Should the US have a totalitarian Government?

the government should be run by people trained to run it. if you want to be president you should need degrees and or experience in law, foreign affairs, history, leadership and economics.

frannkzappa

[QUOTE="worlock77"]

Totalitarian governments can certainly be more effective at getting sh*t done (at least as long as it's inline with their particular agenda), but the cost in liberty (and usually life) is far too great.

Ncsoftlover

That's assuming they're going the right direction at all times, or else they'd be more effective completely screwing up a country.countries face different situation when they go through different development stages, I highly doubt a totalitarian government can get it right everytime they encounter a problem.

[QUOTE="Ncsoftlover"]

[QUOTE="worlock77"]

Totalitarian governments can certainly be more effective at getting sh*t done (at least as long as it's inline with their particular agenda), but the cost in liberty (and usually life) is far too great.

whipassmt

That's assuming they're going the right direction at all times, or else they'd be more effective completely screwing up a country.countries face different situation when they go through different development stages, I highly doubt a totalitarian government can get it right everytime they encounter a problem.

Good or bad wasn't really relevant to my point though. My point was that totalitarian governments can get sh*t done. For better or worse they can get sh*t done.

[QUOTE="whipassmt"]

[QUOTE="BossPerson"]essentiallyworlock77

Democracy is, essentially, the rule of the majority. I'm fairly certain that a majority of households in the US now have internet access.

That's the thing, we are a republic not a democracy. The majority doesn't rule.

Yeah, why not. Kim Jong-Il, Pol Pot, Mao Ze Dong, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, Adolph Hitler they all seem like a bunch of stand up guys to me. What kind of ridiculous discussion is this? famicommander

...Huh? no.

[QUOTE="Ncsoftlover"]

[QUOTE="worlock77"]

Totalitarian governments can certainly be more effective at getting sh*t done (at least as long as it's inline with their particular agenda), but the cost in liberty (and usually life) is far too great.

whipassmt

That's assuming they're going the right direction at all times, or else they'd be more effective completely screwing up a country.countries face different situation when they go through different development stages, I highly doubt a totalitarian government can get it right everytime they encounter a problem.

Um, that's not what happened. Allthough the government encouraged backyard smelting, of which most of the product was useless, that's wasn't the cause of the famine. It was actually a massive man-made famine that was caused by over-zealous and false reports on agricultural production. Mao was trying to industrialize the country by increasing agricultural production without increasing investment. That way the surplus could be invested into heavy industry and such. Anyways, what happened was that officials were reporting insanely high and false claims of production that they were producing. The government thought "well great!" So they took their taxes as a percentage of the reported numbers which were often times 20-30x the actual level of production. This is what caused the famine in the country side during the great leap forward.

[QUOTE="whipassmt"]

[QUOTE="Ncsoftlover"]

That's assuming they're going the right direction at all times, or else they'd be more effective completely screwing up a country.countries face different situation when they go through different development stages, I highly doubt a totalitarian government can get it right everytime they encounter a problem.

dagreenfish

Um, that's not what happened. Allthough the government encouraged backyard smelting, of which most of the product was useless, that's wasn't the cause of the famine. It was actually a massive man-made famine that was caused by over-zealous and false reports on agricultural production. Mao was trying to industrialize the country by increasing agricultural production without increasing investment. That way the surplus could be invested into heavy industry and such. Anyways, what happened was that officials were reporting insanely high and false claims of production that they were producing. The government thought "well great!" So they took their taxes as a percentage of the reported numbers which were often times 20-30x the actual level of production. This is what caused the famine in the country side during the great leap forward.

[QUOTE="dagreenfish"]

[QUOTE="whipassmt"]

[QUOTE="Ncsoftlover"]

whipassmt

No, the famine was a result of a sort of national ferver, not government policies. The governmental policy in this particular case was to take x percentage of agricultural production as a tax. They had no reason not to trust the official reports they were recieving. Particularly because the Chinese economy and agricultural production had grown at an overwhelming rate since the communist take over in 1949.

Not trying to be arguementative, but modern chinese history and economic development is kinda my area of study. I'm not trying to argue in favor of totalitarion governments. :P

As a side note, Wasn't Sadam trained at West Point or something?

[QUOTE="whipassmt"]

[QUOTE="dagreenfish"]

dagreenfish

No, the famine was a result of a sort of national ferver, not government policies. The governmental policy in this particular case was to take x percentage of agricultural production as a tax. They had no reason not to trust the official reports they were recieving. Particularly because the Chinese economy and agricultural production had grown at an overwhelming rate since the communist take over in 1949.

Not trying to be arguementative, but modern chinese history and economic development is kinda my area of study. I'm not trying to argue in favor of totalitarion governments. :P

As a side note, Wasn't Sadam trained at West Point or something?

i don't think so

That's unconstitutional.

Umm. Hell no. gmaster456

definitely no