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English Dictator?

A

Awesome!

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There are a lot of 20th century dictators in Europe and of course the 19th century dictator: Napoleon, however why didn't England produce one like: Franco, Mussolini, Lenin/Stalin, Hitler, Tito, Salazar, or Pilsudski among others in Europe around this time?

Maybe conditions were never ripe to create a dictator in England in the 19th or 20th century, or maybe because England is an Island, or had a better system of government, or was too busy fighting wars, colonizing etc. etc.

Please comment
 
Awesome! said:
There are a lot of 20th century dictators in Europe and of course the 19th century dictator: Napoleon, however why didn't England produce one like: Franco, Mussolini, Lenin/Stalin, Hitler, Tito, Salazar, or Pilsudski among others in Europe around this time?

Maybe conditions were never ripe to create a dictator in England in the 19th or 20th century, or maybe because England is an Island, or had a better system of government, or was too busy fighting wars, colonizing etc. etc.

Please comment
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We had a more stable system of gov't based on our ancient constitution and various events between 1500-1850.

We had a military dictatorship under the regicide Cromwell.
 
Awesome! said:
There are a lot of 20th century dictators in Europe and of course the 19th century dictator: Napoleon, however why didn't England produce one like: Franco, Mussolini, Lenin/Stalin, Hitler, Tito, Salazar, or Pilsudski among others in Europe around this time?

Maybe conditions were never ripe to create a dictator in England in the 19th or 20th century, or maybe because England is an Island, or had a better system of government, or was too busy fighting wars, colonizing etc. etc.

Please comment
Click to expand...

A good question. I would suggest the Monarchy had an influence but looking at your list of candidates there from the previous 2 centuries, when the Monarchy were in decline in terms of actual power. I wonder if there has been any scholarly study into the subject:roll:

Paul.
 
Part of my background is Irish Catholic and they still harbor hate for that Cromwell ****er.
 
One could make the argument that FDR was, essentially, a dictator.
 
English Dictators are nowhere near as bad as Spelling and Grammar Nazis....
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Needed to dust this off. I haven't awarded it to anybody in a long time.
 
Arch Enemy said:
I thought he just meant English speaking dictators.
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Yeah I thought that's what you might have meant.

It is an interesting notion. If one compares the colonies founded by England to those of, say, Spain/France/Portugal, it's clear that those with the English background are more likely to have a history of representative government. Not that they have all been "good" countries or whatever, but that they have generally been less despotic over their histories.

That is, colonies in which whose demographics were founded by the home nation like the America's or Australia, but not Egypt or Pakistan.
 
I think culturally the majority of people in Britain distrust their leaders and like to poke fun at them.
 
Britain has no bill of rights or real constitution...that's why you guys have horrifying things like ASBOs. There is NO WAY, even in the most George Bush nazi regime, that the US would ever have anything like that.

The irony of the Patriot Act is that it gave the US government powers that most European governments have had for years.
 
new coup for you said:
Britain has no bill of rights or real constitution...that's why you guys have horrifying things like ASBOs. There is NO WAY, even in the most George Bush nazi regime, that the US would ever have anything like that.

The irony of the Patriot Act is that it gave the US government powers that most European governments have had for years.
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Which is why we need to get rid of it. We are not suppsoed to be Europe. We are supposed to be the envy of Europe, with all our freedoms and rights to privacy. Not a whole lot of European countries have that and probably why they don't look at the US the same anymore, we are just another european country, just more christians than usual.
 
But Europe has much more lax personal liberties laws. Gay marriage, prostitution, drugs, etc.

Between those issues and terrorism it's pretty obvious which is the greater threat.

You also have to remember that a lot of European countries have had their own internal problems with terrorism for a long time.

Personally I think the European constitution-less draconian anti-terrorism laws have been pretty ineffective. Just like the Patriot Act.
 
new coup for you said:
Britain has no bill of rights or real constitution...that's why you guys have horrifying things like ASBOs.
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What do you find horrifying about ASBOs? They are used pretty much as a last resort. The main recipients are feral, delinquent teens and believe me when i say "A whole street/Neighbourhood" can become a hell hole to live in if you have this sort of problem. I,m part of a Residents Association we,re one of our aims is helping the community liaise with the relevant authorities, we are a blessing for the old and vulnerable. The last ASBO issued resulted in the areas crime rate decreasing by a massive 45% he wasn't quite a one person crime-wave he had his band of accomplices but if you encroach on the rights of the ring leaders you get a knock on affect.
Sorry to go off topic.

Paul.
 
Because you can't just make anything illegal, it's the very antithesis of American Constitution based law. I consider myself a social-democrat and even I find giving the government (particularly local councils- I can't imagine the dumb-ass things the Philly city council would do) the power to make anything illegal.
 
new coup for you said:
But Europe has much more lax personal liberties laws. Gay marriage, prostitution, drugs, etc.
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Kind of like Denmark. You can get free drugs but if you steal, you forfeit your life. :roll:
 
new coup for you said:
Because you can't just make anything illegal, it's the very antithesis of American Constitution based law. I consider myself a social-democrat and even I find giving the government (particularly local councils- I can't imagine the dumb-ass things the Philly city council would do) the power to make anything illegal.
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You may be a little confused as to how they work. They, the council are not making "anything" illegal. The laws are already in-place. They have designated Anti social Behaviour teams who in conjunction with other Governmental agencies such as the Police, housing officers etc build a legitimate case against convicted perpetrators over a very long period of time, in some cases it can take up to 3 years to bear fruition. So as you can imagine all avenues, alternatives during that period have been exhausted. You must take into consideration these are generally the worst of the worst, with a high predominance ending up incarcerated. They are on the whole prolific, repeat offenders.

Paul.
 
What I read (from British news sources, either the BBC or the Economist, I can't remember which) was that if someone commits some constant anti-social (but not necessarily illegal) behavior (like spitting or yelling) they can be given an ASBO which would make it illegal for the person to continue doing it.
 
new coup for you said:
Britain has no bill of rights or real constitution...that's why you guys have horrifying things like ASBOs.
Click to expand...
Britain has both a bill of rights and constitution. The problem is it can be so easily overriden. It doesn't even need that liberal committee of public safety the US calls the supreme court for that.

We also have that ever present threat to liberty and democracy, the EU or EUroplot, hanging over our shoulder.

There is NO WAY, even in the most George Bush nazi regime, that the US would ever have anything like that.
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The US has been erroding its constitution in the name of judicial activism and increased federal power since the beginning.
 
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new coup for you said:
What I read (from British news sources, either the BBC or the Economist, I can't remember which) was that if someone commits some constant anti-social (but not necessarily illegal) behavior (like spitting or yelling) they can be given an ASBO which would make it illegal for the person to continue doing it.
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Actually it is illegal offensives and not just one. It is usually many. It is a silly system which comes out of this tough on crime mentality which fails to get to the heart of the problem which is mostly the decline of family, community and the traditional strcutures and associations of local society and the rise of a mass, consumerist, centralist society in Britain. We are overrun with thugs and we get the silly laws to go with it.
 
new coup for you said:
If you exclude the english speaking countries that are majority European the only former english colony with a genuinely functional democracy is India.
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We were talking about the English-speaking colonies, to be which would have needed colonization from England.

Let me rephrase, in countries where Europeans butchered the native population and supplanted it with colonists, the ones with English backgrounds have been much more democratic long-term.
 
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