On Aug 26, 2004, at 7:18 AM, Alberto Monteiro wrote:
Warren Ockrassa wrote:I think exactly the _opposite_: a totalitarian regime can only survive for
So Perestroika and Glasnost and so on, and eventually Communism in Russia went away (for now!). The same will *probably* happen in China and North Korea, but I'll say again that it doesn't magically happen. There must be competition from other societies, if for no other reason than to get the oppressed thinking in terms of their own rights and liberties (as being at least as valid as those of the Great Leader).
a long time if there is an external competition. The external competition
is the stabilizing factor that prevents the minions of the Evil Overlord
to fight among themselves to become the next Evil Overlord.
Mm, but you could argue that a similar social decay is taking place now in the US; we no longer have an Evil Empire to face, so we're slowly destroying ourselves, working frantically to hate *someone* and turning to the guy next door to do it.
Of course this does not prevent the worst-case-scenario of 1984, with three competing totalitarian regimes. Could we become this, with China, the USA and someone else [Europe? The Muslim World? An Arab-Europe coalition?] turned into totalitarian regimes and oppressing the world?
Three, or four maybe, sure.
-- WthmO
Warren's Workable Gun Control Plan: Arm everyone but the wealthy. --
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