Why Do We Permit Dictatorships?

[trastrick 866]

16 hours ago, Longcol said:

No problem - but can I advise you check your "facts" before posting.

"To err is human" This is not a paying job for me. Lol

 

 

[Magilla 510]

On 18/10/2021 at 15:04, trastrick said:

Trump stopped the madness when he was elected in 2008.

How far down the rabbit hole do you have to go to believe this guff?

 

It mostly stopped in 2011.

 

Trump got played like a fiddle.

 

19 hours ago, trastrick said:

This is not a paying job for me.

Just as well, you're not very good at it!

Edited October 20, 2021 by Magilla

[trastrick 866]

And you are not very good at addressing the key points in a post.  Lol

 

Which is, in answer to the thread question:

 

"Why do we permit dictatorships?"

 

To which I responded, and I repeat:

 

"Dictatorships cannot survive without financial aid from democracies.

 

If you look at the current examples, North Korea, Haiti, Cuba, Iran, Egypt, Afghanistan, Iraq, Venezuela and  various African countries, you will find that they are heavily supported by International foregn aid, ostensibly for "humanitarian" purposes.

 

With that financial support they can marginally feed their people, maintain their armies and quell any popular uprisings, or reformist oppsition party, and fatten their-off shore bank accounts against the day when they are inevitatably overthrown.

 

The U.K. spends $18 billion on foreign aid (by law - see  https://news.trust.org/item/20201120164622-38et5/) to these and other god forsaken dictatorships which keeps them in power.

 

Now you are about to subsidize the Taliban with massive humanitarian aid, medicine, food, sanitation projects, hygeine, and of course "Climate Change" mitigation.

 

So, when you ask "why do we permit dictatorships", look no further that the mirror, because it is your vote for the politicians that sends these $billions of your tax dollars, to these wretched hell holes.

 

To which I later added:

 

"According to a Congressional Research Service report from 2014, the US accounted for more than half of the food aid from 1995 to 2008".

 

North Korea: Who is sending aid?

By Reality Check team,BBC News

20 June 2019

 

So the question is, do YOU support "humanitarian aid" to dictatorships?

 

Anyone?

 

Edited October 20, 2021 by trastrick

[Magilla 510]

 

2 minutes ago, trastrick said:

"According to a Congressional Research Service report from 2014, the US accounted for more than half of the food aid from 1995 to 2008".

 

North Korea: Who is sending aid?

By Reality Check team,BBC News

20 June 2019

Which, of course, you failed to read and comprehend fully, as usual...

 

"In 2017, after a gap of six years, the US gave $1m to Unicef to assist with massive floods in North Korea."

 

How did Trump manage to stop something that was already stopped under the Obama administration in 2011?

 

Trump did nothing to stop any "madness" at all, quite the opposite.

 

Trump was constantly expressing admiration for dictators and repressive regimes, he cowed to them time and time again.

 

An easy mark, they played him like a fiddle.

[Waldo 96]

56 minutes ago, CaptainSwing said:

None of the places you mention are really dictatorships.  Saudi Arabia is an old-fashioned monarchy of the type we had in the UK until the 17th century - though it's true you could describe that system as 'hereditary dictatorship', as Wikipedia does.

 

This book (which I've mentioned a couple of times before) argues that China and Russia are not dictatorships exactly, but prime examples of a "new despotism" - which (it also argues) is coming soon to a place near you.

Thank you CaptainSwing.

 

I wouldn't say I'm particularly educated on the nuances and various forms of (what I'd describe as) tyrannical governments.

 

I'm just seeing it as a group of people (leaders and their cronies) who have engineered things such that they retain control and power, and accumulate money and resources. Essentially, using their office to act in their own best interests, rather than in the best interests of the people they purport to serve.

 

I'm not sure the situation is that much better in liberal western democracies; we're still being conned left right and centre, but in far more subtler ways. I'd still prefer living in the UK to those other places I mentioned; but then, I'm conditioned to life here, and perhaps if I lived in Russia or China, I'd be singing a different song.

[trastrick 866]

18 minutes ago, Magilla said:

 

Which, of course, you failed to read and comprehend fully, as usual...

 

"In 2017, after a gap of six years, the US gave $1m to Unicef to assist with massive floods in North Korea."

 

How did Trump manage to stop something that was already stopped under the Obama administration in 2011?

 

Trump did nothing to stop any "madness" at all, quite the opposite.

 

Trump was constantly expressing admiration for dictators and repressive regimes, he cowed to them time and time again.

 

An easy mark, they played him like a fiddle.

You fail to understand carrot and stick diplomacy.

 

Trump was a Master at that.

 

Dictators live a very tenuous existence. To stay in power they need to kill their rivals, even if it means members of their own families.

 

They subdue their subjects by martial law, and a strong military, which takes up most of the countries resources, resulting in scarcity of the basic daily needs. Empty bellies, make a formidable challenge to one's authority.

 

Trump was appealing to the population that saw their South Korean cousins enjoying all goodies that economic prosperity brings, and he even promised to invest in hotels and golf courses there, "post denuclearization". He also understood that by praising Kim, it would allow him so save face, and even be hailed a hero, by is own people, if he were to bring them into the 21st Century. 

 

He also threatened to bomb them back into the stone age, if they threatened South Korea, the U.S. or it's Japanese allies. And these day it's hard to hide from a surgical strike of a laser guide missile that can take out their top general, or the man himself.

 

(aside fromBiden's lame attempts to do the same in Afghanistan that resulted only in the death of a U.S. Ally and his family)

 

So the thread question  still remains open for discussion Why do we permit dictatorships?

 

My answer is that "humanitarian" aid keeps their bellies full, and does not require good governance from the dictator. It also helps pay for their military and their Nuclear weaponry.

 

 

[Carbuncle 0]

4 hours ago, trastrick said:

Dictatorships cannot survive without financial aid from democracies.

Why are you repeating this nonsense? I have already given you half a dozen examples which contradict even your modified version where you added 'since the creation of the UN'.

2 hours ago, trastrick said:

Dictators live a very tenuous existence. To stay in power they need to kill their rivals, even if it means members of their own families.

 

More nonsense. Dynastic dictatorships, ie monarchies or imperial dynasties, are probably the most common form of government recorded by history.

Edited October 20, 2021 by Carbuncle

[Carbuncle 0]

1 hour ago, CaptainSwing said:

Good points.  The main argument of the book is that this 'despotism' is a much more robust form of government, under modern conditions, than liberal democracy is, so that, far from the despotisms evolving into liberal democracies (as is fondly imagined to be likely, or even inevitable, by many people in those democracies), it's more likely to be the other way around.

Interesting.

 

I think from a historical perspective, large scale democracies are a relatively modern innovation though having 'bits of democratic machinery', for example democracy at the level of a tribe or having a tribal confederation where each tribe has a voice in a council is ages old. Personally, I am hopeful that liberal democracies do often evolve from stable despotisms and equally importantly they can be stable having emerged. It happened in Britain a bit at a time over a period of centuries and in the "settler offshoots" of Britain (Aus, NZ, Canada, US). It has happened in Europe multiple times. It was induced to happen in Japan under the US occupation. It has evolved from despotisms in S. Korea and Taiwan without a long cultural history of democracy over a relatively short period. India has been democratic since independence. Often the evolutions have been of a two steps forward, one step back kind of a thing. Unfortunately, there are also examples of the one step forward, two steps back kind of evolution.

Edited October 20, 2021 by Carbuncle

[Waldo 96]

On 20/10/2021 at 18:07, CaptainSwing said:

Yes, that's about right I think.  Though one of the strengths of these 'despotisms' is that they do act in the best interests of many of their people.  A complacent middle class is one of the keys to their success.  Another thing that separates them from traditional dictatorships (it's argued) is that they're in a constant uneasy standoff for power with their own big business billionaires.

I agree there are some advantages over western liberal democracies (which to my mind are far from perfect).

 

As to the interests of industry vs the ruling elite; I'm not sure which is better, the setup you describe, or a setup where industry pays the ruling elite to enact policies that best suit their interests (suspect this may be worse).

 

Neither setup particularly helps the man on the street, or concerns itself with his interests.

 

On 20/10/2021 at 18:07, CaptainSwing said:

Good points.  The main argument of the book is that this 'despotism' is a much more robust form of government, under modern conditions, than liberal democracy is, so that, far from the despotisms evolving into liberal democracies (as is fondly imagined to be likely, or even inevitable, by many people in those democracies), it's more likely to be the other way around.

The problem is when the system of government is enabling people (in office) to act in their own best interests. I very much doubt the ruling elite (in most any country) are acting primarily in the best interests of the masses. How does one address that?

 

I wonder how well we'd do with a more decentralised approach, so fewer government middle men controlling the narrative to suit their own agenda. For example, there is the rise of social media, which enables direct peer to peer information flow (though not without problems, fake news, misinformation, heavy censorship and government shills to sing the official narrative in some countries, etc etc) and block chain, digital decentralised currencies that governments or the financial industries can't manipulate and control. Block chain is far more than digital currency of course; and I wouldn't be surprised if in years to come, it turns out to be as impactful (or even more so) as the advent of the internet itself was. I'm thinking perhaps a steady progressive move towards 'Government Lite' with more reliance on trust-less decentralised technology and systems; that could be one way things may develop (though undoubtedly there will be vested interests who like the status quo and would try to block any move towards this kind of setup).

 

I just feel governments have far too much power and control, and are (as I see it) very much abusing that power. Manipulating their populations (conditioning people to think in certain ways). Too many human rights abuses going on, treatment of minorities in China for example. In fact China seem to be more and more acting in a way not too dissimilar to a pre-WW2 Germany.

Edited October 22, 2021 by Waldo

[crookesey 633]

I like the pre WW2 comparison of Germany with present day China, like Nazi Germany China doesn’t appear to be capable of failure, we shall have to wait and see.

[trastrick 866]

On 20/10/2021 at 13:46, Carbuncle said:

Why are you repeating this nonsense? I have already given you half a dozen examples which contradict even your modified version where you added 'since the creation of the UN'.

More nonsense. Dynastic dictatorships, ie monarchies or imperial dynasties, are probably the most common form of government recorded by history.

Did you happen to notice how many of them were assasinated, beheaded, and worse?

 

Lol

[Carbuncle 0]

Our World in Data has some data on the trend towards democracy and away from autocracy ( https://ourworldindata.org/democracy ). According to the data, the World moved fairly steadily away from autocracy throughout the twentieth century so that starting from a very low base the number of democracies overtook the number of autocracies by around the year 2000. Slightly different data suggests most of the World's population now lives in democracies and the proportion look sets to continue increasing.