I’d rather not have an internet argument, but I’ll give you a pointer that you can use to google for more information of the issue is of actual interest to you:
Mao, Stalin and Hitler were tyrants that forced their way to leadership and killed everyone who opposed them. Kissinger was the advisor of a terrorist government that existed long before him and will continue to exist.
“just said no, and killed that person” is a naive Disney fantasy. In actual reality people that “just say no” get vanished, tortured and killed. And their neighbours suddenly turn reaaally quiet after that. However, there is always a certain joint guitl and complicity, I agree with that. And it weighs especially heavy if “the people” are very free to protest their nation’s terrorism but don’t do so.
There is a big difference between a single dictator being a plague upon the world for the 10-50 years he’s in power, and an nation with constently changing leadership being a permanent plague upon this world for 100+ years.
That’s the reason why Kissinger sticks out of the list: Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Kissinger*.
I agree with your overall thesis but your characterizations of the three tyrants are casually backwards.
Mao was a leader of a militant group first. He won political power in that group and that group won a large following of people over several decades. His status as tyrant emerges from that history and cultivated in a desperate militaristic role which is already predisposed to authoritarian rule.
Hitler was similar, his authotarianism, is on display much earlier in the process, and part of his charismatic attraction. It was clear early on that Hitler was going to mow down anyone in his way. Still, he needed to acquire popular and then political power. He leveraged existing sentiment and thuggish groups such as the Freikorp.
Stalin was just a bureaucrat.
Just kidding. I know very little of Stalin’s rise to power except that it was internal to a party that already had seized power.
I’d rather not have an internet argument, but I’ll give you a pointer that you can use to google for more information of the issue is of actual interest to you:
Mao, Stalin and Hitler were tyrants that forced their way to leadership and killed everyone who opposed them. Kissinger was the advisor of a terrorist government that existed long before him and will continue to exist.
“just said no, and killed that person” is a naive Disney fantasy. In actual reality people that “just say no” get vanished, tortured and killed. And their neighbours suddenly turn reaaally quiet after that. However, there is always a certain joint guitl and complicity, I agree with that. And it weighs especially heavy if “the people” are very free to protest their nation’s terrorism but don’t do so.
There is a big difference between a single dictator being a plague upon the world for the 10-50 years he’s in power, and an nation with constently changing leadership being a permanent plague upon this world for 100+ years.
That’s the reason why Kissinger sticks out of the list: Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Kissinger*.
I agree with your overall thesis but your characterizations of the three tyrants are casually backwards.
Mao was a leader of a militant group first. He won political power in that group and that group won a large following of people over several decades. His status as tyrant emerges from that history and cultivated in a desperate militaristic role which is already predisposed to authoritarian rule.
Hitler was similar, his authotarianism, is on display much earlier in the process, and part of his charismatic attraction. It was clear early on that Hitler was going to mow down anyone in his way. Still, he needed to acquire popular and then political power. He leveraged existing sentiment and thuggish groups such as the Freikorp.
Stalin was just a bureaucrat.
Just kidding. I know very little of Stalin’s rise to power except that it was internal to a party that already had seized power.
Great analysis thanks