Only Sane Man/Real Life: Difference between revisions

* [[wikipedia:Stanislav Petrov|Stanislav Petrov.]] Was monitoring the Soviet radar systems that were supposed to warn of a US nuclear attack. He saw 4 missiles heading toward the USSR from America. His job was to report this to his superiors & let them decide what to do (almost certainly an all-out counterstrike). But he decided it didn't make any sense for the US to attack with only 4 missiles and logged it as a technical error. He was right. He gambled the future of the world on his own judgment (and against the orders and procedures he was supposed to follow). You, me, our loved ones, and the entire world owe him our lives.

** The alternate history [http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/1983:_Doomsday 1983: Doomsday] involves a world in where Petrov was not present to be right.

*** Petrov has stated that claims of him being punished or "forced out of the army" are false and that he was "neither punished nor rewarded for his actions". Make of that what you will.

* Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy in U.S. president Abraham Lincoln's cabinet. Between Lincoln, Secretary of State William Seward, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Henry Halleck, sometimes commander of the Army of the Potomac George Meade, Generals Grant, Sherman, Fremont, Sheridan, Rosecrans, Custer, etc., there was a lot of insanity to go around.

** For those who didn't read their history books... Lincoln was melancholic bordering on manic depressive, Seward was an egomaniac constantly trying to control everyone else's department, Stanton was paranoid and contemptuous of pretty much everyone, and the various generals in charge of the war effort had personal issues up the wazoo. Compared to that lot, Welles was ''normal'' (and considered the most competent of Lincoln's Cabinet members who took a disorganized and barely functioning U.S. Navy and within months created an effective blockade of Confederate ports).

*** It should be said that the primary source for what historians know about Lincoln's cabinet come from Secretary Welles himself, via his diary. Despite Welles' proven competence, a grain of salt ''is'' called for.

*** Seward would later prove to be the Only Sane Man in the cabinet of Lincoln's successor, [[Andrew Johnson]]. While Johnson and the other, Radical Republican members of his cabinet spent most of the administration at each other's throats, Seward was the one guy actually managing to get some stuff done, including purchasing Alaska from the Russians (at the time nicknamed "Seward's Folly," but in retrospect something of a masterstroke).

{{quote|'''Anatole France:''' ''Emperor Karl is the only decent man to come out of the war in a leadership position, yet he was a saint and no one listened to him. He sincerely wanted peace, and therefore was despised by the whole world. It was a wonderful chance that was lost.''}}

* John Keeling, one of the judges at the March 10, 1662 witch trial of Amy Denny and Rose Cullender. While his superior, Matthew Hale, and most of the rest of the town were willing to convict the other two on hatred, and the evidence of children and people who their husbands had owed money to, Keeling (who oddly, was generally regarded as a [[Jerkass]] [[Hanging Judge]]) went out of his way to ensure that the trial involved things like evidence, and cross-examination. He uncovered many of the petty grievances against the women, and suggested that the deaths of various livestock were probably due to natural causes. He forced the star witnesses, a pair of girls who went into fits whenever they approached Amy and Rose to wear blindfolds, and when this lead to their having fits whenever they approached anyone they were ''told'' was one of the defendants, implied that maybe the girls were making it up. He refused to convict on "the words of children" and his general attitude seems to have been one of "She's a witch huh? [[Sarcasm Mode|Sure she is]]." Records show that Keeling had [[Hope Spot|all but turned the jury around]], when his superior, [[Jerkass|Matthew Hale]] (who happened to be friends with the father of one of the witnesses) basically told them it was their duty as jurors and Christians to convict, resulting in both women being hanged.

** In the end, however, it was only through the efforts of a handful of Reverends such as [[Awesome McCoolname|Increase Mather]] and Samuel Willard and other sane people like the aforementioned judge that the people were finally brought to their senses.

 

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[[Category:Real Life]]