Sunday, May 21, 2006

The Benefits of a Benevolent Dictatorship and the Misfortunes of Freedom...

The Bards tell that there 'twas a time not so long ago of a country where the populous threw off the shackles of democracy, placed their trust in their Leader and found happiness.


The Leader of this country was a powerful and charismatic man. When political scandal and social unrest plagued the country, he rose to become the leader of a party that gained massive public support and subsequently took power. But let us not get ahead of ourselves...


For years prior to the advent of the Leader, the country had faced increasing social problems - rising criminality and a corrupt government seemingly unable to keep its own people in line. As the situation got worse and worse, gangs of criminals, who had initially been a petty problem, grew more daring.
The country's police force, while competent, simply did not have the staff, resources or cash to combat the problem effectively. Matters came to a head when one particularly violent criminal stood trial, only to be found not guilty of his sins. The reason for this, it later emerged, was that he had been able to intimidate the jury by threatening them and their family members.


This event set a precedent for all other criminals to follow. Soon, no one was punished for his or her crimes.


The Court system collapsed.


In addition to this, the government itself had its own problems. Completely corrupt, the politicians were more concerned with their own personal gain than the crippling problems that faced them. Proverbial "brown paper bags" were commonly passed to them from those eager to serve themselves.
Land was re-zoned, laws changed arbitrarily, etc, all without thought of consequence on society. Of course when this behaviour become public knowledge it did nothing to help the peoples confidence in their supposed representatives.


And so things continued. The numerous problems in society need not be listed here. The workforce suffered as people perceived that now crime did indeed pay, and was a far easier option than actually working. In fact, all law-abiding people suffered as they saw everything they had worked for and earned collapse around them. And people began to think:


All this because of the weakness of Democracy.


The people of the country finally realised that it was the system that had failed, and that while complete freedom was a great ideal, in practise it caused chaos. In short, democracy simply didn't work. Eventually, the problems in their society caused civil unrest, and it was at this point that the Leader emerged. A respected officer in the army, he understood that action must be taken if his country was to be saved. He appealed to the people of the country to support and join him, and overwhelmingly they did. The army and police too gave him their full support.


And so, on a day known as "White Monday", the Leader publicly announced that he intended to march on the government and remove them from power. Tens of thousands turned out to cheer him on as he marched on the government buildings with the army behind him. He arrested every corrupt politician and jailed them all (later, when concentration camps were set up, they were transferred to them).


The Leader then declared himself the new head of government and swore to end the problems that society had suffered. One of his first laws was to unburden people with the duty of voting. As democracy had failed, he would remain leader of the country indefinitely.


This was simply the first of many radical moves the Leader enacted to better society. He targeted crime by executing all the more notorious criminals and their families. He made it clear that it would not only be the criminal punished, but that their family would also suffer. Police were given greater powers to help prevent crime.


He demanded that the officials that he appointed were above corruption. He ensured this by giving these officials ample perks for their duties. Any that failed in this regard were sent to concentration camps.


Of course, having total power, he was above corruption himself. And with his power, he was able to allocate his governments money where it was most needed. He brought down unemployment rates by employing people to help improve the infrastructure of the country. Education was also important, and stressing the difficulties and problems of the past was always part of that education. After a year, crime rates had dropped dramatically and employment rates had risen.


Within five years, the country had flourished, the economy was strong and the people well off. Support for the Leader was stronger than ever. A healthy level of fear had effectively ended crime. People now had something far greater than the small liberty they had given up - they were happy and content...


They were a people united - with One Leader and One Voice.

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