Comment by oceanplexian
1 year ago
In this case the question would be, do citizens in a democracy have the right to dissolve their government peaceably, provided they meet whatever threshold is required in that system (Could be a super majority, for the sake of argument)? I’d argue it must be or it’s not really a democracy.
They have the "right" to have a revolution too - many countries treasure the revolutions they had. They can amend the constitution and make another democracy. They can also amend the constitution and make a dictatorship. Or just have a dictatorship without bothering. Those do not need constitutions at all.
To have a vote that turns a democracy into a non-democracy is a meta-democratic vote, not a democratic vote. Abusing a democratic system to surreptitiously make a non-democratic system is just a caveat that dictators find convenient to use.
A dictator is just someone with absolute power. How he got the power is orthogonal. He doesn’t have to gain power through insurrection or a revolution, he can gain it inside a democratic system. In fact in Ancient Rome, where the term comes from, the Dictator was appointed by congress in times of crisis.
> Dictator was appointed by congress in times of crisis.
A dictator was appointed by a consul, at the direction of the Senate, with the job of solving a specific problem.
The history of the dictatorship in ancient Rome, before Sulla, is really interesting, and differs quite a bit from the popular understanding: https://acoup.blog/2022/03/18/collections-the-roman-dictator...
Indeed, dictators are dictators, including all those in your examples. In the cases I brought up, an elected leader can turn into a dictator by not leaving when they lose an election, canceling regular elections, faking the vote totals, etc. One Person, One Vote, One Time.