What produces RUTHLESS DICTATORS?

You obviously ignore the evidence

okie wrote:

So, do you consider Nazism and Hitler a right wing dictatorship, or a form of a leftwing dictatorship?

This has, indeed been answered quite a few times, by Set and others.

But certainly, okie, you're free to write our history differently according to your personal doctrine.

Nobody who does not approach the subject with a partisan political agenda, however, agrees with you.

Okie -

1) Papa Doc Duvalier. This guy has ruthless dictator written all over him. He has ruthlessly oppressed and exploited his country for 14 years or so.
How does he hold up against your theorem?

a) Disfunctional childhood - Arguably, yes. His mother was disfunctional and wound up in an asylum. But then again, it doesn't really evidence in an unstable childhood. Largely raised by his aunt, he graduated from the University of Haiti with a degree in medicine. And he didn't seem to have many disfunctional relationships in his adulthood either: He was married to Simone Ovide, who became his widow when he died. His son succeeded him.

b) Rejection and/or hate for religious belief, sometimes despite training as a child. As they grow into adulthood, they have a hatred or unresolved resentment toward certain groups, races, or religion.
Actually, Papa doc seemd to embrace religion, using it as a means to inspire terror and supress his peoples. He was a known practicioner of Voudou, taking on traits of Baron Samedi, one of the more powerful (and evil) loa's, with strong associations to death. Furthermore, in his propaganda he identifies strongly with both Jesus and God. While initially excommunicated by the RC church, he sought to get it revoked and succeeded later in his life.

c) They perceive injustice from childhood and develop a burning desire to dominate, gain power, and right the wrongs toward society and to them as they view it.
Papa Doc wanted power alright, but certainly not to right wrongs, even though this was the mask he hid behind to gain power in 1956.

Typically there is a hate for business and private enterprise, as it is viewed as unfair and the cause of much injustice and suffering, and religion is also viewed as a failure, so government and they are the hope of righting the wrongs and creating their vision of utopia on earth.

The economy certainly declined, although again it's disputable that Papa Doc envisioned it. His initial rise to power came as champion of the oppressed blacks, who were exploited by the richer, industrialistc mulatto's. During his reign (and that of his son) Haiti became dirt poor.
But as previously mentioned, Papa Doc embraced religion and all its trappings, both christian and voodoo, as means to suprres the people, even going as far to name his goons tonton macoute, the bogeymen of voodoo religion.
The only utopia he envisioned, was one where he and his family had the money and the power. In short, I think your little theory fails for Papa Doc Duvalier

2) Alfredo Stroessner - Dictator of Paraguay.

History has been written, I am not re-writing what happened, and you cannot change what happened, and the original record is still available for interpretation, so you and other so-called historians do not own the only interpretation of history, Walter, and nor am I alone in my interpretation.

I bet you think Stalin actually believed in and promoted Communism.

By the way, where did you come up with that confused name?

So you do not have a partisan political agenda, Setanta?

This appears akin to fascism or some form of a leftist idealogy,

okie wrote:

By the way, where did you come up with that confused name?

If you insist, you certainly can write the name as it would be in German: Alfred Strößner.
But he was born there, grew up in a wealthy Paraguayan family, though his parents emigrated from Germany.

If you intend to give some a Socialist view as well: there are enough documents about there conservative background in Hof/Germany.

You claim that the trait of dictators to use a strong state to intervene into business and the lives of individuals belongs to the left side of the political spectrum.

HOWEVER, simply by BEING a ruthless dictator, they HAVE to use the power of the state to accomplish ANYTHING. And since EVERY political measure taken by ANY government does in SOME WAY influence either businessess or individuals, that really makes an empty statement.

Unless you want to envision a benign right government as some sort of benevolent anarchy of course.

It's hard for me to determine just what are Okie's underlying ideas here, but it does appear to me that he is confusing the left & right of political & economic ideology with the good and bad of human nature. The truth is these things are orthogonal - in the sense that one doesn't determine the other.

There have been and will continue to be socialist, left wing political advocates who are sympathetic human beings who are not given to exploiting and controlling others - quite the contrary. Similarly there are and will continue to be like people who in their political & economic beliefs put more emphasis on individual freedom, enterprise and property rights. Indeed some of the political leaders of both sides of these debates (alas too few) are mostly of this type.

At the same time there are and have been vain, brutal, power-seeking leaders of both political/economic persuasions, and all points in between, who have misused their opportunities and power to cause great misery and suffering.

Evil, when it occurs, is not so much in the ideology as in the actions of individual people and leaders. Whatever virtue I find in our political and economic system rests primarily in its central tendency to (usually) check and limit the excesses of bad people or people when they are bad. The chief defect of the authoritarian socialist systems of the 20th century was their failure to deliver on their theory and promises : -- a failure that arose from the inherent contradictions between theory and the facts of human nature - the "vanguard of the people" turned out to care more about the vanguard than the people, and there was nothing to limit them. That trait appears to be very often true of all authoritarian systems, left or right, there is nothing to limit the excesses of the leaders when they fail to behave as Plato's imagined philosopher kings.

It's hard for me to determine just what are Okie's underlying ideas here, but it does appear to me that he is confusing the left & right of political & economic ideology with the good and bad of human nature. The truth is these things are orthogonal - in the sense that one doesn't determine the other.