Posted 07 August 2009 - 04:48 AM
I suppose you'd say that the guy that made Oswald's rifle assisted him? I get what you're saying, but I'm not trying to claim that every single one of the significance people in history looked after themselves from birth and didn't get help from anyone. The point is that they could have done something completely different if they had chosen to, and it would have made a dramatic effect on human history and there are people that have made decisions that have effected millions, maybe even billions of people.
And to claim that battles are won by soldiers not generals is abit short sighted. Yes, physical its the soldiers that go all the killing, but the fact is there are many examples in military history where generals have won battles mostly in strategy, think Hannibal at Cannae, Caesar at Alessa, Alexander the Great at Gaugamela, etc. I could go on, but there are thousands of examples where Generals have won battles in the sense that if another General had been there in their place, they would have more than likely lost. Cannae is a clear example because it fundementally changed military doctrine, and has influenced military strategy all the way into modern warfare even.
All I'm saying is that there are individuals whom if they had been killed before they did what they did, the world would be unpredictability different.
Hell, just think about Einstein, it's pretty much accepted that if he had not been born or died before he wrote the special and general theories of relativity, and all his other theories and discoveries, that technologically we would be 50 years behind the current wave. Its not that it would not have happened if he hadn't been around, we would just would be far, far behind our current tech level. Sure, a lot of other people were required to refine his work, but it was him that made the more significance step that allowed them to do that and surely that's the biggest effect someone can have on human history?