There quite a difference between “any person” and “the people”. But even in the case of “the people” trying to provide for “bread and circuses” is something that dictaors do to stay in power.
N. Korea seems short of bread
Backtracking, I said:
By contrast, it’s definitional of dictatorship that it comes down do one person’s say-so.
and you said
Henchmen are people.
so is the implication that a benevolent dictator won’t go off the rails because their friends will stop them, having not been corrupted by power themselves. Well, I can think of one famous example, but I suspect it’s famous because it’s exceptional.
Obama claims all the right that distinguished a dictator in Roman times for himself
But not really because the leadership of North Korea wants it to be that way.
North Korea for example did a deal with the US under Clinton that North Korea get’s food and in return doesn’t develop nuclear weapons.
Bush did cancel that deal and then North Korea claimed to have developed nukes in response. Whether or not they have nukes isn’t quite clear. As Wikipedia documents, their latest “nuclear test” failed to produce any radiation.
North Korea profits politically internally by pretending that it has nuclear weapons and is takes care to have a strong military.
US political leader profit politically by being tough on North Korea and pretending that North Korea has functional nuclear weapons.
According to their own description North Korea also had intelligence services that weren’t really controlled by their leader with just went and thought that it was a good idea to kidnap a few foreigners.
North Korea is ruled in a way where military and intelligence people are treated really well by the North Korean leader to prevent them from just making a coup d’état.
These days the North Korea leader is a thirty-year old with a liberal Swiss education.
Do you think you could do much better than him without getting killed?
so is the implication that a benevolent dictator won’t go off the rails because their friends will stop them, having not been corrupted by power themselves.
You get mindkilled by confusing moral claims with factual predictions.
People don’t need to be immune to corruption by power to overthrow a government.
(Obama claims all the right that distinguished a dictator in Roman times for himself) That’s a fact, is it?
Yes. In Roman times dictators was a title that was given in time of war.
The ruler can ignore the laws and wage war without asking any body for permission.
Obama claims that he’s at war. He claims that the whole world is the battlefield (which includes the US).
He claims that he can therefore assassination people without asking anybody else for permission.
He claims that right is necessary to effectively wage war.
For Roman’s that was what being a dictator was about. It’s a title that a ruler get’s in time of war to be able to do things that rulers otherwise aren’t allowed to do.
These days the North Korea leader is a thirty-year old with a liberal Swiss education. Do you think you could do much better than him without getting killed?
Better at what? Playing the dictator game? Being benevolent? Yes, dictators need to keep their henchmen happy. No that doesn’t make them benevolent, or make dictatorship equivalent to democracy, or whatever the wider point is supposed to be.
People don’t need to be immune to corruption by power to overthrow a government.
So a thug gets overthrown and replaced by another thug? What’s the wider point?
N. Korea seems short of bread
Backtracking, I said:
and you said
so is the implication that a benevolent dictator won’t go off the rails because their friends will stop them, having not been corrupted by power themselves. Well, I can think of one famous example, but I suspect it’s famous because it’s exceptional.
That’s a fact, is it?
But not really because the leadership of North Korea wants it to be that way. North Korea for example did a deal with the US under Clinton that North Korea get’s food and in return doesn’t develop nuclear weapons.
Bush did cancel that deal and then North Korea claimed to have developed nukes in response. Whether or not they have nukes isn’t quite clear. As Wikipedia documents, their latest “nuclear test” failed to produce any radiation.
North Korea profits politically internally by pretending that it has nuclear weapons and is takes care to have a strong military. US political leader profit politically by being tough on North Korea and pretending that North Korea has functional nuclear weapons.
According to their own description North Korea also had intelligence services that weren’t really controlled by their leader with just went and thought that it was a good idea to kidnap a few foreigners.
North Korea is ruled in a way where military and intelligence people are treated really well by the North Korean leader to prevent them from just making a coup d’état.
These days the North Korea leader is a thirty-year old with a liberal Swiss education. Do you think you could do much better than him without getting killed?
You get mindkilled by confusing moral claims with factual predictions.
People don’t need to be immune to corruption by power to overthrow a government.
Yes. In Roman times dictators was a title that was given in time of war. The ruler can ignore the laws and wage war without asking any body for permission.
Obama claims that he’s at war. He claims that the whole world is the battlefield (which includes the US). He claims that he can therefore assassination people without asking anybody else for permission. He claims that right is necessary to effectively wage war.
For Roman’s that was what being a dictator was about. It’s a title that a ruler get’s in time of war to be able to do things that rulers otherwise aren’t allowed to do.
Better at what? Playing the dictator game? Being benevolent? Yes, dictators need to keep their henchmen happy. No that doesn’t make them benevolent, or make dictatorship equivalent to democracy, or whatever the wider point is supposed to be.
So a thug gets overthrown and replaced by another thug? What’s the wider point?
Even being better at being benevolent.
You are mindkilled by trying to analyse morality when I make causal claims. Having a causal understanding about how a state works is very useful.