Change of Pace (The Best Dictator )

[OrangeEmpire]

Here's a tough one.

Who do you think was or is the best dictator? Please support your choice.


Castro has had a good run… people have been dying to get away from that island for over 40 years.

But that Hugo… he is a comer… killing students in the street over a TV station.

Mao was good in his day… what? 20 or 30 million dead? Forced abortions…most guys wait until they’re breathing before killing your kids… not Mao.

Stalin did a job… starved them out.

No list is complete w/o Hitler. Took two thousand years for anyone to treat the Jews that badly.

It’s been estimated that 30 million people were killed under the rule of the Mongol Empire, and the population of China fell by half in fifty years of Mongol rule. Ouch! “Better” than Mao!

David Nicole states in The Mongol Warlords, "terror and mass extermination of anyone opposing them was a well tested Mongol tactic." Upon coming to the first city in a new land they would not offer any terms… only destroy it… burn it to the ground and kill almost everyone leaving only a few people to ‘escape’ and flee to the next town… where they will tell folks there what happened.

He commenced rule over a city of stone and left it a city of marble, and the capitol of an empire to last 1,500 years and define western civilization.

Adenoid Hynkel.

I liked the way he bounced that inflatable globe around.

Genghis Khan.

I know Khan has a reputation for barbarism, but it's not entirely deserved (Khan never attacked anyone without reason, and only resorted to war as a last resort.). He created the largest land empire in history (twice the size of the Roman Empire), transformed Mongolia into a superpower, and increased the standard of living for his people. Everyone, down to the lowliest of peasants, got a part of Genghis' spoils, benefited from his actions. Add to that, he was a military genius who's strategies are still being employed today.

The Ottomans had a few good ones too, like Mehmed the conqueror who finally finished off Octavian's legacy after 1,500 years, and Suleiman the Magnificant, who really was the Augustus of the middle east.

Oh and the answer you're looking for will come up in 5 posts or less... (hint.....BUSH)

 

[OrangeEmpire]

My winner has to be Hitler.....

This is likely to be a strange and highly controversial (sp?) response, but I'll say that the best (as well as the worst) modern dictator was Hitler. Why?

First of all, Hitler was a masterful politician. He knew how to measure his target audiences and say exactly what they wanted to hear. He knew how to get his rivals and subserviants to do as he wished.

But perhaps more significantly, he really did embody the hope and spirit of the people he saught to lead, both the best and worst aspects of those people. Upon coming to power, he rapidly turned the German economy around. Decades of being plagued by unemployment and hyper-inflation came to an abrupt end. He put his people back to work. Moreover, Germany was at the time a nation in great despair and he lifted them out of that. In an equally short time, he made his people proud to be who and what they were.

Had he contented himself with the national possessions he had circa 1936 or '37, and either deported or segregated the jews as opposed to slaughter them, history would have passed a very different verdict on old Adolf. The British and the Americans could not ask for a more stalwart ally in the fight against communism, and it was Hitler's intention in those days to seek such alliance. Ultimately, I think Nazi Germany would have collapsed in the same way the Soviet Union did and for the same reasons. World opinion would have turned against them and forced them to abandon their racist policies as it ended up doing to South Africa in the 80s and 90s.

Instead, of course, history went the way it did, and Germany's miracle led to the hell of genocide, totalitarianism and world war. A telling lesson in the nature of absolute power.

 

[MG1968]

Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, although Michael Fay might disagree with me.

 

[allvol123]

Kim Jong IL and his dad don't get any props for keeping it in the family?

 

[MG1968]

short trolls wearing birth control glasses, pajamas and sporting really bad haircuts don't qualify.

 

[allvol123]

Oh, there's a certain chic to that. He loves Hollywood and is trying to be stylish.

 

[OrangeEmpire]

 

[emainvol]

But that Hugo… he is a comer… killing students in the street over a TV station.

I must have missed this? If you have a link to this story please share.

Nevermind, I found it, Chávez Forced to Deny Dictatorship Accusation

I dunno if I would describe that as Hugo killing students.

 

[JTrainDavis]

I'm going to have to go with ole OrangeEmpire on this one. Hitler made alot of "Jefferson Davis" mistakes, as far as making poor decisions as a general, but those notwithstanding, the persecution of the Jews was the worst, rather than banishing them from Germany, he decided simply to kill them, along with Gays, Gypsys, and Communists.

As OE said, it's hard to make friends when you're gassing people by the thousands and perhaps millions. He had the best army in the world at his apex, technologically and leadership wise, it's a wonderful thing that he fancied himself the next Napoleon, as if the Commanders on the Atlantic wall didn't have to go through Hitler before ordering the Tank Divisions forward, we might well have been pushed into the sea on D-Day. My Grandfather was in 1st Bn/508 PIR with General Gavin at the La Fiere Causeway, when the German Armor started to act. The Paratroopers stalled them, and the Air Corps destroyed them, before they could act. Had they moved when the coastal commanders said "Oh Hell here they come", we would have been SOL.

We might not have gotten that far had Hitler decided to build more Bismarck Class Battleships, and some semblence of Naval Air Power. Good thing he thought too highly of himself, i guess, though economically he was great