In a hostile landscape, the state exists to protect its people. If you have a weak head of state, you will very quickly not have a state at all. Bullies, weapons, power. It's not pleasant or delightful, but it is necessary.
> Bullies, weapons, power. It's not pleasant or delightful, but it is necessary.
At least some are honest and know that the power affords an escalation in hostilities which oft times are far beyond "necessary".
I lied to myself, and a favor to you readers, when I repeatedly wrote "Israel destroyed" or "the IDF bombed". I should have written "Your cousin destroyed", "Your friend from high school bombed", "Your colleague aimed and snipered". And so on.
The mask of crimes unfolded here is not so trivial, a huge part of the Israeli public takes part in it, and as we know from the first days, hundreds and thousands of them also document themselves in the act, and many others openly call for their extermination. But the majority is not so arrogant and explicit; The majority simply enlists for hundreds of days of reserve "because the country needs to be protected", goes and commits crimes unconsciously, half-consciously, with a silenced and suppressed conscience.
There are a thousand other reasons and excuses, but again, all the reasons and excuses crumble in front of 16 thousand dead children, of which 3,000 people under the age of 5, identified by their names and ID numbers, are crumbling in the face of the destruction of all civilian infrastructure, which does not and cannot have a purely military purpose.
Because they are trained to be good at playing political game, being ruthless, and making hard choices... that and having deep connections to other ruthless people is really helpful at undermining / discrediting / fracturing / eliminating the opposition. I would say most of the world is doing a serviceable job at not having people like that in power.
I feel that the western world's capitalist/industrial system has done an excellent job of providing people like this opportunities to go become powerful or whatever it is they enjoy, without causing undue suffering. It's a lot better for a ruthless dictator personality to be in the role of Steve Jobs or Bezos or Musk, instead of getting redirected to politics and doing things along the lines of Stalin or Mao.
>It's a lot better for a ruthless dictator personality to be in the role of Steve Jobs or Bezos or Musk, instead of getting redirected to politics and doing things along the lines of Stalin or Mao.
This is a rather bizarre thing to say given the trajectory both Bezos and Musk's lives (and arguably even Jobs') have taken.
If you've watched someone use restraint but sometimes that restraint seems to lead to bad consequences, then it can be a relief to see them finally lose restraint. E.g. the good guy who never kills the bad guy, and the bad guy escapes prison to do more harm (a classic comic book trope). Eventually the audience just wants the "good guy" to kill the bad guy.
There is also an element of vicarious power fantasy, experiencing the thrill of doing what you want, getting away with it, and (in the case of political actors) being lauded for it. The positive association is not with the consequences of the action, but with the action itself. This is the nature of the seed of authoritarianism, and unfortunately it shares DNA with lots of good qualities so it cannot be entirely eradicated.
What's the logic of the first sentence? I can't parse it - is that it should be illegal for intelligence agents to be heads of state? Or is it that states with powerful armies shouldn't have former intelligence agents as heads of state? Or what?
As for the second question - why is every generation of the left charmed by a different set of psychopathic terrorist groups?
