Comments by "Jim Luebke" (@jimluebke3869) on "OverSimplified" channel.

Dude, you forgot to mention Malenkov, who was Secretary between Stalin and Khrushchev. He outlived Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko, mostly by virtue of being okay with being exiled to Kazakhstan.
119
But by then he was an old-a** man, so Catherine Parr survives. Oops, spoiler.
4
Marie Antoinette: Born 2 Nov 1755 Died 16 Oct 1789. Married: My 1770. That's right, Louis XVI might not have been so much worried about people calling him a "fat, ill-bred boy", as he was worried he was expected to PUBLICLY BANG a 14-YEAR OLD. So cut him some slack.
2
Talleyrand is only "slightly" treacherous?
1
@RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictators You haven't heard about the rest of Talleyrand's history, have you. He stabbed more people in the back than Lu Bu.
1
@RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictators Two things can be true at once. I guess they deserved each other. France never really got back up again after Napoleon and the Revolution, did it. Overwhelmed in every subsequent European war, lost more and more international territory -- very sad.
1
@RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictators Dude, they've had 200 years now. You'd think they'd get over it. Maybe it's more than just Napoleon. Could it be that the Revolution left in a dead-end atheistic / nihilistic hole?... Nah. Every Frenchman knows that religion is a bad thing, not the foundational belief system of Western Civilization.
1
@RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictators You (or your generals, maybe) kind of do have to have a genius for something, if you're going to take over Europe in the first place. The fact that the Allies' adoption of the "fight where Napoleon isn't" strategy worked really well, points to Napoleon being the key to French military victories. I'm not really arguing that Napoleon's not a villain here, as the British thought. "Magnificent b**tard" is a real category. I'm arguing that Talleyrand showed off his penchant for treachery, in his actions against Napoleon. Have you looked into other things Talleyrand did in his career? I can see why you're harping on Napoleon though (despite my already conceding that his greatness only extended along a limited number of dimensions), the moral character of Talleyrand isn't really all that defensible a position.
1
 @RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictators Could you at least include the word "Talleyrand" in your replies? =(
1
@RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictators Ha, I guess Talleyrand was the "hero" that France needed, then. ;) Seriously, the man was incredibly corrupt and duplicitous, it's hard to believe. Thomas Jefferson was extremely idealistic about France, and had that idealism shaken when France's ambassador to America (ya boi Talleyrand) demanded hefty bribes to do his job.
1
@RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictators Talleyrand had an unerring tendency to do what was best for Talleyrand. On certain occasions, it turned out to be good for France as well. An awful lot of Frenchmen -- including the divisions the Bourbons sent to arrest him when he came back from Elba -- thought that Napoleon did the same. You're really wrecking your credibility when you call him an "incompetent general", here. Destructive? Sure. Overweening? Absolutely. Incompetent? That's absurd. You seem to have a lot of spleen to vent, regarding Napoleon. Where did that come from? Is your family from a village he burned down?
1
@RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictators I'm not actually as familiar with whether the people of France who were there at the time, thought Napoleon had their best interests at heart or not... At least, not compared to the French people at the time. The way that enough of the French rallied to his cause, even when it would have been easy enough to get rid of him, tells me they had other priorities. A lot of them followed him into battle, to their deaths. Honestly, maybe France (and Europe) was better off without them, considering the generation of peace Europe experienced after they were gone. At this point, I'm half-trolling with my arguments here, although I'm keeping them as truthful as possible. It's a fun way to explore borderline ideas. ;) I'm not even disagreeing with you too much, except where you claim Napoleon was an "incompetent general". That's an absolutely ludicrous claim. It's like claiming Hannibal Barca or Robert E. Lee were bad generals, because they lost in the end. When you make a claim like that, it's hard to take the rest of what you're saying seriously, even if I agree with a lot of it.
1
@RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictators I actually agree with you that Napoleon wrecked France (and a lot of the rest of the Continent), which anyone can see from the objective measures we can make -- no narrative necessary. The problem is, your narrative doesn't hold together, when faced with the facts. Napoleon was, on a battle for battle basis, or even on a campaign by campaign basis, an extremely successful general -- far too successful for that success to be attributed to anything other than talent verging on genius, on his part. He also should get credit for political reforms in a lot of the countries he conquered. "Everyone is equal. Except for me. I'm the best!" isn't such a bad way to go, once you remove the raging egotist from the top. Talleyrand, on the other hand, was slithering filth. In his lifetime as a sleazy, self-serving turncoat, one of his dirty deeds turned out to be good for France. ("Yay!", as Oversimplified might say.) This doesn't mean we should ignore all his other treachery, any more than we should ignore the fact that Napoleon wrecked France as he led it from h*** up to glory, and back down again. That's the problem with narratives of uniform praise or condemnation. Narrative can oversimplify, and not in a hilarious way. You should be skeptical of ANY narrative, including your own. But, you should be especially skeptical of anyone who comes in centuries later with a narrative that contradicts what people are on record as thinking at the time. The chances are pretty good that the later narrative is less aware of what was going on then - not more. Also -- be skeptical of any historian that makes a big deal of "Narrative". They're a waste of time, compared to the ones that stick as close as possible to the facts.
1
@RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictators ROFLMAO... Biden is probably best compared to one of Napoleon's many opponents at Waterloo, William George Keith Elphinstone, especially in his later years with the Kabul Garrison. I have to laugh, not because so many international figures are laughing, but because life's absurdities just don't stop.
1
@RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictators Again, off-topic. Look up Elphinstone, if you want a good Biden comparison.
1
@RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictators Actually I would have called Wellington the hero of the story, rather than Napoleon. Talleyrand is still a snake, though. And Biden's still more comparable to Elphinstone than any other major historical figure I can think of, and I'm only saying that because I devoutly hope James Buchanan isn't a good comparison.
1
@RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictators You are hilariously easy to troll. =) Seriously, why all the Napoleon-hate?
1
@RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictators Never claimed Napoleon was perfect; just that his successes (of which there were at least as many as his failures) fairly earned him a reputation for genius. What I am claiming, and have from the start, is Talleyrand was an extremely morally compromised fellow. I can understand why you're expending so much ammunition attacking Napoleon though; it's much, much harder to defend Talleyrand. =)
1
@RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictators Hey, you mentioned Talleyrand this time. Cool! You know, if it had just been this instance of his turning coat, I wouldn't have been so ready to criticize. But throughout the Revolution and the governments after, he was always ready to betray anyone at any time, always ready to be completely unscrupulous, always looking out for himself. "I survived" are probably the only honest words he ever spoke. Although, "It was worse than a crime, it was a mistake" is very illuminating. And honestly, you seem to be having so much fun blackguarding Napoleon from one end of the internet to the other whenever I say anything factual and positive about him. Who am I to deny you such joy? =D I'm not devoted to much of any narrative about Napoleon, and you bring up some very good points. However, the one of us in the throes of "Narrative" to the point of denying actual facts (such as, that he had any talents at all), seems to be you. Any belief you might have that everyone (or indeed, anyone in particular) believes a narrative to the exclusion of facts, is projection on your part. You should be careful with it. You've said so many patently false things in your attacks on Napoleon, that I started to question whether I was right to agree with you on the true ones.
1
It's called "Fabian YouTubing".
1
3:38 - First thing we did upon concluding the Peace of Paris after the American Revolution? Ask the French to loan us EVEN MORE MONEY. Wow, Ben Franklin really had brass ones, didn't he?
1