The UGAnime Board

[Kamonichan]

All right, let me warn you, this is gonna be controversial. You have been warned.

We should be familiar with Winston Churchill's line about how democracy is the worst form of government except for all the other governments. Well, that's a nice one-liner, but that don't always work out, ya know? It seems that global society has a little PTSD going on. The idea that, "Ooo, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan, authoritarian dictatorship bad!"

Well, in Yugoslavia under Josip Tito, if a Serbian killed a Croatian or Albanian, that Serbian disappeared. When a Croatian killed a Serbian or Albanian, that Croatian disappeared. And when an Albanian killed a Serbian or a Croatian, the Albanian disappeared as well. Pretty soon, the Serbians, Croatians, and Albanians weren't too fond of openly killing one another. Dictatorship...bad? Yeah, you probably couldn't go around badmouthing Tito or doing other liberties most Americans, myself most especially included, take for granted, but at least you didn't have to worry as much about a drive-by from someone who lived on a different side of town. Ten years after Tito's death, you get the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. So yeah, dictatorship...bad?

As a more controversial example, Saddam was a motherfucking son of a bitch who the world as a whole is better off without, but when he was in power, the average Iraqi didn't have to worry about a car bomb at his wedding. Again, you don't have a lot of what we consider liberties, but at least most people could get married without worry about the guests catching shrapnel instead of the bouquet. It was mostly the political leaders and activists who had to look over their shoulder all the time, but now everyone's gotta keep an ear out for a ticking or a clicking.

Good ole Benjamin Franklin once said that anyone willing to sacrifice a little liberty for a little security will lose both and deserve neither. Well, when you have the security of going out to lunch without having to sidestep a firefight to get to your favorite cafe, well, the liberty of complete political expression seems a good price to pay, right?
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[Gaire]

Counterpoint: Both of the dictators you mentioned- and, indeed, most dictators (I don't think it's part of the definition of 'dictator', but I could be wrong)- used groups that can be politely referred to as 'secret police'. People may be more familiar with them under the name that media gave them: death squads. Dictators rule through fear. Saying that those living in dictatorships don't have to worry about terrorism is inherently flawed. Dictators just rule through governmental terrorism. I might be wrong, but hey, that's how I see it.
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[Kamonichan]

Indeed, most authoritarian states, in order to maintain a sort of absolute control over the population, ruled through force or fear thereof. However, any governing body that terrorizes the population randomly will soon find itself in dire straits. To be authoritarian, the state must enforce its authority upon people. However, people cannot acquiesce to someone's authority if the authority doesn't tell them to what they should acquiesce. Governments need to be organized, and an authoritarian one even more so. Thus, they have rules that, when you break them, the secret police pays you a visit and more than likely disappears you. As I said, under Tito, people who broke the rule of no killing other ethnicities disappeared. That is the inherent different between governmental terrorism, i.e. rule through fear of punishment, as opposed to terrorism in general, which is just to cause fear.

All governments, organizations, and even families, in America and around the world, exercise rule through a fear of punishment to some degree. Why don't you smash the window of the car that stole your parking spot? You're afraid a police officer will take you to jail. Why don't you break the rules at work? Because you're afraid your superiors will dock your pay or even fire you. Why don't you disobey your parents? You're afraid they'll either take a privilege away or make you do compensation. People who speed, break the rules, and disobey are punished according to the magnitude of the transgression, and people who know enough to follow the rules when they know they have to usually can go about their lives.

Authoritarianism works much the same way, but obviously to a much more extreme degree. But the population soon learns the rules, or you tell them the rules, be it don't publicly denounce the leader, don't express opposing political opinions, or don't kill the Albanian just because you're Serbian. The rules, obviously, are often unfair, and you have no say in their establishment, but if you follow the rules, no matter how restrictive, oppressive, or downright unfair they may be and likely are, the secret police will simply monitor your phone calls as opposed to strangling you with the wires. Not an ideal situation, but it beats the alternative.

Terrorism, such as what's currently going on in the establishing-democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq, doesn't have clear rules where you can avoid retribution. Often times, it's not even retribution for something you personally did so much as a frustrated sense of anger against a third party. Going back to the previous examples, what rules does the wedding guest have to follow for the terrorist not to detonate that car bomb? What does that guy going for lunch have to do so that the indiscriminate gunman doesn't send a barrage his way? As opposed to the mostly surefire way of obeying the rules you don't like, those two people would have to settle with the less surefire way of hoping they are outside the lethal distance of whatever force they don't know is there.

Naturally, let me clarify that authoritarian states aren't exactly the ideal situation for most situations, and they are more likely than not responsible for human rights violations and large-scale atrocities. I would certainly not like for authoritarian states to rise to positions of influence in the world at large, like the nations that first caused this anti-authoritarian mindset. However, when an authoritarian state can enforce some semblance of order with the extreme use of fear while a democracy can't impose enough of a sense of fear to prevent your wedding reception from turning into an emergency medical ward, some people would be inclined to go with one over the other. Knowing I have to follow the rules to be safe beats knowing I'll have to be ready at all times to escape lethal ballistic force to be safe.
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[CrouchingMouse]

But how often do you go to a wedding worrying about getting blown away by a car bomb, even after 9/11? People will do extreme things in any situation, whether they're part of a democracy or a dictatorship. An authoritarian state may use an extreme degree of fear to control the actions of its people, but it will never stop anyone from acting out of line if they feel they have a good enough reason to. In a democracy, at least, you have the assurance that whatever punishment you face for breaking the law will be more fair and aligned to the degree of severity of your actions than in a dictatorship, where it's very likely it's "off with their head" if you upset Big Brother.

Maybe it's because of my bias as an American that I'm defending democracy over authoritarianism, but I can't see myself wanting to live in paralyzing fear of the government every day in case I screw up somehow. And that wouldn't keep terrorists from terrorizing, either - they might just go to further extremes.
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Or we'll find you.

[Gaire]

Just a general note: I'm pretty sure there's a reason that most authoritarian regimes don't last. History teaches us that that sort of thing won't fly for too long.
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[Kamonichan]

Well, in recent years, authoritarian regimes don't last because everyone who isn't an authoritarian regime has taken various measures to make maintaining those regimes difficult. When the US decides that they don't like you, we can generally get the rest of the Western world to not like you either. So it becomes difficult to maintain your regime when people don't want to trade with you on anything close to fair terms or in some cases even talk to you. By the way, the US having the West turn against Imperial Japan contributed to the latter's decision to attack Pearl Harbor, so don't think the dictators can't think of whom to blame.

And it seems there is some confusion. I am not saying that authoritarianism trumps democracy by default and all governments should make the switch as soon as possible. But America is not modern day Iraq, nor are we Yugoslavia 1950s-1980s. Living in America, with a weathered and largely stable democracy, I don't have to worry about the examples I listed happening in my state, let alone my town, let even more alone my own wedding. But the car bomb blew up next to a wedding last week in Baghdad, killing four and injuring twelve, and indiscriminate gunmen are not unheard of throughout the more troubled regions. In America, terrorism's not really a problem, what with our established security forces. In Iraq under Saddam, I would have the worry of the government not liking me for going against the grain. In Iraq post-Saddam, I have the worry of someone within my vicinity who doesn't like someone who isn't me and will attack when they feel they'll do the most damage. American democracy, very good. Democracy where proper fear of punishment is not maintained, very, very not-so-good.
_________________

No reason. Just Horo.

Look me up. Maybe we can have some fun.