05-30-2016, 02:03 PM
(05-30-2016, 01:05 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: Regarding Pbrower2a's statements about democracies putting the people first, this is not true to my observation. Our government at the beltway does not put people first but, but money first, the worst possible combination. Strong governments put power first because increasing the amount of power a nation has increases that nation's security, thus allowing prosperity to potentially develop among the people.
Arguably the most murderous regimes to have ever existed:
1. Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge
2. the Devil's Reich (Nazi Germany)
3. Rwanda during the great massacre
4. Stalin's Soviet Union
5. Mao's China
6. Uganda under Idi Amurderin'
7. Ethiopia under the Dergue
8. Turkey in WWI
9. Thug Japan, WWII
10. Croatia under the Ustase
11. The "Congo Free State" (really, the personal fief of King Leopold II of Belgium)
12. North Korea
13. Imperial Russia
14. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
15. Iraq under Satan Hussein
16. Ba'athist Syria
17. Nationalist China
18. Mongol rule
19. the human-sacrificing Aztec Empire*
Do you think of any of these showing any responsibility toward the people of those countries for their welfare or happiness?
The democracies get the powers that they need to serve the People -- and the only rap upon them is that they protect their people with overkill of the Enemy. Maybe had it not been for the Bataan Death March, Harry Truman might have had more indecision about using the atom bomb upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
*interesting scenario for an alternative history: the Vikings, probably the least objectionable of all barbarian enemies of civilized peoples, successfully colonize what is now eastern North America and in a short time begin successful trade with the Aztecs, Mayas, and Incas. Part of the trade is in horses and firearms; part is in Christianity which eventually prevails among the Vikings. The First Peoples are able to stand their ground.
The Vikings also start enticing some overseas trade by China... and the sites of San Francisco, Seattle, and Vancouver do not have Chinatowns. They are Chinese towns!
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.