On the basis of the article's logic....

Most evil Brit: Margaret Thatcher.

@ JamesYanik: Mother Teresa was neither American nor British.

My Picks:

I'd argue the two biggest crimes in American history are the genocide of the Native Americans and slavery. ("Honorable" mention: the Japanese-American internment camps, but "at least" those were comparably short, and not as many people died...which is more about how awful the former two are than anything else.) However, I'd argue that you can't pin the genocide on any one figure, as it took place over hundreds of years, across more liberal and more conservative Presidencies and Congresses...it was just a society-wide disgrace.

On that note, I'd pick the leadership of the CSA as the Most Evil Americans. The Confederacy, defending slavery long after it should've been abolished, breaking up the Union, and spawning later and persistent evils (see: the KKK.)

Most Evil Brit...

Not my country or history, so I'm obviously not as qualified to make a pick, so please correct my choices if you think them unfair, British WebDippers...

Oliver Cromwell seems a nasty figure, almost a proto-Robespierre, ie, setting up a revolution for more democratic rights, only to become a tyrant, and his actions vs. the Irish are hotly debated, but could be held against him as well...

Then again, he also allowed Jews to return to England, and Edward I, for this expulsion of the Jews, would be another partisan choice of mine.

There are probably better choices, and nasty figures from when the West was, you know, carving up the world...again, I'll let someone more qualified than I get this one going properly. :)

Aaaaaannnnddd Margaret Thatcher, response #2, lol!

She makes the list faster than I would've expected...though she's as inevitable as someone saying the worst American was FDR or Obama.

Don't get me wrong, I loathe her policies, but it still seems sort of partisan to pick figures whom one side loves and the other side hates...I would hope most Americans could agree defending slavery was wrong, even though I can hear the CSA apologists from here...

thatcher was evil, she's partisan like hitler is - nazis love him, others don't. same with thatcher basically.

*Sigh*

I hate Thatcher...I mean, I HATE Thatcher...but come on.

See, this is why I hate bringing up contemporary political figures in these things.

Thatcher was, in my view, a nasty, bigoted, spitefully-callous individual who'd probably look at Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol" and fall in love (were she capable of such feeling) and call Dickens a dirty good-for-nothing socialist.

That being said...she didn't put 6 million Jews/gays/gypsies/Jehovah's Witnesses into ovens, for goodness' sake!

She's NOT Hitler!

I REALLY hate that comparison...when FOX does it with Obama, when MSNBC did it with Dubya--it trivializes the true horror and evil of Hitler and his actions when every tin-pot crackpot politician of the day, year or even decade is equated to arguably the most evil dictator of modern times ("arguably," OK, let's not get into the Stalin vs. Hitler thing...we can all agree both were miserable pieces of shit, yes?)

So, yeah.

Maggie Thatcher--awful person, despise her politics...

But unless, in addition to hating the gays, she flash-fried a few million, Hitler she ain't.

Thomas Midgley, Jr - not content with introducing lead into petrol (gasoline) when the effects of lead poisoning were widely known, he also tried to destroy the ozone and environment by developing CFCs. Well played sir.

Dung Beetle & Aardvark
David Skylark & Aaron Rappaport

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN9cekAMyaM

Michael Bay and Adam Susan

i didn't say she was hitler, but she was partisan in the way hitler was partisan, only deluded shits can like her. and she was evil.

but most evil brit was churchill, and his track record of racist deaths is rather scary

A particlarly stupid obiwanobiwan thread. How are we measuring "evil"? It's just people's political prejudices, as far as I can see. And should we be surprised? That's all the clickbait HuffPo article was.

Rutherford B. Hayes? Charles Manson? John C. Calhoun? Fred Phelps?

Ronald Reagan who once he got elected let his underlings run amuck. From the Iran-Contra crowd that shipped weapons through Israel to Iran to get money to run a war in Central America without the consent or oversight of the Congress. To James Watt who believed we were in the end of days so we could strip mine national parks when the world would be gone soon.

There are still some that believe before the election VP candidate Bush slip out of the country to secretly meet with Iranians to negotiate a deal over the 52 American hostages. Iran would hold off on their release until after Carter lost the election in return for the arm sales that started Iran-Contra. This lead to the Iranian policy of kidnapping Americans in Lebanon whenever Iran needed more weapons for it's war with Iraq.

Most evil Brit?

Grand Moff Tarkin, obviously.

Rather sneaky thread, this one. No real likelihood of reading anything new or enlightening, but an excellent opportunity for forum members to demonstrate their personal prejudice, lack of reasoning and all round stupidity.

Hayes - ended Reconstruction, which could very well have ended on a much less corrupt note, for entirely political gain.
Manson - deranged serial kill that wanted to start a race war.
Calhoun - incited America to go into a war it couldn't win in 1812, and later incited South Carolina to be the nonconformist bitch that would one day lead the way of secession from the Union.
Phelps - kind of a stretch. Anti-everything bitch that didn't know how to not piss people off. Not as bad as the other people I mentioned, so I can't really say he was the MOST evil.

"Rather sneaky thread, this one. No real likelihood of reading anything new or enlightening, but an excellent opportunity for forum members to demonstrate their personal prejudice, lack of reasoning and all round stupidity."

I don't know what you're talking about, Octavious...

Everyone on this website is a kind, calm, rational, and respectful at all times. We do not engage in sniping and we *certainly* don't have any kind of personal prejudices to air...

I mean, I clearly stated a *dislike* of posting answers here on the basis of political prejudice, and I think Invictus really understood that, and gave a constructed and well-reasoned response.

I don't for a moment think it is intentionally sneaky, but regardless of your attempts to steer us down a civilised path threads have lives of their own and this has bitter and twisted written all over it.

Darth Vader is clearly American, despite his northern European name... Not sure about the Emperor though. I've always suspected he's Canadian...

"Palpatine" sounds suspiciously close to "poutine". You may be on to something.

If he's Canadian, why not a giant Maple Leaf instead of a giant ball for the Death Star?

Just seems a bit of an uninspired design, really...or perhaps it could be puck shaped?

No, no, mapleleaf isn't here anymore, obi.

"Ronald Reagan who once he got elected let his underlings run amuck. "

In fairness, if the American intelligence establishment wants to run amok, there's not a whole lot a two-bit actor/mediocre governor is going to be able to do about it when his whole regime was hand-picked by the number-2 man (who happened to be the former head of the CIA and probably secretly tried to have Reagan killed with an MK-Ultra assassin (Hinckley) shortly after his inauguration). Some evil things may've happened under Reagan's watch, but that makes him a poor steward more than it makes him an evil man.

"Hayes - ended Reconstruction, which could very well have ended on a much less corrupt note, for entirely political gain."

Um... Reconstruction was a corrupt failure from the get-go.

I nominate Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for introducing socialism to the United States, establishing the first federal-level regulations on privately owned firearms, and generally shitting all over the Constitution.

I also nominate Woodrow Wilson for being president during the year 1913, which saw the 16th Amendment, 17th Amendment, and the Federal Reserve Act, three of the most sinister pieces of legislation in American history.

I also second Ronald Reagan's nomination, for Iran-Contra, banning machine guns for civilian ownership in 1986 with the Firearm Owners' "Protection" Act, and in general being a false messiah for the modern GOP.

Are we just gonna gloss over how Tolstoy thinks George Bush was behind the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan? I think we've got a new most absurd forum conspiracy theory.

"I also nominate Woodrow Wilson for being president during the year 1913, which saw the 16th Amendment, 17th Amendment, and the Federal Reserve Act, three of the most sinister pieces of legislation in American history."

Really? Income Tax Reform...that's worthy of the word "sinister?" O.o

Has that word, like "epic," just lost all meaning now?

And explain what's so bad about the direct election of Senators.

"I nominate Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for introducing socialism to the United States, establishing the first federal-level regulations on privately owned firearms, and generally shitting all over the Constitution."

So...not the Japanese-American internment camps...screw all those harmed THERE...

Gunfighter's taking issue with FDR for...gun regulations. Well, I guess that's appropriate to his name...but really? Really? Again, Gunfighter, this isn't "People I Disagree With Politically-Speaking," this is for the MOST *EVIL* AMERICAN...

And in that instance, instead of choosing champions of slavery, or condemning violence against blacks, the Native Americans, the Japanese-Americans, sexism towards women, ANY of that...

You see the true evils of America as boiling down to...

Tax reform, gun regulations, and direct election of Senators.

Uh-huh...

And there was also his follow-up post where he condemned Reagan for MORE gun regulations. I think we're seeing a pattern here.