Quote: (08-08-2014 03:15 PM)rekruler Wrote:
Quote: (08-08-2014 02:53 PM)weambulance Wrote:
Yeah, wasn't really talking to you.
However, since you bring it up, Saddam Hussein was an amoral scumbag, a bully who rose to power through fear tactics. The man himself was certainly NOT a badass. Badasses don't hide in spider holes when the shit hits the fan. Shit, at least his sons fought when their time came.
Somehow I don't see Genghis Khan hiding in a hole and meekly submitting to the hangman's rope.
You almost make it seem like there is a button anyone can press to "engage the fear tactics" and shit just falls in place for you, if you're scummy enough to stoop so low. You understand that in Iraq, more or less every able bodied man and boy would be perfectly willing to use "fear tactics" if they could, right? Yet somehow out of all these Iraqis, it was Saddam that rose to the top. Because he was a badass.
Truth is you, me, and most everyone alive on this planet would not even be able to get their middle manager to give them a raise using whatever tactics we want, let alone rise from shepherd's son to dictator of a violent dog eat dog shithole.
Perhaps we simply have different definitions of "badass". I'm not saying he had no will, obviously he was ruthless and determined and inspired loyalty in those close to him. That is not the same thing.
I'm not saying this is how it was in Saddam's inner circle, but unless you're carrying around a suitcase nuke in your sidecar that's wired to electrodes in your brain, you don't gain massive power by being a scary, badass motherfucker. In fact, except at the very beginning of your rise to power you don't need to perform violent acts personally at all.
If I wanted to be a ruthless dictator, I would do my best to treat the people around me very well as long as they were furthering my aims. I would treat traitors harshly, yes, but through back channels. When dealing with the common people I would put on my benevolent dictator mask and give freely and generously. I see no need to be a douche to my inner circle or to give common people any reason to see me as anything other than a good guy. The stuff they have in movies where a mob boss, gang leader, dictator, etc is a total dick to the people around him would just get him capped in real life.
Sure, as a dictator maybe I'm using death squads to murder dissidents and my enforcers are doing some pretty messed up shit, but
I'm not doing any of that personally. Who even wants to know about the details? So how does me ordering the deaths of my enemies through other people, never in danger myself, mean I'm some kind of badass? I'm basically just a CEO who never gets his hands dirty, a strategist who takes advantage of opportunities to seize more and more power until he's at the top.
A badass is a dangerous, scary bastard one on one. Most badasses do not have the charisma, foresight, or strategic awareness to pull off a rise to the top. Those that do will rarely have the luck or opportunities. For every Saddam Hussein, there are a thousand men who tried and failed because the stars simply did not align for them.
Most leaders throughout history, no matter how ruthless, could hardly be considered badasses at an individual level.
As to the bit I bolded in your last comment, are you serious? Blackmail isn't that hard to pull off, man, and there are plenty of other methods I could use. I don't do shady crap like that because I have morals (and it's not worth the risk), not because I couldn't manage it.