Can a dictatorship be more free than a democracy?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I think so. Imagine if Utah became an independent country with a democratic government. It'd hardly be free at all. It could draft it's own constitution, and the prudery would become even worse than what it is today. Hell apparnetely in Utah, every bar must have a "membership" that you have to pay like $15 for to go in, that means you must buy a $15 membership card if you want to just stop in a bar for a few minutes to talk with your friends even if you have no intention of ever going back! What an awful law.

Now theoretically, let's imagine there was a military coup in this new Utah country by some non-prudes, who set up a military regime. And their first actions would be to repeal most of the awful bans and restrictions on things like alcohol, porn, prostitution and strip clubs. The country would be non-democratic, but more free.

Of course real world examples are tough to find, and it isn't likely. But it is theoretically possible, so I vote yes.

[2952-0-0]

What would happen to the prudes in Utah? Do they get thrown into the Great Salt Lake, which would be infested with sharks?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

No (normal)

And if Utah is so bad, how come the state is booming?

[opebo]

Yes, obviously.  The majority of people in any society dislike freedom, and certainly love to oppress minority groups - whether of race or opinion. 

[DanielX]

No.

Although Singapore is fairly restricted and a pseudo-democracy.

[Emsworth]

In theory, it certainly can be. For all practical purposes, the possibility is so remote that I would answer No.

[minionofmidas]

Not by definition in a true democracy. Pseudo-democracies like Singapore - yes, obviously. Lots of dictatorships that are freeer.

[KillerPollo]

Yes, obviously.  The majority of people in any society dislike freedom, and certainly love to oppress minority groups - whether of race or opinion. 

[opebo]

In theory, it certainly can be. For all practical purposes, the possibility is so remote that I would answer No.

Actually on the whole I would have to say that, in the area of social freedoms, a dictatorship is likely to be more free than a democracy.  No great mass of prudish bourgeois voters to pander to.

Yes, obviously.  The majority of people in any society dislike freedom, and certainly love to oppress minority groups - whether of race or opinion. 

Look who's talking, homophobe.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So BRTD you've been to Utah and you know how "bad" it is I take it?

I've been there but I was so young I can't remember anything. I've just heard awful things though. Remember they banned sodomy before Lawrence v. Texas. They also have a government employee whose only job is to fight pornography. And that's with the federal government and constitution.

No (normal)

And if Utah is so bad, how come the state is booming?

Prudes, Mormons and rich people who buy homes in the mountains and have them in other states.

The bottom line, I most certainly would not like living there.

[angus]

yes, in the same sense that a slave can be more free than a free-market wage earner.

You can imagine specific examples of a person who is in the charge of another, legally, and specific examples of a person who is completely at will, legally, and then paint rosy scenarios of the former and gloomy scenarios of the latter, and say, "See, a counterexample is a disproof."  But that depends on your definition of "free"  Anyway I voted no, since the overarching philosophical concept of freedom isn't known by object of dictation.  Ultimately freedom is, as Port Arthur Texas and heroin-queen Janis Joplin used to sing, another word for "Nothin' left to lose."  Those in a dictatorship have much to lose.  The dictatorship, namely.  And until they lose that they're not free.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'd rather live in a dictatorship with lots of porn, strip clubs, sex and alcohol, and a lack of misogyny and equality for women rather than a democracy where all that is banned and women are treated like slaves (like Iraq is about to turn into)

[© tweed]

BRTD, it's very unlikely a dictatorship would be very 'free'.  They are called dictatorships becuase they have a severe lack of individual freedoms.  A better poll question would be "can absolute monarchies be more free than a democracy"?

[angus]

I'd rather live in a dictatorship with lots of porn, strip clubs, sex and alcohol, and a lack of misogyny and equality for women rather than a democracy where all that is banned and women are treated like slaves (like Iraq is about to turn into)

indeed you would.  most mindless drones would prefer dictatorship to democracy.  Freedom is harsh.  Freedom is cold.  Freedom can be starvation or freedom can be great riches.  Freedom is long-lasting wonderful orgasms at the end of the Act of Making Love, or bitter 3-minute gropefests in the back seat of a 72 cutlass on the side of the road.  Freedom is deciding things for oneself.  Why settle for the thrill of the chase when you can have the kill, delivered on a platter?  No one here is surprised that a person such as yourself would decline that offer in favor a God or Government which gives you all the answers.  And no one is surprised that, in spite of all that garbage about the ennui of surburbia and picket fences, deep down you're about as Zoroastrian-influenced, security-conscious, scared simple surburbanite as they come.

[opebo]

I'd rather live in a dictatorship with lots of porn, strip clubs, sex and alcohol, and a lack of misogyny and equality for women rather than a democracy where all that is banned and women are treated like slaves (like Iraq is about to turn into)

indeed you would.  most mindless drones would prefer dictatorship to democracy.  Freedom is harsh.  Freedom is cold.  Freedom can be starvation or freedom can be great riches.  Freedom is long-lasting wonderful orgasms at the end of the Act of Making Love, or bitter 3-minute gropefests in the back seat of a 72 cutlass on the side of the road.  Freedom is deciding things for oneself.  Why settle for the thrill of the chase when you can have the kill, delivered on a platter?  No one here is surprised that a person such as yourself would decline that offer in favor a God or Government which gives you all the answers.  And no one is surprised that, in spite of all that garbage about the ennui of surburbia and picket fences, deep down you're about as Zoroastrian-influenced, security-conscious, scared simple surburbanite as they come.

You're missing the point angus - democracy is not necessarily 'free'.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BRTD, it's very unlikely a dictatorship would be very 'free'.  They are called dictatorships becuase they have a severe lack of individual freedoms.  A better poll question would be "can absolute monarchies be more free than a democracy"?

An absolute monarchy is a form of dictatorship. Of course this is true, although not really applicable in today's context. But just compare England before Cromwell took over to Cromwell's rule for proof that is can.  Theoretically the same could happen today. Actually Freedom House scores once gave Ecuador and Honduras, which I assume both were under some sort of military regime, scores of 7,3, which put them higher in civil liberties than many countries with essentially democratic governments. So examples do exist today, even though they are rare.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

But just compare England before Cromwell took over to Cromwell's rule for proof that is can.

I appear to be missing something here but... are you seriously suggesting that England was "more free" before the Commonwealth than during or after it? If so, I suggest you read up on the period a lot more...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'd rather live in a dictatorship with lots of porn, strip clubs, sex and alcohol, and a lack of misogyny and equality for women rather than a democracy where all that is banned and women are treated like slaves (like Iraq is about to turn into)

indeed you would.  most mindless drones would prefer dictatorship to democracy.  Freedom is harsh.  Freedom is cold.  Freedom can be starvation or freedom can be great riches.  Freedom is long-lasting wonderful orgasms at the end of the Act of Making Love, or bitter 3-minute gropefests in the back seat of a 72 cutlass on the side of the road.  Freedom is deciding things for oneself.  Why settle for the thrill of the chase when you can have the kill, delivered on a platter?  No one here is surprised that a person such as yourself would decline that offer in favor a God or Government which gives you all the answers.  And no one is surprised that, in spite of all that garbage about the ennui of surburbia and picket fences, deep down you're about as Zoroastrian-influenced, security-conscious, scared simple surburbanite as they come.

No, that's not really the point. The point is that here we have a democracy which is NOT free, due to tyranny of the majority. Of course freedom is better, and I certainly don't support the Patriot Act because of any security concious nonsense, nor a dictatorship, but theoretically one could be more free under a dictatorship than such a democracy.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

But just compare England before Cromwell took over to Cromwell's rule for proof that is can.

I appear to be missing something here but... are you seriously suggesting that England was "more free" before the Commonwealth than during or after it? If so, I suggest you read up on the period a lot more...

Admittedly I don't know much about it, but from what I do know I'd take the absolute monarchy over Cromwell's Puritan regime and its banning of literature, alcohol, theater not to mention the great decrease in religious freedom that happened as well.

[Emsworth]

But just compare England before Cromwell took over to Cromwell's rule for proof that is can.

I appear to be missing something here but... are you seriously suggesting that England was "more free" before the Commonwealth than during or after it? If so, I suggest you read up on the period a lot more...

Admittedly I don't know much about it, but from what I do know I'd take the absolute monarchy over Cromwell's Puritan regime and its banning of literature, alcohol, theater not to mention the great decrease in religious freedom that happened as well.

The Pre-Cromwellian regime's abuses included imprisoning people without trial, collecting taxes without the consent of Parliament, and the like. On the whole, however, I would think that the reign of King Charles I was largely preferable to the chaotic and oppressive Commonwealth and Protectorate.

[angus]

I'd rather live in a dictatorship with lots of porn, strip clubs, sex and alcohol, and a lack of misogyny and equality for women rather than a democracy where all that is banned and women are treated like slaves (like Iraq is about to turn into)

indeed you would.  most mindless drones would prefer dictatorship to democracy.  Freedom is harsh.  Freedom is cold.  Freedom can be starvation or freedom can be great riches.  Freedom is long-lasting wonderful orgasms at the end of the Act of Making Love, or bitter 3-minute gropefests in the back seat of a 72 cutlass on the side of the road.  Freedom is deciding things for oneself.  Why settle for the thrill of the chase when you can have the kill, delivered on a platter?  No one here is surprised that a person such as yourself would decline that offer in favor a God or Government which gives you all the answers.  And no one is surprised that, in spite of all that garbage about the ennui of surburbia and picket fences, deep down you're about as Zoroastrian-influenced, security-conscious, scared simple surburbanite as they come.

You're missing the point angus - democracy is not necessarily 'free'.

LOL.  Hardly.  just bustin' his balls a little.  And take it from someone who shares his propensity for speaking before thinking, a little ball-busting is a good thing.  Anyway you're reading way in between the lines.  I'd never make such a claim.  I'd simply try to define each term, as good debate rules require, then argue any point based on the meaning of those terms.  anyway, he trashed the thread, not me.  started off with an objective/logical question (can something be?) and turned it into a normative/subjective question (what is preferred?)  By all means one can argue by counterexample that a condition characterized by superficial lack of freedom can be assigned to individuals which have greater individual freedom than those described by conditions which are characterized by Will.  For example, in many ways the slaves of the wife of a Ming Dynasty emperor are freer than the wife of the emperor.  But I'd rather be the wife of the emporor than her slaves.  Having to lie with the emperor from time to time seems such a small price to pay for all that radically hip stuff in the apartment.  And the slaves have to wash their own undergarments.   ewww.   And dictatorships vs democracy?  Sure, the friends of Fidel are much freer in some ways than those poor bastards in the slums of Johannesburg, in one of the world's great democracies.  No doubt.  I certainly wouldn't argue that the case can't be made for the negative.  I just wanted to suggest that in the greater sense of freedom, and neither are truly free, the democracy at least offers a chance of choice.  Now, the digression.  After all, trashed threads are infinitely more interesting that ones that follow the rules of ettiquette in posting.  (yet another example of how freedom rocks!)  And again, I'm just following the thread's originator's example of digressing.  Wherein lies sovereignty?  The republicans, democrats, and socialists say the State.  The constution party folks say God.  and Libertarians say the Individual.  So anyone not voting Libertarian (myself including) is tacitly admitting to some preference of security over liberty.  Anyway, I'm not saying dictatorships are "bad" (frankly I don't swing that way.)  In fact, they're among the most efficient forms of government.  Democracy is so damned messy, isn't it?  But on the objective question of whether one can be freer, I'd have to say that although individuals subject to the government whims may be freeer, the form itself isn't.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

but from what I do know I'd take the absolute monarchy over Cromwell's Puritan regime

Do you actually know what Puritan meant back then? Not to pick on you or anything, because most people don't...

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Er... no. No... I don't think that literature was banned

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I don't think that was ever banned as such; certain Major Generals (the people responsible for running the various Districts) did crack down on ale houses though.
Their main target was cock-fighting and the like.

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Again, I think this was only in certain Districts.

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Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear... who on earth told you that? What actually happend as far as religious freedom went was the reverse of that... to give a couple of examples; the Church of England was abolished, people were no longer fined for not attending Anglican services, the persecution of the Dissenters and Seperatists was ended... and the ban on Jews was finally lifted.

[John Dibble]

In theory, yes. Imagine a dictatorship run by me, and next imagine a democracy where the majority of people were like opebo.

[opebo]

By all means one can argue by counterexample that a condition characterized by superficial lack of freedom can be assigned to individuals which have greater individual freedom than those described by conditions which are characterized by Will.  For example, in many ways the slaves of the wife of a Ming Dynasty emperor are freer than the wife of the emperor.  But I'd rather be the wife of the emporor than her slaves.  Having to lie with the emperor from time to time seems such a small price to pay for all that radically hip stuff in the apartment.  And the slaves have to wash their own undergarments.   ewww.   And dictatorships vs democracy?  Sure, the friends of Fidel are much freer in some ways than those poor bastards in the slums of Johannesburg, in one of the world's great democracies.  No doubt.  I certainly wouldn't argue that the case can't be made for the negative.  I just wanted to suggest that in the greater sense of freedom, and neither are truly free, the democracy at least offers a chance of choice.

No, again you're missing the point.  I'm not talking about comparing individual cases of people living under one system or the other.

The point is, democracy is majority rule.  The majority are freedom-hating, tyrannical prudes; therefore democracy leads to tyranny.  In a dictatorship if the dictator doesn't particularly care about your personal habits, you're likely to be more free 'socially' than under democracy.

[Blue Rectangle]

Theoretically possible, but very unlikely.

Here's a mathematical approach:
Use Freedom House's ratings, and call 1..7 the range from democracy to dictatorship on the political freedom score and consider the 1..7 civil liberties score to be from "free" to "not free".  A "not free" democracy would be 1,7 and a free dictatorship would be 7,1.  Now subtract civil liberties from political freedom.  A large positive score indicates a free dictatorship and a large negative score is a not free democracy.  For 2005, there was a single country (Israel) with a -2 score, three with +2 and all the rest were -1 to +1.  So there is pretty tight correlation between democracy and civil liberties.

BRTD's examples of Ecuador and Honduras have +4 each in 1973.  However, in that same year there are no net scores less than -2 (four countries: Bangladesh, 2, 4; Pakistan, 3, 5; Paraguay, 4, 6; and Philippines, 4, 6).  I don't think any of those countries could be considered a good democracy in 1973.  Also, Ecuador and Honduras have had nearly zero change in the civil liberties scores in the past 30 years, although their political freedoms have improved greatly.  Thus, neither country experienced a loss of civil liberties with the onset of democracy.