Larry J said:

>Most people in totalitarian countries have little or no say in who
>their leaders are, so I really don't think the saying applies to
>them. Did the people who lived in the Soviet Union deserve
>Stalin, a man who was probably the biggest mass murderer of
>all time? How about the people of Cambodia and Pol Pot, or
>China and Mao? In a totalitarian country, those who try to stand
>up against the government are routinely killed.

In Germany's last fair election prior to WW-II, Hitler received only 37 percent of the German national vote. The Nazi party ended up controlling the Reichstag anyway because the German national vote had been divided up between too many minor parties. After the Reichstag fire, there were no more fair elections in Germany until after the Nazis were defeated by the allies.

This history is well known. However what is less well known is after his election, Hitler became very popular with the German people following his initial period of economic and military successes. He got the German economy back on its feet through his public works programs and restored German national pride through his military victories against Austria and Czechoslovakia. Had a fair election been held prior to his invasion of Poland, it's quite probable that Hitler would have received a significant majority of the popular vote. The Great Depression coupled with the very unfair Treaty of Versailles along with the constant violent political agitation by Communists had damaged the German psyche. Given their mental state, Hitler was the politician the German's deserved.

I believe similar arguments could be made about history's other monsters, e.g. Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Khomeni, etc. Western nations get on thin ethical ice when they permit distressed nations to degenerate into failed states, e.g. Afghanistan. This situation degenerates from bad to worse when monsters crawl out of the wood work thus requiring full blown military operations. If the United Nations was rationally organized, it would be setup to nip failed states in the bud before they brought Stalins into power or enabled savages like bin Laden to do their dirty work.

Gary