This website is proof that dictatorship can be benevolent if it's done with respect to the populace.

If you observe what this website runs on, it is not democracy in theory and yet the populace is respected by those in power. DART is a benevolent dictatorship and is proof that it can actually be done and thus that democracy itself is not the highest importance in a political system but instead respect for all is the utmost priority.

This is not proof that Republicanism is superior to Democracy, as this site is also not actually a Republic since each MEEP and discussing in threads that led to the rules and continues to shape them isn't how a Constitution with 'irrevokable rights' is formed or regarded.

           

China? 

You can argue that if you want, I see China as a horrible country to its people.

But China also has no racism, crime, or inequality.

it has the latter 2 and it's racism is towards non-Chinese.

Most Chinese live in a very hegemonic state with little crime. Most Chinese are proud of their country. One China.

No they don't. The crime is covered up and many things that should be crimes (in terms of corporate environmental damage and employee mistreatment, as well as average citizen's ability to torture and abuse their children and animals) are not crimes that are in any way recorded.

In China it's perfectly legal and acceptable to beat your children and to torture animals to extreme degrees.

You are blackmailed to say that you are proud of China if you are a Chinese citizen and resident. You can get in serious life-threatening shit if you don't.

China is great, so long as you are a loyal party member. If you say it's not great, you are not a loyal party member.

Admittedly, I find their treatment of Li Wenliang unforgivable.

Pinochet and Franco were pretty great guys, tbh.

Make right-wing dictators great again!

Justify this

"Benevolent" dictatorships are the ultimate crapshoot. You wave unlimited unchecked power in front of somebody and there's no telling how they'll act (e.g. Robert Mugabe and Putin both played by the rules of the system for a long time before becoming dictators). Plus, getting there means sending the entire government into disarray, driving away foreign investors, fueling capital flight, tanking your country's stock market, and so on. Some citizens will respond with violence against the state and looting will be rampant. It's easy for the head of the new government to panic and order a bloody crackdown to restore order, but after that initial transgression (and knowledge that the public will invariably despise him afterward) it'd become easier for him or her to go all in and do whatever they want.

Perhaps more damningly, overthrowing democratic government even once sets a precedent that makes it easier for this to happen again and again, because suddenly a government is not an unassailable object but something that can be toppled if you don't like it. What you get is an African-style country that goes through 4 or 5 coups in 30 years. Even if one dictator's fairly benevolent the guy who forcibly replaces him/her might not be.

In the end there's no way to fix a country's government except to put in the hard work of convincing enough people to win elections, and then to win re-elections, and stay in power long enough, and with a large enough coalition on your side, to change things for the better. Some insanely unstable and poor countries (i.e. Afghanistan or Somalia) might do better with dictatorships but a rich Western country absolutely cannot afford that.

Yet all websites where the moderation isn't corrupt, run on it. All fair and friendly schools (from the perspective of the students) run on it.

In the eyes of the Chinese. But the actual country is racist.

But, then again, who is the dictator? Is it Mike, or is it the mods? Because it would be an oligarchy if it was the mods. Mike has no real power of actually dealing with the CoC, and that's the mods' problem. 

benevolent?  perhaps, but wouldn't that be in part to encourage participation, new members and compete with competition?  maybe more self serving/interest than benevolent?

So that is what branded "Nationalism"?

I have been saying this for a while

I can see the argument.  I'd say that DART is run by decent monarchs and I would only improve their moderating style slightly.

None of the mods use cancel culture as a slide rule.

Took communists out of their countries. Pretty good economically, Pinochet with economic liberalization got the inflation under control, and was a good ally for the US in the Cold War. Franco built tons of dams, kept his country out of WWII, and also helped out during Cold War.

As far as dictators go, these two guys were pretty decent.

They also murdered, tortured, and unjustly imprisoned many thousands of people. So yeah...

They were much better than their alternatives, so yeah....

For Franco, I could possibly see that. Possibly.

But for Pinochet? The fact that you admire someone who overthrew a democratically elected official to establish a brutal, repressive regime is appalling. 

Agreed, Franco is much easier to defend in that respect. But there are very clear reasons for why Pinochet overthrew the terrible Allende government.

I have been wanting to do a Pinochet debate for a long time, but haven't had the free time to set one up. Perhaps in the near future.

In your eyes, what was so bad about the Allende government to warrant a coup d'état and subsequent military junta?

I know he was quite socialist and was close to the Eastern Bloc and Cuba (and may have supported some left-wing militants), but was Pinochet really better than him?

Allende was very likely to be a dictator himself, based on how he violated property rights by seizing things against current laws, had enormous inflation. Just basically how every similar socialist leader in that region ended up, especially Venezuela. Their dictator was elected, didn’t make him any better

I did some research on Allende. Fair to say, his policies weren't the best, either. However, what he did wasn't nearly as abhorrent as setting up detention and torture centers, where physical, psychological, and sexual abuse were rampant. 

We don't know if Allende would've done this had he had the opportunity, but regardless, it's safe to say that Pinochet was very bad.

Debate websites is a competitive market so dictatorship would probably result in a battle between a few hardliners and everyone else just leaving to find a more appropriate alternative.... You can only dictate if you have a captive audience.

I would describe DebateArt  as more of a liberal democracy.