#dictator

The British have always coped without becoming a dictatorship. ↗

— Frederick Forsyth

#becoming #british #coped #dictatorship #without

I disapprove of lots of decisions made by George Bush: the war, the meddling in the affairs of other countries, the conversations with dictators; it was a dark time. ↗

— Tommy Hilfiger

#bush #conversations #countries #dark #dark time

No man is a caricature, no individual can alone bear responibilty for a nation's collapse. The disaster Zaire became, the dull acquiescence of its people, had its roots in a history of extraordinary outside interference, as basic in motivation as it was elevated in rhetoric. The momentum behind Zaire's free-fall was generated not by one man but thousands of compliant collaborators, at home and abroad. ↗

— Michala Wrong

#dictator #history #mobutu-sese-seko #zaire #home

Dictatorship, by whatever name, is founded on the doctrine that the individual amounts to nothing; that the State is the only one that counts; and that men and women and children were put on earth solely for the purpose of serving the state. ↗

— Harry S. Truman

#government #individual-worth #men

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. ↗

— George Orwell

#revolution

The senator had only one argument in his favour: his feeling. When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object. In the realm of kitsch, the dictatorship of the heart reigns supreme. ↗

— Milan Kundera

#dictatorship

I got hold of a copy of the video that showed how Saddam Hussein had actually confirmed himself in power. This snuff-movie opens with a plenary session of the Ba'ath Party central committee: perhaps a hundred men. Suddenly the doors are locked and Saddam, in the chair, announces a special session. Into the room is dragged an obviously broken man, who begins to emit a robotic confession of treason and subversion, that he sobs has been instigated by Syrian and other agents. As the (literally) extorted confession unfolds, names begin to be named. Once a fellow-conspirator is identified, guards come to his seat and haul him from the room. The reclining Saddam, meanwhile, lights a large cigar and contentedly scans his dossiers. The sickness of fear in the room is such that men begin to crack up and weep, rising to their feet to shout hysterical praise, even love, for the leader. Inexorably, though, the cull continues, and faces and bodies go slack as their owners are pinioned and led away. When it is over, about half the committee members are left, moaning with relief and heaving with ardent love for the boss. (In an accompanying sequel, which I have not seen, they were apparently required to go into the yard outside and shoot the other half, thus sealing the pact with Saddam. I am not sure that even Beria or Himmler would have had the nerve and ingenuity and cruelty to come up with that.) ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#ba-athism #ba-athist-iraq #beria #conspiracy #cull

Despotic governments can stand 'moral force' till the cows come home; what they fear is physical force. ↗

— George Orwell

#dictatorship #interventionism #pacifism #totalitarianism #war

Nobody ever recommended a dictatorship aiming at ends other than those he himself approved. He who advocates dictatorship always advocates the unrestricted rule of his own will ↗

— Ludwig von Mises

#mises #dictatorship

The concept of the benevolent dictator, just like the concepts of the noble thief or the honest whore, is no more than a meaningless fantasy. ↗

— Alaa Al Aswany

#dictatorship #dictatorship