Dictators in World History

none of them we wouldn't have been better off without, and that includes everyday narcissists who never made it that far either.

as long as people can be conned into believing they have something to gain by a culture of inconsiderateness,
that what happens to someone else doesn't matter as long as it feathers their own nest,
that somehow fail to see the illogic of indifference to the kind of world they create for themselves and each other by how they live in it..

the road to tyranny is paved with a culture of inconsiderateness, and tyranny is close enough to hell for me.

considerateness and reasonableness are the difference between heaven and hell, between utopia and tyranny.

and then you have beliefs that tell people to trust the desire to be feared.
none of which is endemic to the human genome, however much they try to tell you it is to make an excuse for it.

 

On your definition matey, a certain Magaret Hilda Thatcher (phth, phth, phth) fits very neatly when she said !There is no such thing as society".

 

it is unclear as to how exclusively or inclusively she intended the word, however, in general, yes she swam in the same waters.
and pioneers are seldom otherwise the best choices, just the ones who happened to be.

i do believe she earned a great deal of disaprobation, and most likely did actually earn it.
as has every beyond conservative without actually conserving or wishing to anything, in high office in the u.s., with which i am slightly more familiar.

raygun, the shrub, trikky dikky, even isenhour in as far as allowing mccarthy to be his pet.
and not intended any slack toward stalin, who certainly didn't deserve any,
but it was isenhour who coined the term and concept of iron curtain.
and of course today's wanna be world mafia cappo, donald chump, and his master putin who is closer to being the real thing. (and even putin has a russian mafia master who's name i forget)
oh there's no end to the list, it doesn't even take digging down into history, there's doofartay, and bones and arrows, and who knows how many more waiting in the wings.
a guy named johnson, and a woman ironically named green.

the list is very long, and the idea that they shared any one ideology in common is certainly a false,
as is the belief that any ideology, form of government, economics or belief is in any way superior to any other in the sense of having any immunity to it.

all are equally capable of moving in the positive direction of greater consideration and reasonableness, and in the opposite direction which is away from it,
which is the peril of the sort of authoritarianism we see becoming popular among people who somehow imagine their own contributions to conditions they find unpleasant,
somehow don't really count, and that somehow a universe that has no idea of their name, is out to get them.

not that there aren't people, themselves especially who aren't, 'out to get' anyone who refuses to hate logic, or pretend the same things as themselves.

it takes this acceptence of the false idea of the goodness of wishing to be feared, that makes it possible for people to want them,
or at least until they realize, what it is they've picked up. (which is unfortunately often only after they've been elected or otherwise put in positions of power)

nobody gets a free pass for what they call themselves or what they don't. but never forget there's always a lot of the pot calling the kettle black too.

 

Sorry to disabuse you matey, bbut it wasn't Eisenour that coined that phrase, but Churchill.

 

well anything's possible. i don't doubt the accuracy of what you say as to churchill having said it, and i know its a quibble, but either of them could have coined the concept privately first, and possibly shared it with others, their troops perhaps? i mean public speaches, much as historians love them to pin a date on things, are more often a reveal of what has already moved, then the actual creation of it. that aside, my point being rather, that stalin, bloody bastard that he otherwise was, did not.

 

Napoleon Bonaparte is one dictator whom I consider progressive, benevolent and idealistic.

It is said that Napoleon's rule of a few years was equivalent to the rule of most kings in a century as he brought very progressive changes in the legal and administrative structure of the regions he ruled in a short period of time, which was emulated by the constitutions of most countries around the world.

If a dictator indicates one who had total power over a country, most of the kings and sultans and rajas of the past were dictators themselves, but are addressed in more euphemistic and glorified terms. It was Napoleon who through personal example, showed the merit of meritocracy to the world. He arose from a poverty-stricken family, and had written of how he had to subsist on a single meal a day and sparse clothing during his school days. Through his military and administrative genius , he was able to rise in his career, and eventually forge an empire for himself against all odds, though he lost it due to the pressure of the combined weight of many foes who resented him and the ideals of the French Revolution.

He was also a cultured gentleman as well as shown by the interest he took in the sciences and arts, and his respect for the likes of Johan Goethe, Pierre-Simon Laplace, Joseph Fourier, Gaspard Monge, Edward Jenner and so on.

He was also a humanist who envisaged the european union and talked of a future time when european battles would be termed derogatorily as civil wars instead. This was an important ideal he stated as Europe was engaged in incessant battles and wars between aristocratic kingdoms upon the whims and fancies of frivolous kings, which took a major toll on the populations, producing cripples, widows and orphans.

 

I'm going to have to disabuse you of that.

The Napoleonic French constitution, together with the American Constitution were based upon a little tome written by one Thomas Paine - a man of Sussex.



He was also a humanist who envisaged the european union and talked of a future time when european battles would be termed derogatorily as civil wars instead. This was an important ideal he stated as Europe was engaged in incessant battles and wars between aristocratic kingdoms upon the whims and fancies of frivolous kings, which took a major toll on the populations, producing cripples, widows and orphans.[/QUOTE]

 

Yes, Napoleon was a fan of Thomas Paine's works and stated thus on Paine, "A statue of gold should be erected to him in every city in the universe."

Paine was also elected to the first French democratic parliament , and there are statues of him in Paris and a monument to him in New York at present.

 

No one rules if no one obeys. No dictator in history could have succeeded if lots of followers had not blindly obeyed them.