12-08-2018, 10:40 AM
(12-08-2018, 04:10 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(12-07-2018, 06:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I just can't understand how anyone can excuse a murderous tyrant like Assad except "he may be a brute, but he is our brute". Even that excuse usually implodes at some time.
It is just tribal thinking. Assad would only be brutal towards people who he does not consider to be part of his tribe. He would not consider people who oppose him to count, that morality does not apply to them.
The Enlightenment virtues of equality and human rights do not apply to an autocratic leader. He might be perfectly a nice guy to members of his tribe, and a brutal autocrat at the same time.
You know, I've heard Trump described in similar fashion: a really nice guy, on-on-one. Maybe that's a character trait shared by the scumbags of the world. It's certainly self-serving, which is a universal character trait in this class of sub-humans.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.