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El Salvador’s ‘cool dictator’ boasts country would be ‘a one-party system’ after election win
(www.telegraph.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2024
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Dictatorships are not intrinsically bad.
You can have good dictators, even if they are rare.
If you can't comprehend this, then you are a victim of propaganda and indoctrination.
Sometimes, it's easier to convince the masses to vote against themselves than it is to convince a dictator to sell them out.
For example, Mexico vs. El Salvador.
15 years ago, nobody thought Mexico would have a worse gang problem than El Salvador. Without Bukele's heavy-handed approach to suppressing gangs, they would still be running rampant like they are in Mexico.
Yet they can't handle competition, accountability or limits to their power? Fuck off fascist.
The results speak for themselves.
Try to focus on pragmatism over whatever other ideology you think trumps it.
Mexico is democratic and they're practically run by gangs. Do you really think that's preferable for the people of El Salvador?
Should they go back to being ruled by gangs just to look good in the eyes of indoctrinated Westerners?
"The results speak for themselves" was a perfect way to undermine your own argument.
Care to elaborate?
No
Results? If you want to talk results let's talk about millions upon millions of dead Jews, political prisoners, and homosexuals.
That's just one bad example, right? How about the millions that starved because of bad management in a single party regime, I've got two of those to pick from.
Read a fucking book and try not to choose Mein Kampf.
I didn't know Bukele was responsible for all that.
You're seeing where he starts. There are plenty of examples of where he ends.
And there are no exceptions?
It's just a law of the universe?
What about all the atrocities committed by democracies?
This is what I mean by you being indoctrinated.
Wow, a literal whataboutism.
The absolute best case scenario is a Francisco Franco. Absolute best case.
And yes, it's an inherent part of human nature. The more consolidated power is within an organization, the more vulnerable it is to abuse. Dictatorships are on one end of the spectrum, direct democracies on the other.
Have you ever heard a parent say "eat your food, there are starving children in China"? The children were starving in China because Mao decided that sparrows were eating too much of the grain harvest and launched a pest eradication campaign. With nobody in a position of authority with the ability to stop the campaign (or even question the wisdom of it) and sparrows were killed en masse.
Sparrows eat grain but they also eat insects. With the sparrows gone the bugs got out of control and sparked a famine. It was the worst man-made disaster in human history. As many as 55 million people died because a dictator tried to do a good thing and was able to act without restriction or oversight.
One bad decision - even if made with the best intentions - can end in disaster. That's why checks and balances matter. Do they slow things down? Yes. But the chart-topping governmental fuck ups are all put there by totalitarians.
Non sequitur post of the year fellas.
Hard disagree there.
But it really depends on what you value as good and bad.
For instance, if you think that people have an inherent right to have a say in how they are governed, then a dictatorship can never be good because it infringes on that right in the most serious of ways.
If you think a stable and sustainable system of government that will last beyond the life of a few leaders is important, then dictatorship is not a good system, because one good dictator creates no guarantee that the next dictator will be good, and establishing a system of dictatorship affords a bad dictator that much more power to ruin lives.
What about when people vote against their own interests?
What about when the majority suppresses minorities?
They have the right to do so.
That is a bad thing. But talk about a dictatorship?? That's one person suppressing everybody else.
So it's better to be ruled by gangs than a dictator?
The people who were afraid to leave their homes that can now go outside made the wrong decision by electing a government to solve their problems?
Or, more realistically, you're too indoctrinated to understand how their real problems are more important than your philosophical ones.
Oh no! Somebody think of the gangbangers!
The fuck are you talking about?
You're replying to things I didn't say. Are you hearing voices or something?
Try again. Do better.
If people vote against their own interests, it is solely their fault, there is no way around it, deal with the consequences and do better next time. Saying that people must be protected against themselves means that you believe that your fellow human beings are inherently inferior to you and that they are not rational beings, akin to animals.
If you believe that you have intellectual superiority but you are not able to communicate that to your fellow countrymen, then you have failed thoroughly at being a politician, or you are not as superior as you think you are.
Name one "good" dictator. This shit has played out plenty of times and it always ends up the same.
Most of society throughout history has been ruled by dictators. There are probably a few who would pass for decent rulers, statistically speaking. A few, out of thousands.
But even if you're lucky enough to get one of the good ones, some shit bag will inevitably take their place and everyone is absolutely fucked with nothing they can do about it. Even rebellion is less and less of an option as militaries becomes increasingly efficient vs. armed citizenry.
It's a losing bet every time. Not ever worth considering in any modern society.
Dictator didn't mean back then what it means now: It was a time-limited emergency position, then oligarchy resumed. The Romans would call our current-day dictators tyrants and they tended to go the way of Caesar: Stabbed in the back (literally) by the senatorial power they usurped.
Ah, yes the old "enlightened despot" routine.
Europe tried it. Ended up with guillotines and the Great War. After that they tried it again but without the royalty branding and we got World War Two.
But thanks to your comment now I see that my history books indoctrinated me. My belief that the enlightened despot of Germany that pulled their economy out of the Great Depression, built up a modern infrastructure, and was a champion of animal rights was a bad guy is clearly just propaganda influencing me. I should get redpilled and cheer for people's power over their own government being taken away.
God Lemmy has the biggest whack jobs on the Internet.
Maybe it's because it creates such nice little echochambers.
One good dictator is one thing but what happens after him? What are the chances he'll be succeeded by another supposedly benevolent dictator? It also increases the chances someone gets tired of the dictator and coups him which may turn into yet another bloody civil war.
Democracy sucks but it's the best system we have,
One can argue for his emergency decisions to handle the gangs but democracy should be restored once the dust settles.
You said that they are rare, so what do you do if the ruler is bad and has the power to ruin the country for decades and can pass the rule to his song who may be bad too?
This is a bad take here because the guy is clearly dishonest.
But here is an interesting take: The Rules for Rulers - CGP Grey https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs
rules for rulers
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