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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   28093 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024

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If Trump had committed any, maybe I would agree with you. What's your opinion about Caesar?

The beginning of the Imperial era in Roman politics led to civil war over the imperial seat which was the true cause of the fall of the Roman Empire.

Authoritarian dictators are an inherently incompetent and violent form of government, and anyone who aspires to return us to savage government is factually incorrect about an important section of human history.

  • -20

The beginning of the Imperial period was marked by an unusually long period of peace and prosperity thanks to the long reign of Augustus. By contrast, the end of the Republican period was dominated by Romans fighting Romans in a series of bloody civil wars. It turns out that having one military strongman in charge of the polity works a lot better than having two competing military strongmen fighting over the polity.

The violence of the late Republic started long before the Imperial period. It started when extremist Roman partisans decided that their political ideologies were more important than unity and started using whatever means necessary to win - like exploiting the criminal justice system to attack their political opponents. Sound familiar?

Dictators really aren’t that bad. Rome was great under the emperors for very long periods of time. Assad was better than before. Franco was better than the communists. China has done fairly well. The Saudis are the most functional country in the ME outside Israel. Singapore. It’s heavy America propaganda that dictators = bad.

Yeah, most of the Asian Tigers were driven by what would be considered dictators in charge and have since had larger struggles when going towards manifesting democracy in the 80s/90s

The beginning of the Imperial era in Roman politics led to civil war over the imperial seat which was the true cause of the fall of the Roman Empire.

Authoritarian dictators are an inherently incompetent and violent form of government, and anyone who aspires to return us to savage government is factually incorrect about an important section of human history.

Dictators provide no benefit over a temporary executive. Removing a bad dictator requires a civil war which cripples a polity for an entire generation.

This is just functionally wrong. Whether dictators are net good is an interesting question.

But they do provide benefits. Internalizing deadweight costs is one thing they do better than Democracies.

The other area they can do better is not all societies have intellectual capabilities to implement a Democracy. You need a certain level of intelligence to succesfully monitor leaders in a Democracy.

The people will seek an emperor when they figure out that the oligarchy bureaucracy is uncontrollable otherwise.

Authoritarian dictators

Spoken like a true Roman. They don’t have monarchs dictators-for-life, they have Caesars, which is totally different.

The people will seek an emperor when they figure out that the oligarchy bureaucracy is uncontrollable otherwise.

Anyone who aspires to return us to savage government is factually incorrect about an important section of human history.

I'm not arguing for Caesar. I'm arguing that throwing politicians in jail for nothing crimes will create Caesar.

You seem to believe this was a "nothing" crime in which case I believe your opinion is motivated reasoning.

Felonies are regarded as a special class of crime.

Donald Trump is a convicted felon. Politicians who commit felonies should be punished for them.

Otherwise I think you are advocating for politicians who are able to commit felonies and escape punishment.

It seems to me that you are either in denial about the seriousness of the crime that Donald Trump, convicted felon, has been convicted of by a jury of our peers, or you want Trump to be immune from prosecution for serious crimes: you are arguing for Caesar.

Please explain what is so serious about the crime of which Trump was (unjustly) convicted.

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