# A Refuge for Dictators **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 27, 2011, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-refuge-for-dictators/569158 "2011-01-27T07:18:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2011, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-refuge-for-dictators/569158/21 "2011-01-27T18:49:49Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > Apologies. Brane she not work so good. I’m just pissed you got there first. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2011, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-refuge-for-dictators/569158/22 "2011-01-27T18:51:32Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > Ha, brainless France bashing. I miss that, I really do. Usually it is followed by a list of France’s military defeats. You’re slipping. And yet rarely does it include any acknowledgement of the US’s role in protecting terrorist child killers from British law. But I guess if people have cute Irish accents it’s OK to give them safe refuge. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2011, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-refuge-for-dictators/569158/23 "2011-01-27T18:53:49Z")
> [@godix](#): > > However, there are times when the dictator leaving is the least bad option. Just for the record, I don’t entirely disagree with this. I can see instances where it’s the least worst option. That already happens. But if you give every dictator a place to go where he can live out his last couple of years in luxury after oppressing a country for several decades, you’ll never get one of them on trial again. It’s practically a reward. ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2011, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-refuge-for-dictators/569158/24 "2011-01-27T18:55:10Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > I thought this is what France was for? It should also promote itself as a refuge for child rapists and people who find Jerry Lewis more than mildly amusing. > > Stranger No, not France – French Morocco. Yes, I know that French Morocco and the Casablanca of expatriated whosits exists only in memory, but for the likes of Ben Ali and Amin, I’m OK with that. ---
**Author:** ![godix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/278dde/32.png) [@godix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/godix)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2011, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-refuge-for-dictators/569158/25 "2011-01-27T21:34:56Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Just for the record, I don’t entirely disagree with this. I can see instances where it’s the least worst option. That already happens. But if you give every dictator a place to go where he can live out his last couple of years in luxury after oppressing a country for several decades, you’ll never get one of them on trial again. It’s practically a reward. Very true. Which is why I don’t support an official policy or even an unofficial one like the nazi’s fleeing to South America. Just saying, in some situations, if the EU or US or someone negotiated a peaceful ending to a crisis by letting a dictator retire without prosecution, well, SOMETIMES that’s probably the best things are going to get. ---
**Author:** ![\_Undecided\_Adrian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/eada6e/32.png) [@\_Undecided\_Adrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_Undecided_Adrian)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-refuge-for-dictators/569158/26 "2011-02-03T19:08:36Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > We will be in a far more terrifying existence when bad people have no possibility of escape and can be plucked from anywhere in the world by whichever government. Since that will apply to everyone, guilty or innocent and no-one would be safe to find refuge from ( a possibly malevolent ) world government. I much prefer Spain or Germany prosecuting foreign dictators under “crimes against humanity” charges to certain other countries just abducting foreign citizens and throwing them in secret jails. Even better, of course, would it be to let the ICC handle that, but that would require certain countries to submit to it and to give it some teeth. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-refuge-for-dictators/569158/27 "2011-02-03T19:23:10Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > We will be in a far more terrifying existence when bad people have no possibility of escape and can be plucked from anywhere in the world by whichever government. Since that will apply to everyone, guilty or innocent and no-one would be safe to find refuge from ( a possibly malevolent ) world government. > > It’s as well to allow some people an out. Moralistic vindictiveness rarely achieves abstract justice. So you’re proposing that, under a hypothetical malevolent world government, it should be the most notoriously _guilty_ individuals who are shielded? 😕 I want every tyrant to have at least a whisper of fear in his heart, fear that he will be called to account, every day of his life, until he breathes his last. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-refuge-for-dictators/569158/28 "2011-02-03T21:03:02Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Middle of a desert with no power, no influence, becoming irrelevant and eventually forgotten. Get your filthy hands off my desert! ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2011, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-refuge-for-dictators/569158/29 "2011-02-04T23:09:22Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > Ha, brainless France bashing. I miss that, I really do. Usually it is followed by a list of France’s military defeats. You’re slipping. Are you claiming that France hasn’t served as a refuge for multiple former dictators and at least one convicted rapist? As for Jerry Lewis, we’re all to blame. Especially Dean Martin for making Lewis seem funny. Stranger [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-refuge-for-dictators/569158.md?page=1)