There's been a few minor dictators that are too corrupt to care when someone bad mouths the regime. Chiang Kai-shek is one example. Under Chiang, there was a small secret police with the major task of spying on and arresting communists.

Their main target being the communists because that's the major opposition group that advocates an armed struggle against the KMT. With other opposition, the secret police simply goes around and enforces political censorship at the press (you often get entire pages of newspaper left blank at the secret police's request during that time, this is very similar to the Israeli censorship officers present at TV and radio stations should sensitive reports get out off hand, they pull the plug).

In other words, if you live under lenient dictators like Chiang or Yuan Shi Kai (who was responsible for total press freedoms during his short reign), there's a difference between just saying "Fuck the Government!" and repeating that same sentence with a rifle in hand.

A Dictatorship is a form of crime in itself.

The entire human race has spent sixty years trying to get rid of the "My races' penis is bigger than your races penis" (Hattip Happy Ahmed) bullshit since the end of the second world war. Its simply not worth going there, and it shows you up as being on the same page as the National Front.

Ha. No. I'm aware, as a political philosopher, of the benefits a dictatorship has. There are a lot of philosophers through the ages in favour of Fascism or Dictatorship, even all the way back to Plato, who envisiged a "Dictatorship of the best", or Hobbes, who thought Humankind was pretty much a bunch of evil monkeys, and they need someone to slap them in line.

I think you are in column B, under those that think Humanity is evil. I don't think thats a necessary truth.

I don't even get what the "1111one" is about, but yes I don't particularly think Mugabe is a very capable or benevolent leader of Zimbabwe.

Wow. I suppose that's much better then, since they just keep robbing you without caring what you say. Hmmm. What was that about the "efficiency" of a form of government without any checks or balances?

Anyway, didn't the GMD under Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) have massive corruption and insider training? Ministers of the government controlling entire sectors of the economy for personal gain, and so on? That degree of state control sounds almost "socialist" to me! But that can't be right because the GMD were benevolent defenders of the country. I'm confused on that one. Care to enlighten me?

Very true. Say I'm a non-violent opponent of corruption in the GMD. Is it a good thing that my articles in the newspaper get stripped out? Thus suppressing my (valid) criticism, and perpetuating the kind of popular hatred that the Communists were able to leverage to help them win the Civil War?

Dictatorships are hard on everyone else's crimes except their own. And stopping the dictatorship from working how it wishes is generally constituted as a crime. In a dictatorship, the state often takes on the thieving role of the criminals you're claiming it suppresses.

Not that I'm pro-dictatorship (except in those lucky cases where it works well, as I have explained), but if you're going to criticise a form of government, at least be fair rather than using such a terrible example of it. I could just as easily say democracy sucks using Dubya as an example.

Crimes are defined by law. A dictatorship can equally declare a democrat a criminal. Some of the greatest monarchs (including many British ones) in history would be criminals in your definition?

I don't know about the Cold War being waged on entirely racial grounds, unless you believe the Ivans and the Gooks* are a subhuman communist race and the West is some superior capitalistic race.

I'm offended that you class me a some fucker from the NZNF! Different races have their strengths and shortcomings although individuals do break barriers and excel. You just like to denounce Singapore because it's a successful nation run by Chinks* and you think Brash has been infected because he fucks a Chink*!

If you claim that the Industrial Revolution was a fine example of what the British people have achieve, that's perfectly O.K., but when a Gook* like Mr. Chiang praises the Chinese, you label him a fuckin' racist. The double standard is a fine example of your logic towards racism.

As for penises, wasn't it the White man's stereotype that Negroes have big dicks? I'm sure you would know the answer.

I suggest you burn a fuckin' cross and go fuck your cousin before you come back.



*I'm speaking in your racist White man context so that you can understand.

Humans are genetically half Man, half devil (in a figurative sense). When there's no social order, people show their true colors with looting, murder, rape and worse. This has been demonstrated by almost every case of disaster aftermath or anarchy upon political collapse in history. Your views of every man being happy, giggling creatures is naive.

Mugabe isn't an example of a good dictator. He was once predicted to be a future Nobel Peace Prize candidate but that's long gone. Mugabe isn't a very good dictator and history will not judge him well. The IMF has predicted that his country's (once the bread basket of Africa is now a dirty begging bowl) economy to inflate by a further 400%. All thanks to his closet Marxism and imitating Stalinist agricultural collectivization through violent land reforms.

The KMT has been massively corrupt and a part of the reason for losing to the commies would be the corruption of taking aid money for personal benefits and directly selling supplies to the enemy.

Ministers may control sectors of the economy, but that's a case of monopoly rather than the socialist planned economy experienced under communism. KMT China was capitalistic given the fact that there was no objection to the private sector and business leaders could rival KMT bureaucrats in wealth.

The case of the KMT is that, you can have dissent provided that you keep it to yourself. If you spread dissent on paper, they prevent it, but if you care to turn guerilla to oppose the government, there's always the ROCA.

Unlike the unrelenting communists under Mao, first time political prisoners under Chiang were sent to 'introspection centers' where under light beatings (if they misbehave), starvation (food rewarded for co-operation), interrogation, re-education and denounciation of their political views can be released, after signing declarations to abandon their revolutionary activities (by dictatorial standards, that's very light). Under Mao, you say one bad word about the government and your dinner will be machinegun lead or you might face deportation to a labour camp, with a minimum term of 3 years.

In a time of war, governments do their upmost to use the media as a tool for victory. The freedom of press in the U.S. has let their country down in 'Nam and in some cases, Iraq too.

During WWII, the British and Commonwealth banned fascist literature and media. Does that constitute as unlawful censorship or a wise wartime decision?

Unless the State collaborates with criminals, otherwise they see criminals as forces that undermine national security and national image.

Well there are so many to choose from... I don't think you can come up with a "typical" Dictatorship. I think all dictatorships are immoral, and even in cases where they can be shown to be not all that bad, I think that you can say things could have been better.

Things can always be done better, it doesn't matter what kind of government it is, but it takes a very blind person to think that there hasn't been a single case where a dictatorship has been more successful* than a democracy would have been.

* your definition of 'successful' may vary.

By the way guys, from here on I will be editing out "you're a racist" etc. type comments, keep it civil.

Scuz, when did Dubya shoved his hand up your ass and used you as a puppet? There are many shitty 'democracies' too! At the end of the day, I rather be born in a good dictatorship than a bad democracy.

Some dictatorships are immoral, but it's also the democracies that come up with poofy, retarded decisions. The worse thing about a democracy is that when there's a political disaster, the entire population should hold themselves to blame. Pre-1960s America was immoral with its slavery and segregation of Negroes, does that make it a more democracy? Mao was a cruel sonofabitch, but by the end of his reign, China's literacy rate was boosted from 10% to 85%!

If you live in a nation at the time of a great monarch with absolute power that's has ushered in a new golden age for your nation, would you think his power is immoral?