putin thats not the point i was making. our presidents dont get their money straight from the state coffers like kings did.

their rich for other reasons. and yes, thats a flaw of democracy, but its certainly better than institutionalized kleptocracy.

and putin you're wrong about that. first and foremost i have my free speech. i say what i want about the people in power and i dont get in trouble. that is fucking huge.

and yes i go to demonstrations, and political events, specifically anti-death penalty ones.

and yes i vote, and yes i donate money to political campaigns. so whatever.

in a monarchy i have no influence unless i attempt to assassinate the king. or i can speak out, maybe change things, and almost certainly become an outlaw at best.

better than cyrus was FDR. instead of fighting wars to expand his state, he fought a war of self-defense. and i dont think i need to mention what he did for human rights and the jews. and in case you are going to say it wasnt just him doing those things, well for one thing, thats the whole point of a democracy, but, for another, cyrus wasn't doing that stuff singlehandedly either.

better than catherine is bill clinton. american prestige was never higher. the administration of government worked (budget surplus, thanks mostly to divided govt - unique to democracy), he expanded the educational system, america is a mecca for economists scientists, and literary giants and dissidents because of the protection we offer.

oh and did i mention clinton was elected. and didnt take money from the state coffers for personal expense, nay, extravagance, and didn't annex a neighboring territory, and didn't tolerate serfdom and didn't conscript his citizens

better than elizabeth was nelson mandela, who intentionally cut his salary and started no wars. in fact, when given the chance to take revenge on those who had oppressed him for decades, he opted for truth and reconciliation

better than maria theresa was thomas jefferson, who instead did just as many good things as her, but also didn't persecute other religions besides his own. and also, again, was elected, didn't steal from the people, etc. and yes i know he owned slaves whom he raped. but he also penned "all men are created equal" something i think our friend maria theresa would have scoffed at.

better than frederick 2 (though he is the best on your list) was patrice lumumba, who also attempted to modernize his country, and was as tolerant as your frederick, but was not a king.

the reason frederick gets the highest marks is because he didn't actually want to be king.

anyway, putin, why dont you go ahead and lay out your ideal state.

no note ideal. your actual state. if you had a very very large army who would do whatever you wanted, what sort of system would you set up for the government of, say, ireland

@Putin - 9/11 happened less than 8 months into Bush's presidency and was being planned long before he got elected. I call bullshit on your revisionist history.

"oh and did i mention clinton was elected. and didnt take money from the state coffers for personal expense, nay, extravagance, and didn't annex a neighboring territory, and didn't tolerate serfdom and didn't conscript his citizens"

No he just bungled the humanitarian mission in Somalia, carpet bombed the civilian infrastructure of Yugoslavia for the sake of Al Qaeda affiliated gangsters and drug traffickers, and destroyed our manufacturing sector by signing us onto a heap of free trade agreements. Our 'great economy' was the result of expanding low pay menial service jobs at the expense of high pay good benefit jobs. He also initiated the deregulation of the banks in the late 1990s that helped lead us to our financial fiasco. He also had Bin Laden handed to him on a plate ala Sudan and botched that, too. American prestige never higher? Are you kidding? He bungled his way through a post-cold war era he had no clue how to navigate in. America was marginally less hated in the 1990s then it would be in the 2000s.

Yeah, dude, he was great. Just ask the single moms who had their welfare benefits annihilated in 1996 - or the unemployed who had their unemployment benefits stripped/reduced.

"he fought a war of self-defense. and i dont think i need to mention what he did for human rights and the jews."

Yeah look at all of those Jewish refugees he took in. What - 2,000 total during the war?
From 1941-1944 America was doing little more than fighting the pathetic Italians in Europe. I've already been over this. The USSR had called for an Overlord type operation in 1942 and 1943. All the US and UK did was stall stall stall.
He defeated Japan, yes (with Soviet help), but Japan could never have beaten the Americans anyway. The best they could do was inflict massive damage in a surprise attack and try and hold out to see if they could convince the Americans to back off their economic blockade. There was also that little matter of Japanese-American internment. Human rights, eh? "

"9/11 happened less than 8 months into Bush's presidency and was being planned long before he got elected. I call bullshit on your revisionist history."

What revisionist history? That the Bush administration had called fighting terrorism "swatting at flies", diminished the Al Qaeda threat and had locked in on containing China? The fact that the Bush administration had been warned repeatedly by intelligence that Al Qaeda was a big threat and plotting attacks against the US? The fact that important memos had been completely ignored? The fact that Bush spent half of his first year on vacation?

I mean the spectacular intelligence failure is highlighted in the 9-11 Commission Report, is that all 'revisionist history'?

That's not revisionist history.

"better than elizabeth was nelson mandela, who intentionally cut his salary and started no wars. in fact, when given the chance to take revenge on those who had oppressed him for decades, he opted for truth and reconciliation"

Err..yeah, by 'truth and reconciliation' you mean leaving white property owners a disproportionate amount of the property and wealth in South Africa. If you'll notice South Africans have quite a lot of sympathy for Mugabe, because he's actually addressing the land reform issue. South Africa was also not a democracy, really, during the past decade and a half. The ANC ran everything.

"was patrice lumumba, who also attempted to modernize his country, and was as tolerant as your frederick, but was not a king."

I have nothing but love for Lumumba, but 'cmon, the guy was in office for three months, during which time law and order completely collapsed.

"because he's actually addressing the land reform issue"

dont make me laugh. mugabe is the worst human being currently alive. i would strangle him with my own hands.

but yeah, i forgot, your view of history is completely warped, so i really dont have much left to say to you. i forgot it was putin i was talking to and not a regular person.

i guess with your views on history and the ussr you'd have to be in favor of dictatorship, otherwise your entire slavophilic foundational worldview would collapse.

pity.

My ideal state is any of the socialist countries - I'm particularly fond of East Germany - a socialist paradise if there ever was one. High standard of living, high quality education and healthcare, industrialized high pay high benefit jobs, women's participation in the economy was secured and guaranteed and virtually unparalleled, free childcare, liberal attitude towards alternative sexualities, widespread civic involvement by the population in political groups and youth groups, awesome sports culture, a foreign policy that supported liberation struggles around the world. Basically - combining Teutonic efficiency and industrial prowess with the progressivism of socialism. It's a damn shame the country was annexed and destroyed by the (in the 1980s especially) crypto-fascist West German government.

If I can't have a socialist country, then something like a Gustav III (Sweden) monarchy would do. The kings were traditionally bulwarks against the abuses of the aristocratic parliament . Parliament has always been an instrument of the rich to exploit the poor. All you have to do is read about the English civil war to see who was on whose side.

"dont make me laugh. mugabe is the worst human being currently alive. i would strangle him with my own hands."

Do you know anything about Zimbabwe? Or does Mugabe just exist in a vacuum to you? Evidently you hate him more than his own opposition does, since they've been working in a coalition (which has worked quite well) for some time. This statement by you speaks volumes.

it's worked quite well? really?

please. i really dont care to discuss it with you, it won't do any good. suffice to say that your apologies for some of the worst people to ever live make me sick

"i forgot, your view of history is completely warped, so i really dont have much left to say to you."

A three month elected government which disintegrated into civil war is > Frederick II. This is your idea of real history. Whatever.

"it's worked quite well? really?"

Yes, really. http://www.theodora.com/wfbcurrent/zimbabwe/zimbabwe_economy.html

Look at those Mugabe lovers at the CIA. They saw the power sharing government has put an end to hyperinflation and the economy is registering growth.

But feel free to continue to dismiss everything I say without even a cursory investigation. Ignorance is apparently, your friend.

Okay, whatever, you're pissing me off. I will quickly list all the reason Robert Mugabe is going to hell, and then be done with this. If anything good has happened in Zimbabwe in the last decade or two, it is in spite of Robert Mugabe, not because of him.

-Runs Zimbabwe with an iron-fist as a dictator with a one-party state. He would completely eliminate the MDC if he thought the international community would let him get away with it.

-Racist policies against Zimbabwe's white minority, driving them off their land. Which, I might add THEY did not steal from anyone, but bought. It would be akin to the Cherokee tribe being given the state of Georgia. Yes, it was their land at one time, but one cannot punish the children for the sins of the father.

-Related to above: completely wrecked the economy of the nation, via *REALLY SHITTY* socialist policies which led to hyperinflation and economic collapse.

-Murdered thousands of his own people, including in:
-Gukurahundi
-Elections where he felt he could not win fairly, he kills and beats up those who oppose his rule.

-Does not allow dissent in his country. You get beaten up.

- "In 1978, four black moderates announced that they had reached an "internal settlement" with the white regime, paving the way for democratic elections. One of these leaders, Ndabaningi Sithole, dispatched 39 envoys to meet representatives of Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, another guerrilla leader. The envoys were captured, murdered and, according to Time magazine, "their bodies were then laid out by the guerrillas in a grisly line at the side of the road as a warning to local tribespeople."

-"However, he is fundamentally hampered by several factors: his ego and belief in his own infallibility; his obsessive focus on the past as a justification for everything in the present and future; his deep ignorance on economic issues (coupled with the belief that his 18 doctorates give him the authority to suspend the laws of economics, including supply and demand); and his essentially short-term, tactical style."

-Human rights abuses across the board really. This man should have left power ages ago, but apparently was left completely impoverished of any decency after his treatment by the colonial regime.

Pity he couldn't have been more like Mandela.

Oh and now I'm seeing that he hates gays. Wonderful.

Watch "Mugabe and the White African" for a perspective on the land reform issue different from your own.

And what I'm getting from your article on the power sharing agreement is:

Zimbabwe was a shithole. Now it is less of a shithole because of the MDC.

Oh. Who'da thunk it.

Tsvangirai has been largely shut out of power though. Much of the agreement has been reneged on by Mugabe who seems never to have really accepted that Tsvangirai really is the PM.

http://www.economist.com/node/17421607

"Yes, it was their land at one time, but one cannot punish the children for the sins of the father."

This says it all. So the whites stole the land and ruled a racist state for decades, and then once white rule was removed there is nothing for blacks to do but accept the fait accompli eh? So as long as you steal land and manage to die off and leave your stolen land to your heirs, you're all in the clear. Brilliant. So 2% of population is allowed to own 60% of the land, and if they don't want to sell then tough, right? Meanwhile you have millions of landless black peasants who had nothing, and liberation fighters pressed Mugabe to do something about the situation that had remained the same for over a decade. The condition of Zimbabwe independence and black rule was the bogus Lancaster House agreement, which forced Zimbabwe to not touch white land.

And of course the media will forget to mention that white farmers have actually been compensated for land "seized", something Ian Smith and the British settlers never did when they were massacring blacks in "Rhodesia".

The bitching about Zimbabwe is the height of hypocrisy, and requires a heavy dose of historical amnesia to do.

Yeah too bad he wasn't more like Mandela, because heaven forbid anybody hurt the feelings of apartheid supporting reactionaries.

I think people need to remember that representative democracy maintains many of the problems of a dictatorship - simply because once your representative is in power, it is very difficult to recall them and the people who voted them in have essentially no power to influence their actions (take a look at the liberal democrats in the UK since the election - pretty much going against their entire election manifesto).

Democracy in it's truest form is based on the active participation of the population in the running of the government through referendums and plebiscites. Athenian democracy is the closest thing there has been to pure democracy in history - despite the restrictions placed on those who could participate.

"Much of the agreement has been reneged on by Mugabe who seems never to have really accepted that Tsvangirai really is the PM."

Wait, I thought MDC was responsible for all the improvement in Zimbabwe since the power-sharing agreement, now the British puppet - Tsvangirai (who patriotically works with US and UK officials in trying to economically sabotage Zimbabwe, as wikileaks reveals) is irrelevant. Make up your mind.

Mugabe's the racist. Mugabe's the hypocrite. He repays racism with racism, oppression with oppression.

You know that what you insinuate is not what I meant. If you think I don't understand what evils were done by white people in Africa, then you don't fucking know me.

Yes, you evidently know what evils were done but expect that everyone will live happily ever after in a situation in which the legacy of white rule in southern africa is still in tact - in the form of massive disproportionate control of the economy by a small racial minority that took this wealth illegally and through violence.

What pray, tell, are landless blacks supposed to do? They waited for over a decade in Zimbabwe after liberation. During the 1980s Mugabe was hailed like Mandela is today - as a moderate.

"This is the best government for commercial farmers that this country has ever seen"
John Brown (CFU president), 1989.

The 'racist' Mugabe government is currently leasing land back to white farmers. Some racist.

This 'dictator' is currently working with a party that openly wants to destroy Zimbabwe with the help of the UK and US. Some oppression.

About this Mugabe. The coalition has worked surprisingly well.

Regardless, Mugabes blatant racism towards the superior race and the crash in the economy that was DIRECTLY related to his politics. He may be improving, but he is still a terrible leader.

However it is true that Mugabe was hailed in the early 80s and since 2006 he has been a good leader, but still, the 25 years in power that he was destroying the economy still puts him as a bad leader.

Typo. 15 years not 25.

But Mugabe is like Hitler, a needle in a haystack. There are so many examples of dictators in the world, its easy to find the occasional bad one.

the..... superior race?

what?

@Putin - "the Bush administration had been warned repeatedly by intelligence that Al Qaeda was a big threat and plotting attacks against the US..."

If a murderer breaks into my house and kills my wife and kids because the former owner of the house did soemthing to him, even if I knew about it, does that lay the blame on my shoulders? Clinton ignored all the same warnings and did *nothing* after the Cole attack. *Nothing*! Yet here you lay the entire blame on Bush? The man has plenty of faults and God knows I was glad to see him gone, but we haven't had a decent president since George H.W. Bush. And no, I don't give a fuck about Clinton getting some strange in the Oval Office. With power comes privilege and he only has to answer to whatever deity he believes in and his wife for that, but he did his share of fucking up our country financially, and Obama is on the same track.

No, let's lay the blame for 9/11 where it belongs - AQ and Osama. They did the deed. And let's lay the motivation where it belongs - the aforementioned (by you) carpet bombing by *Clinton*. You're the kind of person who'd tell a rape victim she had it coming because she wore a miniskirt to a nightclub. You don't blame the victim. That's just fucked up.

Yes, AQ is responsible for the attack. I'm not denying that. I didn't deny that for one second. But I mean can we really sit here and say the government did all it could to protect against such an attack? Surely the 9-11 commission didn't think so. So are we supposed to just ignore failures to properly defend ourselves?

If my house gets robbed, and I leave the door unlocked and my valuables in the window, wouldn't the police tell me I should have done more to prevent this from happening? Or is that 'blaming the victim'?