At any rate, we need to see these things in a historical perspective. You can criticize Imperial Rome for all the barbaric customs of that era in human history, but these are hardly the result of the FORM of government, since all cultures (whether democratic or totalitarian) practiced these lamentably primitive rituals.

In case I'm not making myself entirely clear, to exaggerate the point, it would be like saying that our contemporary American democracy is superior to the Mongolian empire of Genghis Khan, because America has internet.

Pillaging, conquering, serfdom, slavery, torture, oppression- these things weren't the result of monarchies or dictatorships. They were simply a part of life in earlier times. They were present in Greek and Roman democracies, and they were present during the empires that followed. I would point out that the USA was one of the first modern democracies, and it was one of the last nations to give up slavery. I would posit, tenatively, that the connection between human rights and the form of a nation's government is more tenuous than people have been conditioned to believe.

They were all dictators at home. The issue I have with that assertion is that dictators are not NECESSARILY bad. I agree that they're USUALLY bad, but I don't think it's always the case. In the case of Napoleon, I've listed many of the positive, progressive, truly liberal reforms that he enstated, and I will defend the claim that, on balance, his administration was better for the people than any democracy.

As to your alternative list, <Protagoras, Virgil, Tacitus, Kant, Voltaire.>, I can't disagree that these were all great and fine individuals. However, the point of the discussion is that certain benevolent despots have led wisely and effectively. I could come up with a far better list of individuals (e.g. Bertrand Russell, Stanley Kubrick, JS Bach, Robert Frost, and on and on), which is equally irrelevant, since this has very little to do with the topic at hand, unless you're of the twisted opinion that Voltaire would have made a good dictator (much less Kant!).

<Ziggurat><I think the students and workers who were mowed down at Tiananmen might hesitate to call Deng Xiaoping benevolent.>

He was, given the cultural and historical context of his rule. And these sorts of things are difficult to gauge dispassionately without empathizing with individuals. Certainly, as a human being, I have only the utmost admiration for those students and workers that died in Tianenmen Square. However, in the context of an intellectual discussion regarding the policies of Deng, I don't think it pays to yield to sentimentality. True, this is a hit against Deng. However, if we were to allow ourselves to condemn his effectiveness as a ruler on this basis alone, it would be missing the big picture. To contrast, the United States is very likely responsible for far more deaths during this time in Central America. Must we therefore concede that the USA is a barbarous, evil nation? Of course it is not. And while I'm most certainly a vocal critic of the USA both in terms of domestic and foreign policy, I'm not about to dispute that it is fundamentally a civilized nation.

Firstly, I'd like to correct one factual inaccuracy. Napoleon always enjoyed the support of the French people. When returning from Elba, among the first people he met was a farmer, who upon recognizing Napoleon, offered his own two sons as soldiers.

When troops were sent to intercept Napoleon as he went to retake Paris, he stood in front of them and declared, "If any of you wishes to kill your emperor- here I am!" No one fired a shot. Now, while this is a pretty well documented event, you could choose to regard it as apocryphal. What is certainly undeniable is that every time troops were sent to intercept or kill Napoleon, they simply ended up joining his forces. At no point was there <an inevitable change in the attitudes of many French people towards their emperor. >

To return to Talleyrand, the political situation in Europe was complex. The monarchies (England foremost) were much upset by the revolution, and they had made it a policy to harrass the burgeoning nation. It was only through military victory that Napoleon was able to end the attacks against French borders. Nonetheless, England remained a nuisance, which he attempted to engage by way of embargo. The embargo, however, was proving ineffective, as other nations would violate their promises to cease trading with England. So much instigated both the Spanish and Russian campaigns.

It is interesting to note that Napoleon always claimed to be fighting for peace. I am not sure I believe that, but it is plausible that Napoleon thought the only way to end the attacks against France was to conquer any would-be attackers. At any rate, I think it is an oversimplification to say that Napoleon declined peace offers. He ostensibly considered the peace offers insincere, and the long-term price for accepting such peace offers may, in fact, have been a worse choice.

As for human rights and domestic policy, you make a decent point. There did exist a very small minority fighting for women's rights. And I don't deny that Napoleon's failure to appreciate this cause counts against him. Nonetheless, notwithstanding this deficit, when you consider all the positive contributions to society (public education, the right to free speech, freedom of religion, separation of church and state, tremendous funding for arts and sciences), can you really say that Napoleon was, on balance, anything less than a superlative leader?

<danielpi>, these were just some random and highly off-topic comments around the subject of Deng and Tiananmen. I'm a bit emotionally connected to it, since my wife was around during the Tiananmen incident and has told me about life in Beijing at that time. I think there was a real window of opportunity there for liberalization in China and that it's a huge pity that nothing came of it.

<You may consider England a parliamentary system, although I think it functioned largely as a monarchy during that time.> Firstly, by that point in time you are talking about Britain & Ireland: i.e. a combination of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Secondly, I disagree that "England" functioned as a monarchy. The monarch's powers were seriously compromised by that point in time, albeit that there was an ongoing power struggle between Parliament and the King.

<The United States was perhaps the only legitimate democracy we could compare to Napoleon's France> At the risk of being a bore, I do not agree that it was a democracy. It was a form of representative government, based on the votes of less than half of its adult inhabitants. I know that "democracy" has many different forms, but I do not accept that you can properly describe a system as a democracy unless it includes a majority of the people. The US system that time - while a step in the right direction in my view, was still a system of minority rule.

<tino>< I think history has shown that the idea of allowing someone absolute power because you think they are an enlightened visionary has backfired spectacularly time and time again.> And I never disagreed with THAT point. I don't think that anyone should ever support a dictator, precisely because the odds are far greater that he (or she) will be a Pol Pot rather than a Napoleon. Indeed, I have repeatedly stated that I disapprove of dictatorships generally. I only said that dictatorships COULD be better than democracies, in the rare and lucky circumstance that a nation found itself with a wise and benevolent leader.

Glad to see that you agree that there were many positive elements to Napoleon's rule, and particularly with your statement, <I can accept the theory that France at that time was a better place to live than most of Europe>. However, as for the "ends justify the means," I think that conflates the issue with several other moral and governmental considerations that aren't quite relevant.

Ethically, I'm a bit of a skeptic. If you and I agree to some norms of conduct, then these are our "morals", whatever they may be. I don't really believe that there's anything more to "morality" than social consensus. We all agree to get along, and we have a rough intuition about how that goes. When considering a form of government, however, I hardly think that there is a "right" and "wrong" in any universal/absolute sense. The best government is simply that which governs the best. If that happens to be a benevolent dictatorship, then that's what I will regard as the best form of government.

And the world would have been better for it.>

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14...Qxb2!
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