Dictators

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Perun said:
The premise: no5 says that Gadaffi is a good man. He takes care of his people and is a good leader.
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I didn't say he's a good man, don't do this, please.

Perun said:
However, the original argument, that Gadaffi tortured and killed and is therefore a bad man remains unharmed.
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So does my argument find me 3 better Islamic leaders.

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Here's my original post before the latest 2 replies

Sorry I start not to have time for endless discussions that leads nowhere. I said pretty much everything here :

Quetzalcoatlus said:
You need to compare him with the others of his kind. If he is one of the best of Arabic Islamic World this is something to me.
And he is. What else you need to know ? Of course for the people that do the researches you linked will never be good enough.

Go se the situation to other Arabic Islamic countries... At least in Libya they have a house for free, education,
enormous cheap technology, hospitals, education.

Tell me three Arabic Islamic leaders to be better than Gadaffi for their people.
To simply mention that Gaddafi is not good, without proposing some Arabic leader that he is
is not just enough to me cause is like you scorn the entire Arabic World
and so the conversation end here.
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Here's a quote of Perun :

Perun said:
Of course Libya looks better if compared to Iraq or Syria. But it looks like a pile of shit if compared to The Netherlands or Canada.
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I agree with that. But I can not compare two uneven things.
If we want the Islamic world be like ours this will never happened
And we'll always -in real- scorn it in its entireness even if we accept it or not.

I don't want to do that, because something tells me that it can't be possible. And because I can not really understand this world
the only logical tool which can help me is comparison, nothing else.

Already I didn't had a single proposition whose Islamic State citizens live better than Libya's. One answer is Arabic Emirates.
Do you have any other ? It will be a tough search.

I don't have much more to say in this thread. I'm tired of this as well.
 
My analysis of this thread:

No_5 wants to make his point, LC & Per want to make their point, and none of them get a reacton in the form/content that they wish to expect.

That’s indeed difficult. Also for me.

I agree with the content of LC and Perun, but I also agree with the form no_5 uses.
Let me explain: it’s not forbidden to compare. In fact, by comparing, we can see that one murdering regime changes and the other not. By comparing it’s possible to see optimistic development.

Now if we accept that we may compare, then perhaps no_5 will go deeper into the content. If not, I’m afraid that the parties will stay in their bunkers. Let’s get out of these bunkers and don't be afraid for any arguments if you think you can counter them.

:--)
 
Good post, Foro :)

I still disagree that there is a point in comparing, because in my eyes, it doesn't change anything. But you're right, I shouldn't be a bitch about it.

If either of you, Foro or no5, have taken offense at my words, I apologise.
 
I'll agree with Perun here, and while I understand where 5 is coming from, that we need to compare.  I think my point, and Perun's point, is that what was done is unforgivable.

But I apologize if anyone's back got up over it.
 
A side point was raised: is dictatorship ever good? can it really work? And we agree: no, it's not good, it can't work forever.

Allow me to point out possible cultural bias here. Recall that we're talking about Islamic countries here. Their religion was founded in dictatorship: Mohammed was politician as much as religious figure. And Islamic culture has venerated him for centuries. To some extent, people in such countries grow up thinking an Islamic dictatorship is the way it's meant to be.

By contrast, Americans are raised to revere our founding fathers, and I'm sure Europeans and Canadians have similar figures they respect. We're raised to value freedom in a way that Islamic people aren't.

I'm not saying Islamic people don't ever want freedom - but they have much more cultural baggage to overcome in order to come to that point of view. And if most of those people are fine with a dictatorship, who are we in the West to question that?

This was always one of my biggest problems with the Iraq war, or rather how the aftermath was handled. Their political structure was largely dictated from outside, and that never works in the long run.
 
Christianity is rooted in dictatorship, too.  Jesus is called "The King of the Jews", and the first Christian leader was Paul, who established many of the later Papal ideas used to rule over nations.  We've simply moved past it, but it took us 1500+ years.
 
A monarchy is NOT a dictatorship... And there is a difference between buchery and discipline...
 
Monarchs are aristocracy, nobility, both either/or, who cares. Dictators are members of armed forces. Monarchies usually have positive conotations and people have romantic ideations about them. Dictatorships almost always if not always, carry a negative conotation and people vilify them. When Kings/Queens are murdered it is usually family feuds, when dictators are murdered it's by political factions.
 
None of those are mutually exclusive, though.  Many dictators have come to power through revolution/coup, but many people who share the exact same tendencies as dictators are given the happier title "monarch" even though they are just as horrid - Ivan the Terrible, Vlad the Impaler, and I am sure there are far more.  Dictators are sometimes murdered by family; monarchs sometimes murdered by political factions (Charles I).

A monarch, especially a feudal monarch, is a single person with supreme power; a dictator is a single person with extreme power, and both are known to exercise extreme methods of controlling their people.  This is true for almost all kings, emperors, and caesars going back to the Egyptian pharaohs and as modern as in Saudi Arabia today.
 
So, in essence, a dictator can become a monarch.  Seems that having your offspring fill your shoes takes your dictatorial title and legitimizes it.  Just out of curiosity, does anyone know, off the cuff, how many functioning monarchies are still around? 
 
I am with LC here, or at least I'd like to stress that it's more important than anything else how someone rules. Whatever name we give the person.
 
Like I said, Monarch: positive conotation. Dictator: Negative conotation. That is the key to me. I too agree with LC's explanation, but there is a BIG difference calling Jesus "Dictator of the Jews" instead of "King of the Jews."
 
Onhell said:
Like I said, Monarch: positive conotation. Dictator: Negative conotation. That is the key to me. I too agree with LC's explanation, but there is a BIG difference calling Jesus "Dictator of the Jews" instead of "King of the Jews."
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Jesus did not however rule over the Jews, at least not to my knowledge. So that comparison doesn't work. 

Really, it's two sides of the same coin.
 
In my opinion, a monarchy is a dictatorship by definition. However, history knows many monarchs who tried to bend these borders and attempted to achieve at least limited participation from the people, even before it became fashionable at the end of the 19th century. Take Marcus Aurelius, for example- he did nothing without previous approval from the senate.
 
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