Most Brutal/Lethal Regime/Institution Ever

[haas mark]

I will say Nazi Germany for the sole reason that they did it on purpose. Sure, a lot of them had a high death toll but think about it:

The Mongol Horde: War. Of course there's gonna be massive death involve. Especially when trying to conquer larg countries.

Western Imperialists: Many of the deaths were due to illnesses brought form Europe, not just the warmongering. They can't account for all the deaths by weapons-use alone.

Communists: Lack of human rights is not the same as brutal....its just immoral.

Abrahamics: This comes *very* close in second. But they also were performing a lot of warmongering, and so I don't believe that they should be accredited.

Nazis: A lot of warmongering yes, but the most immoral of all. They were set to commit genocide, ethnic cleansing, and the like.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I will say Nazi Germany for the sole reason that they did it on purpose. Sure, a lot of them had a high death toll but think about it:

The Mongol Horde: War. Of course there's gonna be massive death involve. Especially when trying to conquer larg countries.

*aghast* You think 25% civilian casualities across an entire nation of millions is accidental collateral damage? Sure the Nazis are particularly sick for literally building infrastructure to efficiently execute innocent people. One percent of the world's population was consciously exterminated. Slicing the heads of all inhabitants to ensure no one lived is not accidental.

Western Imperialists: Many of the deaths were due to illnesses brought form Europe, not just the warmongering. They can't account for all the deaths by weapons-use alone.

This is generally true. The atrocities were as sick as the aforementioned, but most of the deaths were just part of domination and oppression as usual. Not murder for its own sake.

Communists: Lack of human rights is not the same as brutal....its just immoral.

The gulags were on purpose. The Kampuchea Killing Fields proved that with mere shovels genocidal freaks could do their dirty work. Mao's Cultural Revolution purposely liquidated local farmers in the name of exterminating "imperialists" and "capitalists" to eliminate any possibility of local control to their will. You're right about the collectivism though, I don't think that was designed to kill persay.

"If you kill ten million, it is a statistic." - Joseph Stalin

Abrahamics: This comes *very* close in second. But they also were performing a lot of warmongering, and so I don't believe that they should be accredited.

I'd put them after Communists. They were quite so brutal and all their bullshit was accumulative over thousands of years and never quite comparable to what the Mongols did in a century. And a lot of the more recent stuff is more Western Imperialism.

Nazis: A lot of warmongering yes, but the most immoral of all. They were set to commit genocide, ethnic cleansing, and the like.

Nothing to refute here, sadly. The Nazis were sick fuckers.

[fgalkin]

Just some facts about the Mongol invasion of Russia:

The city of Ryasan in Russia was the first city conquered by the Monglos. The current city of Ryasan is actually 100km away from where the original city stood. The original city (with a population of 10,000+) was destroyed so utterly it was decided not to rebulid it. According to eyewitnesses, there was not a single structure was left standing, and not a single resident survived. Most of the women and children were herded into a church and set on fire.

The city of Kiev was one of the largest and most prosperous cities in Europe. It had poulation of up to 100,000. It was conquered by the Mongols in 1242 (IIRC). When a European traveler saw it a few years later, it had a population of 200, most of them new residents (i.e. not present during the slaughter).

This is in no way accidental.

[Joe]

The Roman Cathlic Church.

The Crusades, the Inquisition, and countless little barbaraties, wars, and atrocities. They've spilled more blood than just about anyone.

The Inquisition is seriously overblown. IIRC, only a few thousand people died in it over the course of several hundred years (of course, I very well may have my head up my ass on this one). And while the Catholic Church must share quite a bit of the blame for the Crusades, it's completely unfair to place it all on their shoulders; there were PLENTY of other motivations for the Crusades, the religion was for the most part a justification. I remember my High School History teacher, a very intelligent lady (pardon me if I'm appealing to authority here), arguing that the religious justification was complete BS.

Also, anyone who voted for anybody other than the Communists needs to read up on their history. There is no group that has caused as much death, destruction, and human suffering as the damn commies, in any century. And they still have apologists.

[Darth Wong]

The Inquisition is seriously overblown. IIRC, only a few thousand people died in it over the course of several hundred years (of course, I very well may have my head up my ass on this one).

It's not the body-count, it's the cruelty of the torture.

And while the Catholic Church must share quite a bit of the blame for the Crusades, it's completely unfair to place it all on their shoulders; there were PLENTY of other motivations for the Crusades, the religion was for the most part a justification. I remember my High School History teacher, a very intelligent lady (pardon me if I'm appealing to authority here), arguing that the religious justification was complete BS.

Right. So the endless fighting over the otherwise worthless "Holy City" of Jerusalem served some non-religious purpose? What would that purpose be, pray tell? Was there some precious resource there? Hmmm ... no. Was there some crucial strategic advantage to be had by seizing it? Hmmm ... no. Face it; it was a religious war. People make excuses for it because they're afraid to face the truth.

Also, anyone who voted for anybody other than the Communists needs to read up on their history. There is no group that has caused as much death, destruction, and human suffering as the damn commies, in any century. And they still have apologists.

Everyone has apologists. Manifest Destiny killed 60 million in the Americas alone, yet you still have people not only dismissing its atrocities, but actually celebrating its first figurehead, Columbus.

[fgalkin]

Everyone has apologists. Manifest Destiny killed 60 million in the Americas alone, yet you still have people not only dismissing its atrocities, but actually celebrating its first figurehead, Columbus.

Columbus was not to blame for what happened to native americans. he did not know what's going to happen. he was merely looking for a way to india. He was not one of the conquistadors.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't "manifest destiny" a term used to refer only to the wester expansion of the US in the 19th century?

Have a very nice day
-fgalkin

[Joe]

The Inquisition is seriously overblown. IIRC, only a few thousand people died in it over the course of several hundred years (of course, I very well may have my head up my ass on this one).

It's not the body-count, it's the cruelty of the torture.

In which the Communists probably also take the cake. Read some passages from The Black Book of Communism. Chilling stuff. And why should cruelty of torture take precedence over body-count? If the Church tortured a couple thousand people to death with stunning brutality and Imaginary Regime A killed 10 million people with a simple bullet to the head, which is the more brutal and destructive institution?

And while the Catholic Church must share quite a bit of the blame for the Crusades, it's completely unfair to place it all on their shoulders; there were PLENTY of other motivations for the Crusades, the religion was for the most part a justification. I remember my High School History teacher, a very intelligent lady (pardon me if I'm appealing to authority here), arguing that the religious justification was complete BS.

Right. So the endless fighting over the otherwise worthless "Holy City" of Jerusalem served some non-religious purpose? What would that purpose be, pray tell? Was there some precious resource there? Hmmm ... no. Was there some crucial strategic advantage to be had by seizing it? Hmmm ... no. Face it; it was a religious war. People make excuses for it because they're afraid to face the truth.

Didn't say it was a non-religious war. Just said there were other factors which drove it.

Also, anyone who voted for anybody other than the Communists needs to read up on their history. There is no group that has caused as much death, destruction, and human suffering as the damn commies, in any century. And they still have apologists.

Everyone has apologists. Manifest Destiny killed 60 million in the Americas alone, yet you still have people not only dismissing its atrocities, but actually celebrating its first figurehead, Columbus.

Caused mostly by a lack of knowledge; the American school system does not do a very good job of teaching these particular atrocities. The commie apologists are fully aware of the horrible bruality of their ideology in practice, but still make excuses like "it wasn't real communism!" or, as one moronic Frenchman said a while back, "the Nazis killed out of hatred of humanity, but the Communists killed out of love."

[Joe]

Everyone has apologists. Manifest Destiny killed 60 million in the Americas alone, yet you still have people not only dismissing its atrocities, but actually celebrating its first figurehead, Columbus.

Columbus was not to blame for what happened to native americans. he did not know what's going to happen. he was merely looking for a way to india. He was not one of the conquistadors.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't "manifest destiny" a term used to refer only to the wester expansion of the US in the 19th century?

Have a very nice day
-fgalkin

You're correct, I think. The term Manifest Destiny did not come into common use until the late 18th Century, IIRC, and Manifest Destiny did not have nearly the death toll of earlier genocides (the Filipino conquest, which can also be considered Manifest Destiny had a high death toll, however).

[Steve]

It is. "Manifest Destiny" was the belief by US expansionists that the Republic should be spread across North America.

It's kind of silly to blame the Church and the colonials for the various diseases that decimated nine times over the Native American population. Like they purposely caused it from the beginning.

And why has nobody mentioned the Aztecs? They murdered hundreds of thousands during their reign, and in a very horrible and painful way. In the four day dedication of the Great Temple of Huitzilopochtil in 1487, the Aztecs butchered over 80,000 people as human sacrifices. They achieved, at that time, a deaths-per-minute ratio higher than that of Auschwitz at it's peak! And without the gas that the Germans used, oh no, for the Aztecs it was not the assembly line method of gassing, but the far more painful tearing out of their victims' beating hearts from their chests.

Quite frankly, that bloodthirsty spouse-killing bastard Cortès did the world a favor when he toppled that empire....

[Joe]

It is. "Manifest Destiny" was the belief by US expansionists that the Republic should be spread across North America.

It's kind of silly to blame the Church and the colonials for the various diseases that decimated nine times over the Native American population. Like they purposely caused it from the beginning.

And why has nobody mentioned the Aztecs? They murdered hundreds of thousands during their reign, and in a very horrible and painful way. In the four day dedication of the Great Temple of Huitzilopochtil in 1487, the Aztecs butchered over 80,000 people as human sacrifices. They achieved, at that time, a deaths-per-minute ratio higher than that of Auschwitz at it's peak! And without the gas that the Germans used, oh no, for the Aztecs it was not the assembly line method of gassing, but the far more painful tearing out of their victims' beating hearts from their chests.

Quite frankly, that bloodthirsty spouse-killing bastard Cortès did the world a favor when he toppled that empire....

Indeed, other tribes native to Mexico were more than happy to join Cortez in defeating the regime that had been slaughtering and enslaving them for years.

Another point I'd like to make, not to you Steve, but to everyone; it's not like the Europeans introduced genocide and brutality to North America. They just did it with far greater frequency.

And as for your comment about the Church and Europeans not intending to kill the Indians with disease: mostly true, but not completely; it was a common practice to send smallpox infested blankets into Indian-populated areas.

[Joe]

One more thing about the Aztecs; hoo boy, do they have massive amounts of apologists. I must have been forcefed garbage about how glorious and advanced Aztec civilization was with little mention of the brutality of that civilization a hundred times in high school. Multicultural education in action. The Mayans too; despite evidence appearing as early as the damn 1940's that the Mayan Empire was another bloodthristy civilization, the news that the Mayans were not the wonderful peace-loving people I had been taught they were was a surprise to me when I heard it.

[Darth Wong]

Most people seem to give civilizations bonus points for nice architecture: the Egyptians, the Romans, the Aztecs. Just an observation.

[Sea Skimmer]

One more thing about the Aztecs; hoo boy, do they have massive amounts of apologists. I must have been forcefed garbage about how glorious and advanced Aztec civilization was with little mention of the brutality of that civilization a hundred times in high school. Multicultural education in action. The Mayans too; despite evidence appearing as early as the damn 1940's that the Mayan Empire was another bloodthristy civilization, the news that the Mayans were not the wonderful peace-loving people I had been taught they were was a surprise to me when I heard it.

Yeah, those daily human sacrifices and their armies being armed with relatively non-lethal weapons specifically to provide more prisoners for sacrifice don’t seem to be mentioned much.

[Knife]

Most people seem to give civilizations bonus points for nice architecture: the Egyptians, the Romans, the Aztecs. Just an observation.

The higher the technology, the higher the body count. A small group of people with fuzy underware and a spear can not kill in the quantities of a small group of people with RDX strapped to their bodies, or a E 11 in their hands.

[Illuminatus Primus]

The Inquisition is seriously overblown. IIRC, only a few thousand people died in it over the course of several hundred years (of course, I very well may have my head up my ass on this one).

It's not the body-count, it's the cruelty of the torture.

Come on Wong, like the dead in the fields of Cambodia care that they had their heads bashed in by a shovel as opposed to being gassed like the Jews in the camps?

And while the Catholic Church must share quite a bit of the blame for the Crusades, it's completely unfair to place it all on their shoulders; there were PLENTY of other motivations for the Crusades, the religion was for the most part a justification. I remember my High School History teacher, a very intelligent lady (pardon me if I'm appealing to authority here), arguing that the religious justification was complete BS.

Right. So the endless fighting over the otherwise worthless "Holy City" of Jerusalem served some non-religious purpose? What would that purpose be, pray tell? Was there some precious resource there? Hmmm ... no. Was there some crucial strategic advantage to be had by seizing it? Hmmm ... no. Face it; it was a religious war. People make excuses for it because they're afraid to face the truth.

I understand you're trying to raise awareness toward the atrocities of Christendom, but the Crusades were hardly deranged, reasonless butcher-fests. They did go and come back with reasons other then "the Pope told me so." Barbarossa had issues with his own vassals trying to take control but he marched off to reclaim territory of his vassals. These men weren't stupid fundies mindlessly marching to Jerusalem. They had money and power at stake because it was their land indirectly thanks the fuedalism.

The Crusades were religious, but they were triggered by the persecution of pilgrams. It wasn't a strict infadel vs. believer deal, as the Muslims had held Isreal for a couple hundred years and Europe and the Pope didn't give a fuck then. It was more oppressive Turkish masters that caused things to become a problem for the Byzantines in Asia Minor and the harrassing of pilgrams that brought it to the political landscape of the Vatican. Sure they butchered just like the Muslim conquests and the Mongol conquests, but it wasn't a bizarre meaningless, reasonless Christian jihad.

The other Crusades involved the monarchs of major European powers to retake lands in the Holy Land because the lords and princes of the Crusader states were vassals to those monarchs. They were retaking land for their underlings. Jerusalem processed thousands of traders and pilgrams a year. Jerusalem was money and the capital for one of their vassals. They were retaking land they'd be endowed with by their vassals which conquered them in the First Crusade. The fighting was to retake land. If the war was really that religious, then why did the Crusaders tolerate the Muslims and the Jews after the initial slaughter?

Sure it killed people, lots of people, but it doesn't compare to utter destruction reeked by the others like the Mongols. After the Crusaders landed, there was still a Holy Land left to fight over. If it would've been the Mongols, the cities would've been flattened and the inhabitants completely exterminated.

Also, anyone who voted for anybody other than the Communists needs to read up on their history. There is no group that has caused as much death, destruction, and human suffering as the damn commies, in any century. And they still have apologists.

Everyone has apologists. Manifest Destiny killed 60 million in the Americas alone, yet you still have people not only dismissing its atrocities, but actually celebrating its first figurehead, Columbus.

I don't know what they teach you Canadians, but the Manifest Destiny was largely a U.S. concept. There was little-to-no exploration going on as of the American Revolution, the settling and systematic displacement and destruction of the Native American peoples was largely a 19th phenomenon. Manifest Destiny is really a belief among Americans that our borders needed to stretch from coast-to-coast. And fucking Columbus still thought to the end he'd found Asia, so under no bizarre stetch is Columbus the originator of Manifest Destiny. We going to blame Einstein for the entire nuclear arms race because he wrote Roosevelt about the possibility of the nuke? Columbus was a mass-murderer and Manifest Destiny brought genocide, but the two are disconnected in concept and in over three hundred years.

It's kind of silly to blame the Church and the colonials for the various diseases that decimated nine times over the Native American population. Like they purposely caused it from the beginning.

Indeed. The infamous blanket statement was actually a 19th Century American practice that occured a couple times. It wasn't an Standard Operating Procedure, there's simply a quote of someone suggesting it to someone else, IIRC.

Most of the smallpox deaths were accidental, by contrast, the Mongols performed biological warfare with bubonic in the 13th Century as I previously mentioned. For that, they do deserve some credit for bringing it west and helping cause the Black Plague.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Most people seem to give civilizations bonus points for nice architecture: the Egyptians, the Romans, the Aztecs. Just an observation.

The higher the technology, the higher the body count. A small group of people with fuzy underware and a spear can not kill in the quantities of a small group of people with RDX strapped to their bodies, or a E 11 in their hands.

Tell that to the Kymer Rouge. Millions were executed with shovels to back of the head. Tell that to the Hutus and Tutsis of Rwanda. Machetes worked excellently. The UN failed itself by not allowing the Canadian troops down there to intervene.

[Joe]

Most people seem to give civilizations bonus points for nice architecture: the Egyptians, the Romans, the Aztecs. Just an observation.

True. The Egyptians in particular; so they built 3 absolutely useless pyramids. Big deal. I only hope that the laborers who built the pyramids were in fact slaves who were forced to do what they did, because the fact that thousands of people could have been brainwashed into building a worthless monument for one damn ruler really depresses me about the human race.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Most people seem to give civilizations bonus points for nice architecture: the Egyptians, the Romans, the Aztecs. Just an observation.

True. The Egyptians in particular; so they built 3 absolutely useless pyramids. Big deal. I only hope that the laborers who built the pyramids were in fact slaves who were forced to do what they did, because the fact that thousands of people could have been brainwashed into building a worthless monument for one damn ruler really depresses me about the human race.

They were paid and given livelihoods. There were small towns that the work camps became. Economic stimulus. Do you apply the same derision toward Franklin D. Roosevelt for arranging his work programs that produced Mount Rushmore? Who cares if it is viewed as useless now. Evidence says they were workers, not slaves, and a lot of people would kill for a fucking job in the world.

[Pablo Sanchez]

A Few Notes on the Mongols:

The destruction of cities and slaughter of innocents were cultural and military decisions, respectively. Mongols hated cities, didn't understand why anyone would live in a stinking disease pit, and had no use for them anyway... they took up valuable grazing space. So, they had no reason not to disperse the populace and burn cities. But why did they kill so many people?

One of the interesting parts of the Mongol conquests was how few of them there was in comparison to the natives. Only a few tens of thousands of actual Mongols actually participated in even the largest invasions, with the remainder of their armies fleshed out by nomadic auxilliaries and people temporarily conscripted from conquered areas. In essence, only a fraction of their army was reliable through victory and defeat, and a significant portion was unwilling cannon fodder. They couldn't afford to leave anyone in their rear. (In the few cases when they were merciful, they were betrayed) This isn't justification, but it gives some understanding of their reasoning.

As for the black death... that really was unintended collateral damage. The Mongols barely knew (or cared) that backwater Western Europe even existed, or that so many trading ships traversed the sea, or that the plague would spread so wildly and so devastatingly.

That said, they certainly get the vote for most devastating nation-state in history. Russia's society is still stunted, moderate Islam is still mostly dead, and they killed an unbelievable percentage of the world's population.

Communists come in second, for body count.

Fascism third.

Christian last.

[Sea Skimmer]

Most people seem to give civilizations bonus points for nice architecture: the Egyptians, the Romans, the Aztecs. Just an observation.

True. The Egyptians in particular; so they built 3 absolutely useless pyramids. Big deal. I only hope that the laborers who built the pyramids were in fact slaves who were forced to do what they did, because the fact that thousands of people could have been brainwashed into building a worthless monument for one damn ruler really depresses me about the human race.

More like they built thirty plus absolutely useless pyramids, then began digging massive tombs under a big hill kind of looked like a pyramid.

[Joe]

Most people seem to give civilizations bonus points for nice architecture: the Egyptians, the Romans, the Aztecs. Just an observation.

True. The Egyptians in particular; so they built 3 absolutely useless pyramids. Big deal. I only hope that the laborers who built the pyramids were in fact slaves who were forced to do what they did, because the fact that thousands of people could have been brainwashed into building a worthless monument for one damn ruler really depresses me about the human race.

They were paid and given livelihoods. There were small towns that the work camps became. Economic stimulus. Do you apply the same derision toward Franklin D. Roosevelt for arranging his work programs that produced Mount Rushmore? Who cares if it is viewed as useless now. Evidence says they were workers, not slaves, and a lot of people would kill for a fucking job in the world.

We can never see what could have come into being had so much human productivity, time, and money not been wasted on as worthless of a public works program as the pyramids (something that could have actually been consumed and used by someone other than a self-important asshole pharoah, perhaps?). Opportunity cost, my friend. As for Mt. Rushmore, it was nowhere near being a project on the same scale as the worthless pyramids, and it wasn't a selfish extravagance like the pyramids.

[fgalkin]

A Few Notes on the Mongols:

The destruction of cities and slaughter of innocents were cultural and military decisions, respectively. Mongols hated cities, didn't understand why anyone would live in a stinking disease pit, and had no use for them anyway... they took up valuable grazing space. So, they had no reason not to disperse the populace and burn cities. But why did they kill so many people?

One of the interesting parts of the Mongol conquests was how few of them there was in comparison to the natives. Only a few tens of thousands of actual Mongols actually participated in even the largest invasions, with the remainder of their armies fleshed out by nomadic auxilliaries and people temporarily conscripted from conquered areas. In essence, only a fraction of their army was reliable through victory and defeat, and a significant portion was unwilling cannon fodder. They couldn't afford to leave anyone in their rear. (In the few cases when they were merciful, they were betrayed) This isn't justification, but it gives some understanding of their reasoning.

As for the black death... that really was unintended collateral damage. The Mongols barely knew (or cared) that backwater Western Europe even existed, or that so many trading ships traversed the sea, or that the plague would spread so wildly and so devastatingly.

That said, they certainly get the vote for most devastating nation-state in history. Russia's society is still stunted, moderate Islam is still mostly dead, and they killed an unbelievable percentage of the world's population.

Communists come in second, for body count.

Fascism third.

Christian last.

My points exactly. Every other regime was created by the very people who suffered from it. They did not strive to destroy other cultures like the mingols did.

[Pablo Sanchez]

My points exactly. Every other regime was created by the very people who suffered from it. They did not strive to destroy other cultures like the mingols did.

Still, its interesting to consider that the Mongols didn't strike out for nationalism (they weren't technically a real nation) or simple imperialism. They just wanted some nice things to put in their yurts.

[fgalkin]

My points exactly. Every other regime was created by the very people who suffered from it. They did not strive to destroy other cultures like the mingols did.

Still, its interesting to consider that the Mongols didn't strike out for nationalism (they weren't technically a real nation) or simple imperialism. They just wanted some nice things to put in their yurts.

Well, the western imperialists didn't want to bring all the diseases to the New World either. All they wanted was some gold.

[Raptor 597]

My points exactly. Every other regime was created by the very people who suffered from it. They did not strive to destroy other cultures like the mingols did.

Still, its interesting to consider that the Mongols didn't strike out for nationalism (they weren't technically a real nation) or simple imperialism. They just wanted some nice things to put in their yurts.

Well, the western imperialists didn't want to bring all the diseases to the New World either. All they wanted was some gold.

Yeah, they kinda wanted too keep their Native American slaves, but eventually enslaved another race. I dunno the Western Nations at that time were all in Christainity so that could also be counted be the Abrhanic Religions.