Admirable People

[mykcob4]

John Lennon

I used to feel that way too. This list is a pretty good representation of why I changed my mind. That's not to say I agree with all of it (like the 'talentless' part), but overall, John Lennon was a pretty awful person.

ETA that I very much admire Alan Turing, so as not to be a total wet blanket.

I don't know where you get that Lennon was an awful person. He had his problems but all and all he was very humanitarian when it was actually dangerous to be so. All the rockers now days that have decided to take up a cause follow in Lennon's footsteps. He was one of the first to actually put his money where his mouth was.

[Smartmarzipan]

Maximilian Kolbe

Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe, was a Polish Conventual Franciscan friar, who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz, located in German-occupied Poland during World War II.

After the outbreak of World War II, which started with the invasion of his nation by Nazi Germany, Kolbe provided shelter to refugees from Greater Poland, including 2,000 Jews whom he hid from Nazi persecution in his friary in Niepokalanów.

On 17 February 1941, he was arrested by the German Gestapo and imprisoned in the Pawiak prison. On 28 May, he was transferred to Auschwitz as prisoner #16670.

At the end of July 1941, three prisoners disappeared from the camp, prompting SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch, the deputy camp commander, to pick 10 men to be starved to death in an underground bunker in order to deter further escape attempts. When one of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, "My wife! My children!", Kolbe volunteered to take his place.

In his prison cell, Kolbe celebrated Mass each day and sang hymns with the prisoners. He led the other condemned men in song and prayer and encouraged them by telling them they would soon be with Mary in Heaven. Each time the guards checked on him, he was standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell and looking calmly at those who entered. After two weeks of dehydration and starvation, only Kolbe remained alive. The guards wanted the bunker emptied and they gave Kolbe a lethal injection of carbolic acid. Some who were present at the injection say that he raised his left arm and calmly waited for the injection. His remains were cremated on 15 August, the feast day of the Assumption of Mary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilia ... _Auschwitz

[Mister Agenda]

A. Philip Randolph

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/rel ... 53211196/1

[sab]

King Menelik 2

Defeated a major European power (Italy) at the Battle of Adowa in 1896 and stopped them making Ethiopia part of the Italian Empire.

[mykcob4]

King Menelik 2

Defeated a major European power (Italy) at the Battle of Adowa in 1896 and stopped them making Ethiopia part of the Italian Empire.

Here's a book on that battle that I actually have in my personal library.
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php? ... 0674052741
I have several books on Ethiopia. My main interest is that it is the oldest continual christian nation.
It is also the craddle of humankind (Rip Valley).

[sab]

We are all of those things. Unfortunately we are being ripped apart by Islamists.

[Mister Agenda]

Too bad Somalia was unable to prevent its occupation by Italy.

[mykcob4]

We are all of those things. Unfortunately we are being ripped apart by Islamists.

I would say that yopu being ripped apart by opertunist not exactly islamist. True they may be all muslims and they may even wage what is essentially a holy war, but the leaders are really profiteers that want land slaves and assets. The foriegn christians were just as bad in that nation. Man it seems like everybody at one time or another took a shot at Etheopia.
I have been there once when I was deployed to Mambasa Kenya. I took a long weekend trip there (the wild areas). Beautiful nation and freindly people. I could vacation there for decades and be as facinated equally to the first time I went there.

[Smartmarzipan]

Paul Walker did more than drive fast cars.

[youtube:1406679j]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxU4kDmRzIw[/youtube:1406679j]

In March 2010, Walker went to Constitución, Chile to offer his help and support to the people injured in the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck on February 27. He flew with his humanitarian aid team, Reach Out Worldwide, to Haiti to lend a helping hand to the 2010 Haiti earthquake victims.

An avid car enthusiast, he competed in the Redline Time Attack racing series in which he raced an M3 E92 and was on the AE Performance Team. His car was sponsored by Etnies, Brembo Brakes, Ohlins, Volk, OS Giken, Hankook, Gintani, and Reach Out Worldwide. Walker had been preparing for an auto show prior to his death.

Roger Rodas became Walker's financial adviser in 2007 and helped to establish Reach Out Worldwide. Rodas was the CEO of Always Evolving, a Valencia high-end vehicle performance shop owned by Walker. He shared a close friendship with his The Fast and the Furious co-star Tyrese Gibson.

Also...

Walker's first passion was marine biology; he joined the Board of Directors of The Billfish Foundation in 2006. He fulfilled a lifelong dream by starring in a National Geographic Channel series Expedition Great White (later retitled Shark Men), which premiered in June 2010. He spent 11 days as part of the crew, catching and tagging 7 great white sharks off the coast of Mexico. The expedition, led by Chris Fischer, founder and CEO of Fischer Productions, along with Captain Brett McBride and Dr. Michael Domeier of the Marine Conservation Science Institute took measurements, gathered DNA samples, and fastened real-time satellite tags to the great white sharks. This allowed Dr. Domeier to study migratory patterns especially those associated with mating and birthing over a 5-year period of time.

[youtube:1406679j]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BiB2Z6A8GY[/youtube:1406679j]

[Atheon]

Julian Assange
Edward Snowden
Bradley Manning
The Pirate Bay guys
... and others who fight for freedom.

[mykcob4]

Julian Assange
Edward Snowden
Bradley Manning
The Pirate Bay guys
... and others who fight for freedom.

As I said before these people had a choice to do things right and they would not have broken the law nor would they be traitors or have committed treason. I don't fault their motive. I fault their method. In past post I have laid out the proceedures and options they had, that  they could have used so I won't go in to it.
These are not brave admirable people. They are people that committed treason.
I agree that the NSA has gone too far but there are better more effective ways to go about reigning in the NSA. As a matter of fact I consider the NSA unconstitutional for it's very existance, but that is a civics matter and has nothing to do with the crimes that the people you chose. Just because the NSA committed crimes does not for one moment justify the crimes of the people on your list. If they had no other option, I would be 100% behind them but they had better legal options and chose fame over justice. That I cannot abide.

[Shiranu]

I know we have had this argument before so I won't go heavily into it, but when the law is both wrong and broken then you have no moral responsibility to follow it so long as you hurt no one in the process. They had no reason to believe that the legal means would either achieve anything or protect them because it hasn't demonstrated it has any intention to.

It's like telling a Chinese journalist who speaks out against the chairman or an Iranian informant that exposes the ayatollah as corrupt, "Why didn't you just follow the law? Instead you committed treason against China or Iran!". If Julian Assange or Chelsea Manning was Chinese, Russian, Korean or Iranian we would be singing accolades of how brave they were and how they stood up for the illegal or immoral actions of their regime. But if an American does the same thing, "Oh no, no, no! He is a traitor, he must swing from the ropes!".

It's just a silly double standard. Either it's not brave and admirable when other's do it, or it is. The nationality of the person should not change the moral implications. Also, good luck charging Assange with treason, since he isn't American....

[Agramon]

[mykcob4]

I know we have had this argument before so I won't go heavily into it, but when the law is both wrong and broken then you have no moral responsibility to follow it so long as you hurt no one in the process. They had no reason to believe that the legal means would either achieve anything or protect them because it hasn't demonstrated it has any intention to.

It's like telling a Chinese journalist who speaks out against the chairman or an Iranian informant that exposes the ayatollah as corrupt, "Why didn't you just follow the law? Instead you committed treason against China or Iran!". If Julian Assange or Chelsea Manning was Chinese, Russian, Korean or Iranian we would be singing accolades of how brave they were and how they stood up for the illegal or immoral actions of their regime. But if an American does the same thing, "Oh no, no, no! He is a traitor, he must swing from the ropes!".

It's just a silly double standard. Either it's not brave and admirable when other's do it, or it is. The nationality of the person should not change the moral implications. Also, good luck charging Assange with treason, since he isn't American....

As far as Snowden and Manning are concerned they had legal recourse that they could have taken and there is a certainty that they would have acheived what they thought was right without breaking the law. If the NSA was breaking the law (I'm sure they were) both Snowden and Manning could have gone to Congress without consequence. Noone will charge Assange with treason but he might have broke a few laws. I can't say for sure. I know that you can't pay to have someone else break the law and be innocent and that seems to be the circumstance with Assange. BTW payment can be in many forms.

[Franklin]

Moses was a prince in Egypt at a time when Egypt was in cultural decay (much like modern culture is).  Moses had the wisdom to know that decaying cultures can't be saved, so he took a bunch of uneducated slaves out of Egypt and constructed a religion to civilize them.  This religion was an amazing accomplishment as a tool for morality and is still with us today.  This is why Moses is the person I most admire.