It’s a fable and an utterly silly one. If you think this is a “great story” on leadership you’re an idiot.

Sun Tzu himself said (and I’m paraphrasing here, because the best parts of his writing is the least quoted ones) “Treat your troops as your own beloved sons, and they shall follow you without hesitation.”

That’s what he had to say about leadership. Nothing about murdering concubines because of their inexperience at soldiering.

Victim-blaming is Propaganda 101. Or, as our mainstream media likes to call it, “balanced reporting.”

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that our media only started to consider this a bad thing after 1994…

It is… if you don’t have the time or energy to do all that fact-checking because you have to work yourself to the bone just to afford rent.

Quite the assumption.

Go learn what the term “assumption” means.

Yes. An unpaid one.

I argue it’s better to be democratic than not.

You’re arguing that a veneer of false democracy that exists purely to camouflage the exact same authoritarianism actually qualifies as democracy.

It doesn’t.

as it’s not guaranteed you’ll stay in the office after everything’s over.

Joe Biden leaving the White House doesn’t threaten the status quo in the US. You are confusing propaganda with the actual politics said propaganda is designed to obscure.

All I argue is that “artificial democracies” are far worse.

95% capitalism with 5% fake artificial democracy substitute (ie, so-called "liberal democracy) is about as artificial as “artificial democracy” gets.

This is what you don’t seem to understand. The so-called “democracy” that exists in the so-called “west” is stable because their electoral politics do not threaten the interests of the class of (thoroughly unelected) billionaire parasites who runs these societies. Regimes like Russia hasn’t attained this kind of stability yet - that is why the billionaire parasites that benefit from these regimes needs overt authoritarianism to protect their interests.

If the interests of this (again, thoroughly unelected) billionaire class is truly threatened in so-called “liberal democratic” states you will see them resort to the exact same type of authoritarianism. This is why ALL “liberal democracies” comes with built-in fascist institutions (such as the police and other paramilitary organisations) that can enable such authoritarian violence in the blink of an eye if necessary.

(Please don’t tell me you’re naive enough to believe that the police exists to protect YOU.)

In a truly democratic society, fascism couldn’t exist. Capitalism couldn’t exist.

The fact that they do should tell you something.

“I don’t like it, so it’s fascist”

I hate to be the one to break it to you… but Mussolini did not invent fascism. He merely gave it a name.

My point stands.

Does it now? Germany, the UK, the US and France are all pushing through legislation that will enable less and less restrictions on the violence their kapos mete out to the non-collaborationist parts of the population… underneath all the liberal pretensions, the genocidal white supremacist fascism is shining through because it’s always been there.

are incomparably more lenient

You mean their repression is less overt because their respective status quos is, for now, more stable than Russia’s or Kazakhstan and not so easily threatened from below.

Because even Israel, strictly speaking, isn’t classified as democracy.

The countries that have been arming, funding and supporting Israel since 1948 (who also, purely coincidentally, all have deep histories of white supremacist and antisemitic represssion, exploitation and genocide) disagrees with you. After all, if you can call the mixture of 95% capitalism and 5% artificial democracy substitute that gets classified as “democracy” by the (so-called) west “democratic” it’s not a far stretch to extend that classification to any nation that acts “white” enough - you know, like Israel and Apartheid-South Africa.

Since this word often gets thrown around with no real meaning behind it.

And it also gets thrown around with a lot of meaning behind it - and I’m always curious about people who seem to grow insecure about it when I do.

thus compared to the USA, when it is far worse in reality.

Worse for whom?

The state wants that power to itself though.

This is that power working as intended. What did you think the 2nd amendment was really all about? You can’t have white supremacist and well-armed militias ready to repress the population if you don’t arm them in the first place.

This is just business as usual, and these piggies will get off with barely a slap on the wrist because they were performing their function as intended.

If it takes that much effort to get them to share it simply becomes far more energy-efficient to off the whole lot of them.

This isn’t even the state

Yes it is. Who trains, arms, funds and protects these pigs from the populace they terrorize?

Do you have any clue what living in an actually undemocratic country is like?

Of course not. I grew up in a fascist state (Apartheid-South Africa) that was most definitely classified as “democratic” by the very same western “democracies” that are now also classifying Israel as “democratic.”

So no… what would I know about it?

The mere fact you’re able to protest should not be taken for granted.

They only allow you to protest until the protesting threatens the status quo. Then you’ll see all these (supposedly) “democratic” states act no differently than the ones without all the liberal pretensions.

USA is a flawed democracy.

Lol! You need to actually have democracy in order for it to be “flawed,” genius.

Yeah, I don’t like calling what all people should get a ‘privilege’.

If all people don’t get it it becomes a privilege. And one can make the argument that our society is actually run on privilege, and definitely not on the idea of rights.

“If I’m guilty of this, every cop in the nation’s going to jail,”

I guess those anarchists were onto something when they said all violence flows from the state.

Funny how that turned out.,

Going to be interesting watching liberals do the “See no genocide, hear no genocide, speak no genocide” shuffle for the next four years.

Yeah, liberals… keep pretending that your superficial pearl-clutching when it comes to US-sponsored genocide makes you all that different than your (so-called) “conservative” cousins.

Please explain your alternative to liberal democracy

I don’t discuss alternatives with people who refuse to admit that there’s absolutely nothing democratic about (so-called) “liberal democracy.”

Sooo… howzabout it?

So when are the (so-called) “democrats” pushing the hole-driller overboard?

Or will they just allow him to continue drilling holes… like they have been doing since forever?