Can a dictatorship be more free than a democracy?

[angus]

yes, in the same sense that a slave can be more free than a free-market wage earner.

You can imagine specific examples of a person who is in the charge of another, legally, and specific examples of a person who is completely at will, legally, and then paint rosy scenarios of the former and gloomy scenarios of the latter, and say, "See, a counterexample is a disproof."  But that depends on your definition of "free"  Anyway I voted no, since the overarching philosophical concept of freedom isn't known by object of dictation.  Ultimately freedom is, as Port Arthur Texas and heroin-queen Janis Joplin used to sing, another word for "Nothin' left to lose."  Those in a dictatorship have much to lose.  The dictatorship, namely.  And until they lose that they're not free.

[angus]

I'd rather live in a dictatorship with lots of porn, strip clubs, sex and alcohol, and a lack of misogyny and equality for women rather than a democracy where all that is banned and women are treated like slaves (like Iraq is about to turn into)

indeed you would.  most mindless drones would prefer dictatorship to democracy.  Freedom is harsh.  Freedom is cold.  Freedom can be starvation or freedom can be great riches.  Freedom is long-lasting wonderful orgasms at the end of the Act of Making Love, or bitter 3-minute gropefests in the back seat of a 72 cutlass on the side of the road.  Freedom is deciding things for oneself.  Why settle for the thrill of the chase when you can have the kill, delivered on a platter?  No one here is surprised that a person such as yourself would decline that offer in favor a God or Government which gives you all the answers.  And no one is surprised that, in spite of all that garbage about the ennui of surburbia and picket fences, deep down you're about as Zoroastrian-influenced, security-conscious, scared simple surburbanite as they come.

[angus]

I'd rather live in a dictatorship with lots of porn, strip clubs, sex and alcohol, and a lack of misogyny and equality for women rather than a democracy where all that is banned and women are treated like slaves (like Iraq is about to turn into)

indeed you would.  most mindless drones would prefer dictatorship to democracy.  Freedom is harsh.  Freedom is cold.  Freedom can be starvation or freedom can be great riches.  Freedom is long-lasting wonderful orgasms at the end of the Act of Making Love, or bitter 3-minute gropefests in the back seat of a 72 cutlass on the side of the road.  Freedom is deciding things for oneself.  Why settle for the thrill of the chase when you can have the kill, delivered on a platter?  No one here is surprised that a person such as yourself would decline that offer in favor a God or Government which gives you all the answers.  And no one is surprised that, in spite of all that garbage about the ennui of surburbia and picket fences, deep down you're about as Zoroastrian-influenced, security-conscious, scared simple surburbanite as they come.

You're missing the point angus - democracy is not necessarily 'free'.

LOL.  Hardly.  just bustin' his balls a little.  And take it from someone who shares his propensity for speaking before thinking, a little ball-busting is a good thing.  Anyway you're reading way in between the lines.  I'd never make such a claim.  I'd simply try to define each term, as good debate rules require, then argue any point based on the meaning of those terms.  anyway, he trashed the thread, not me.  started off with an objective/logical question (can something be?) and turned it into a normative/subjective question (what is preferred?)  By all means one can argue by counterexample that a condition characterized by superficial lack of freedom can be assigned to individuals which have greater individual freedom than those described by conditions which are characterized by Will.  For example, in many ways the slaves of the wife of a Ming Dynasty emperor are freer than the wife of the emperor.  But I'd rather be the wife of the emporor than her slaves.  Having to lie with the emperor from time to time seems such a small price to pay for all that radically hip stuff in the apartment.  And the slaves have to wash their own undergarments.   ewww.   And dictatorships vs democracy?  Sure, the friends of Fidel are much freer in some ways than those poor bastards in the slums of Johannesburg, in one of the world's great democracies.  No doubt.  I certainly wouldn't argue that the case can't be made for the negative.  I just wanted to suggest that in the greater sense of freedom, and neither are truly free, the democracy at least offers a chance of choice.  Now, the digression.  After all, trashed threads are infinitely more interesting that ones that follow the rules of ettiquette in posting.  (yet another example of how freedom rocks!)  And again, I'm just following the thread's originator's example of digressing.  Wherein lies sovereignty?  The republicans, democrats, and socialists say the State.  The constution party folks say God.  and Libertarians say the Individual.  So anyone not voting Libertarian (myself including) is tacitly admitting to some preference of security over liberty.  Anyway, I'm not saying dictatorships are "bad" (frankly I don't swing that way.)  In fact, they're among the most efficient forms of government.  Democracy is so damned messy, isn't it?  But on the objective question of whether one can be freer, I'd have to say that although individuals subject to the government whims may be freeer, the form itself isn't.

[angus]

By all means one can argue by counterexample that a condition characterized by superficial lack of freedom can be assigned to individuals which have greater individual freedom than those described by conditions which are characterized by Will.  For example, in many ways the slaves of the wife of a Ming Dynasty emperor are freer than the wife of the emperor.  But I'd rather be the wife of the emporor than her slaves.  Having to lie with the emperor from time to time seems such a small price to pay for all that radically hip stuff in the apartment.  And the slaves have to wash their own undergarments.   ewww.   And dictatorships vs democracy?  Sure, the friends of Fidel are much freer in some ways than those poor bastards in the slums of Johannesburg, in one of the world's great democracies.  No doubt.  I certainly wouldn't argue that the case can't be made for the negative.  I just wanted to suggest that in the greater sense of freedom, and neither are truly free, the democracy at least offers a chance of choice.

No, again you're missing the point.  I'm not talking about comparing individual cases of people living under one system or the other.

The point is, democracy is majority rule.  The majority are freedom-hating, tyrannical prudes; therefore democracy leads to tyranny.  In a dictatorship if the dictator doesn't particularly care about your personal habits, you're likely to be more free 'socially' than under democracy.

if you and every one else will admit to playing silly word games so will I.  the thing is, opebo, you have six thousand years of evidence to the contrary but can't see it.  You think, "Hey, Akhenaten was something of a dictator, and decided on a whim to change the primary deity, so therefore dictation is free, because democrats can't just do that.  Hell, they can't even impose religion on the people."  So they're not as free.  The problem is, your point of view is so far elitist that you can't help but relate to akhenaten, rather than his seven million subjects as the rest of us would.  Yes, a majority can dictate rules, just like a dictator.  But my position is that one person dictating rules to everyone is a less free condition than millions of people dictating rules to themselves.  This I hold to be true no matter how much money the the dictator allots you, no matter how many sex slaves he provides you, no matter what drugs he allows you to use, etc., since ultimately whatever freedoms you enjoy come and go at the whim of one man, and not at the collective will of a people.  Of course there's no right answer.  You will not see eye-to-eye with the object of dictation but rather its subject.  and nobody, emperor, king, dictator, president, prime minister, or me cares about your personal habits.  (e.g., the fact that snorting cocaine is illegal has less to do with someone poking their nose into what your nose is doing than it has to do with perceptions of public security.  But as a practical matter, I wouldn't like the law any more or less whether it was edict by whim of one man, or democratically decided by a majority of the people, so that line of argument, in addition to being false, is irrelevant.)  And, as I said, counterexamples provide disproof in syllogisms, so I think you can make the argument by picking these individual cases.  And you refuse to relinquish this definition of "more free" so I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

[angus]

Freedom is precisely the opposite of that - not imposing things on them. 

and this is the key to my answer.  I think that if you postulate this very definition of freedom, then, dictatorship, by definition, is a less free condition than democracy. 

Yes, I think you can choose specific cases in which dictation would yield superficially "freer" societies that democratically determined ones.  San Francisco?  Hardly.  I reckon that if SF were an independent country, you'd have hard a time getting many rights that you now hold dear to be maintained in a democratic fashion.  E.g., first you'd lose your second amendment rights.  Immediately thereafter there would be serious emissions curbs combined with exhorbitant taxes.  Things would probably change.  But none of this is relevant, since, as you said, freedom is nonimposition.  Dictation, no matter how freely the impositions leave you to roam, is still imposition, whereas laws democratically decided, no matter how severe you may view them, are not imposed, but collectively chosen.

[angus]

Dictation, no matter how freely the impositions leave you to roam, is still imposition, whereas laws democratically decided, no matter how severe you may view them, are not imposed, but collectively chosen.

No, they're still imposed by 51% on the whole.  I am just as subjugated in a democracy as I would be in a dictatorship.  The only people that have any reason to prefer a democracy are those who might be in the majority - and one thing is for sure, that will never be me.

again, this is where you're misleading yourself.  I'll never be in a majority probably either on many issues.  I think two men should be allowed to legally marry, for example.  But most folks don't.  Fine.  Would I be more free in a democracy that allowed two men to marry or in a dictatorship that allowed two men to marry?  Similarly, would I be more free in a democracy in which homosexual marriage was prohibited or more free in a dictatorship in which homosexual marriage was prohibited?  Turns out the answer is the same for both.  In the first question, I'm more free in a democracy in which gay marriage is allowed.  In the second, I'm more free in a democracy in which gay marriage is prohibited.  And if I were the sort who thought gay marriage should remain illegal, for whatever reason, the answers would still be the same.  This is because in a democracy, I am free to get this issue on the ballot, and I am free to campaign for or against this issue, and I free to try to change the law.  I am free in the knowledge than I am not powerless to change the law.  I am free to try to make prostitution legal, or, if it is already legal, I am free to try to make it illegal.  I am free to try to make the use of marijuana illegal, or, if it isn't already, I am free to try to make its use legal.  I am always more free in a democracy, no matter how much disagreement with me the average voter has, than I am in a dictatorship, therefore it is logically impossible to be "more free" in a dictatorship than in a democracy.