man, he will have a good home; if he has been a bad man, he will have a bad home.

This I believe, and all my people believe the same.

Good words do not last long unless they amount to something. Words do not pay for my dead people. They do not pay for my country, now overrun by white men. They do not protect my father’s grave. They do not pay for all my horses and cattle.

Good words cannot give me back my children. Good words will not give my people good health and stop them from dying. Good words will not get my people a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves.

I am tired of talk that comes to nothing It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and all the broken promises. There has been too much talking by men who had no right to talk.

It does not require many words to speak the truth.

We do not want churches because they will teach us to quarrel about God, as the Catholics and Protestants do. We do not want that.

We may quarrel with men about things on earth, but we never quarrel about the Great Spirit.

I believe much trouble and blood would be saved if we opened our hearts more. I will tell you in my way how the Indian sees things. The white man has more words to tell you how they look to him, but is does not require many words to seek the truth.

Too many misinterpretations have been made... too many misunderstandings...

The Great Spirit Chief who rules above all will smile upon this land... and this time the Indian race is waiting and praying.

I am tired of talk that comes to nothing.

[StellaBlue]

21. Now THAT is truly enlightened

and inspirational.

I finally got round to reading "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" last summer, and I think I should've been born a Cheyenne now. Except for the likely short lifespans and universal oppression of women, they had it figured out, IMHO. We 'civilized' people are so arrogant. I really appreciate how they saw our Anglo-Saxon lust for land, for 'progress', for 'use', as just what it was: unsustainable folly driven by our inability to accept that a) we are finite, and b) yet are part of the whole universe.

That book inspired by sig line. :)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

24. I must confess that I found this while looking for his most famous line.

I remembered, "from where the sun now stands, I will fight no more", but really was unaware of the other quotes.

I just posted them as a separate post because I found them so moving.

[magellan]

20. Mark Twain

He had a remarkable gift for teasing the good from the inanity of mankind and putting it into words we can all understand.

[Baselinereality]

22. Mark Twain Quote:

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence to never practice either of them.
- - - Mark Twain (about America)

[Lusted4]

28. MT Quote

There has been only one Christian. They caught him and crucified him--early.
- Notebook, 1898

[Joe Fields]

25. Ben Franklin, man about town.

[LWolf]

26. I have so many.

I just don't do favorites. My preferences are never that black and white.

Here are "some" of my favorite historical Americans:

Ben Franklin
Thomas Jefferson
Susan Anthony
Ansel Adams
Mother Jones

Many more.

[nealmhughes]

27. My distant cousin, Claude Pepper.

The biggest New Dealer of them all save Henry Wallace who dragged the Democratic Party into Lend Lease to aid the defeat of Nazism. He then had a second career after being a senator by being the dean of the House and champion of the elderly.

[Yupster]

29. George Washington

He could have molded the US government about any way he wanted to. He did a pretty good job.

[bigbrother05]

30. Will Rogers

`All I know is what I read in the papers.'

`They may call me a rube and a hick, but I'd a lot rather be the man who bought the Brooklyn Bridge than the man who sold it.'

`Everybody is ignorant. Only on different subjects.'

`This country is not where it is today on account of any one man. It is here on account of the real common sense of the Big Normal Majority.'

`I don't care how little your country is, you got a right to run it like you want to. When the big nations quit meddling then the world will have peace.'

`People talk peace. But men give their life's work to war. It won't stop 'til there is as much brains and scientific study put to aid peace as there is to promote war.'

`Take diplomacy out of a war and the thing would fall flat in a week.'

`You can be killed just as dead in an unjustified war as you can in one protecting your own home.'

`People don't change under governments. Governments change. People remain the same.'

`As bad as we sometimes think our government is run, it is the best run I ever saw.'

`Nowadays it is about as big a crime to be dumb as it is to be dishonest.'

`There is no income tax in Russia. But there's no income.'

`We elect our Presidents, be they Republican or Democrat, then start daring 'em to make good.'

`Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it.'

`Live your life so that whenever you lose, you are ahead.'

`My ancestors didn't come over on the Mayflower, but they met the boat.'

`Comedians haven't improved. Nothing has improved but taxes.'

`Personally, I have always felt the best doctor in the world is the Veterinarian. He can't ask his patients what's the matter. He's just got to know.'

`No man is great if he thinks he is.'

`It's great to be great, but its greater to be human.'

`America is a land of opportunity and don't ever forget it.'

`People are marvelous in their generosity if they just know the cause is there.'

`No nation ever had two better friends that we have. You know who they are? The Atlantic and Pacific oceans.'

`I am just an old country boy in a big town trying to get along. I have been eating pretty regular and the reason I have been is because I have stayed an old country boy.'

`Don't gamble. Take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it til it goes up then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it.'

`Whoever wrote the Ten Commandments made 'em short. They may not always be kept but they can be understood.'

`Statistics have proven there are twenty five bath tubs sold to every Bible.'

`We'll hold the distinction of being the only Nation in the history of the world that ever went to the poor house in an automobile.'

`We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.'

[elehhhhna]

31. fyi , I polled the Freeps.,

They said "Anne Frank".

[Yupster]

36. Perfect Freep answer

Barney Rubble.

[elehhhhna]

39. IT GETS WORSE: They think Anne Frank invented the

hot dog. Oy.

[Nikki Stone 1]

32. I'd have to say George Mason, author of the Bill of Rights

and a hell of a basketball team. :)

[Zomby Woof]

33. The builders, the laborers, the farmers, the miners...

The people who risked life and limb to better their lives and those of their children.

Those who sacrificed for the greater good of their communities, and ultimately, all of us.

The coal miners, the railroad builders, the engineers, the mill workers, the teachers, the rank and file who took arms against the goons and scabs when they broke the picket line, the women who took to the streets to secure their right to vote, the Native Americans, the African Americans who fight for civil rights, the migrant workers who put food on our tables, the invisible in our cities and towns in need of hospitals and medicine...

The "People" in 'We, the people...".

[SaveElmer]

34. The Happy Warrior...HHH

Hubert Humphrey

Greatest mayor in Minneapolis history...cleaned up its image by cutting organized crime off at its knees and cleaning up the government

Precipitated the Dixiecrat walkout at the 1948 Democratic convention with a stirring pro-civil rights speech...

One of the 5 most effective Senators in American History, visionary behind the Peace Corps, and shepherded the great civil rights bills through the United States Senate in the 1960's...

Vice President of the United States, Presidential candidate in 1968...

The United States Senate created a post specifically for him - Deputy President Pro Tempre...

One of the few members of congress honored with a joint session at which he said farewell as he died of bladder cancer...and one of the few members of congress given the honor of lying in state in the rotunda of the United States Capitol...

[Arkham House]

35. Absolutely! Tom Paine rocks!!!

Ever read his complete essays? This guy understood *everything* 200 years before anybody else...the greatest of the Founding Fathers...

[theanarch]

40. read his essays?

hey, i have the Moncure Conway edition of his complete works (birthday gift from my mother many decades ago), although the Eric Foner edition is better. Not only that, i've even read both.

[readmoreoften]

37. Walt Whitman

That crazy homo still gives me hope.