08-22-2016, 04:08 PM
(08-15-2016, 10:14 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(08-15-2016, 06:11 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(08-14-2016, 10:20 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Is it possible for second rate dictators of third rate countries to implode of their own accord? Absolutely, and in cases where that happens the result is inevitably the replacement of one second rate dictator with a different second rate dictator. Some civilizations simply are not compatible with Western Democracy--probably because that is a product of Western Civilization.
India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Tunisia would seem to contradict you.
Was General Franco a first rate dictator? While he didn't let go of power himself, he encouraged and prepared for his successor to move Spain into a democratic government. That might make another counter example. Thing is, Kinser could just go the 'No True Scotsman' route and declare any dictator that was replaced by a democracy must have been a first rate dictator.
There is movement away from autocratic government. It's just slooooow.
The point was to say that western culture is not essential to democracy. Who knows? Democracy might have its biggest possible gain some year (China, of course). If the people are well educated and not prone to political violence, then democracy could survive there. So replace the images of Mao with those of Sun Yat Sen and have competitive elections. Democracy had its starts and fails in the West -- just think of Germany in 1918 and 1933 as the extreme expression of both.
Franco knew that time was running out on his style of autocratic government. Choosing a King to be crowned in the knowledge that that king had no stake in preserving the Franco regime is one way to have a transition. Maybe Franco knew what harm his sort of despotism could do to a country. Maybe the people with angry memories would not be contesting each other and demanding bloody reprisals against people recently connected to him. Franco had no meaningful Party apparatus in place.
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.