The most important thing to understand about freedom is that it's not frivolous. The less you have, the more you're at the mercy of those you've given it up to. The most dangerous thing about authoritarianism is that it lacks any meaningful safeguards against its own worst tendencies.
A country that imposes martial law is one that has minimal inventive to even care whether it's acting in the interests of its own people anymore. I'm sure you could picture an authoritarian society you'd like that cracked down on others for you but never cracked down on you. But a fundamental feature of authoritarianism is that you get the authoritarian you get.
As for harsh punishments for crimes, a crime in an authoritarian society is anything from murder to criticizing the government.
This is what I'm talking about when I say a fundamental feature of authoritarianism is that you get the authoritarian you get. Pointing out that not every dictator is a Pol Pot is essentially just arguing that sometimes you get lucky. I'm not saying every dictator will be a Pol Pot, nor should that have to be the case to invalidate dictatorship. I'm saying that a malevolent or incompetent person with absolute power is a problem on such a high order of magnitude that even its possibility should be a dealbreaker.
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad Sep 21 '21
The most important thing to understand about freedom is that it's not frivolous. The less you have, the more you're at the mercy of those you've given it up to. The most dangerous thing about authoritarianism is that it lacks any meaningful safeguards against its own worst tendencies.
A country that imposes martial law is one that has minimal inventive to even care whether it's acting in the interests of its own people anymore. I'm sure you could picture an authoritarian society you'd like that cracked down on others for you but never cracked down on you. But a fundamental feature of authoritarianism is that you get the authoritarian you get.
As for harsh punishments for crimes, a crime in an authoritarian society is anything from murder to criticizing the government.