(01-09-2021, 02:21 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(01-07-2021, 04:56 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: In view of the sick spectacle in the Capitol yesterday, we must all repudiate the dangerous cult of personality surrounding Donald Trump. If the first significant act of the 117th Congress is the impeachment of Donald Trump, then so be it. America must extricate the scorpions in its collective soul if it is to avoid the abyss of tyranny.You're on the side that clearly represents tyranny dude. You are clueless.
Tyranny takes many forms, but all of them have one thing in common: the Leader is responsible to no existing checks and balances. It can be a mad emperor like Caligula or Ivan the Terrible, a mad dictator like Idi Amurderin', an all-powerful Party boss with a strange vision like that of Stalin, Hitler, or Satan Hussein, or a military dictator who destroys all democratic process. There are obvious differences in ideology between Pinochet and Pol Pot or between Hungarian traitors Szalasi and Rakosi, but such is a triviality. No principle exists except power, and no life, career, or property is safe. I will take freedom and the rule of law, thank you, even if those can be inconvenient much of the time.
Now we know what those Trump rallies were for after the election. They were not celebrations of success, for Donald Trump had fewer successes than most Presidents. It was not a kick-off for 2024, because the banners still said "2020". Democracy depends upon people recognizing electoral losses as important as electoral wins in deciding the political reality.
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.
