#dictator

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own. ↗

— Herbert Hoover

#climbed #dictator #each #every #except

There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution ↗

— Aldous Huxley

#government #wisodm #love

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

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

Kenya DOES NOT belong to 2 tribes only. Kenya has 42 tribes. to say that the decision of 2 tribes is the decision of the whole country is fallacy and outright dictatorship and tribalism Akuku Mach Pep, Democracy on Trial ↗

— Akuku Mach Pep

#dictatorship #tribalism #dictatorship

And I think being a good director is being able to be completely tyrannical and you?ve got to be an absolute dictator while at the same time, you have to listen and see everything because it can all change on a dime. ↗

— Bob Balaban

#absolute #because #being #change #completely

I saw what happened when a dictator was allowed to take over a piece of a country and the country went down the tubes. And I saw the opposite during the war when America joined the fight. ↗

— Madeleine Albright

#america #country #dictator #down #during