# How well would a liberal tyranny/regime perform? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 1, 2026, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701 "2026-05-01T17:20:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2026, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701/21 "2026-05-04T22:52:44Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > However, they wound up torturing and killing a number of their own group for not having the right thoughts. In totalitarian states or groups, extremism tends to override moderation. I’ve met more than one Marxist who was happy to explain there was no such thing as free speech should their side win. Can’t allow anyone to challenge the party. > [@TokyoBayer](#): > > Who decides what is bigoted? How much is allowed? How is the government going to keep tabs on the entire population? Places like the Soviet Union and North Korea had a lot of people who didn’t mind informing on their neighbors. The Chinese government is doing some interesting things with social media these days. Keeping track of the population is a lot easier today than it was in the past. ---
**Author:** ![Cmyers1980](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyers1980/32/11814_2.png) [@Cmyers1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cmyers1980)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2026, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701/22 "2026-05-05T12:33:58Z")
Confiscating all or most firearms in the US is basically impossible (you’d have an easier time confiscating all drugs) and would cause far more problems for the state than it would ever solve. There are millions of people who fantasize about fighting against gun confiscation that would actually do so and every American that gets killed (deliberately or accidentally) in a raid would only serve to anger the rest and make them not comply even more so. There’s also the issue of getting agents of the state (who are typically pro firearm rights) to actually carry out the orders. It’s basically just asking for a civil war. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2026, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701/23 "2026-05-05T15:00:42Z")
Presumably, the regime would have a set of well-known views that the populace would know of, and the populace would know what things not to say - things that would be considered taboo. For this particular regime, bigotry would mean racism, homophobia, sexism, etc. and some other -isms or -phobias. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2026, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701/24 "2026-05-05T15:04:22Z")
I came here to post this. It cannot be “liberal” but it can be “enlightened”, it’s tempting to think that a short stint of forced intelligent government can solve all our problems… ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2026, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701/25 "2026-05-05T17:35:59Z")
Eh, I expect in real life if the government demanded all guns be handed over most “cold dead hands” people would immediately cave in and hand the guns over. They like terrorizing people, not fighting somebody who will shoot back. And most of the rest will hide the guns, which is just as good as them being confiscated; a buried gun isn’t being used. If a generation or two owning guns would be thought of as weird and anyone who found old caches of them would just turn them over as scrap. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2026, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701/26 "2026-05-05T23:33:40Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > For this particular regime, bigotry would mean racism, homophobia, sexism, etc. and some other -isms or -phobias. There are alternative history discussions which are interesting but then there are those that go so far out of really that they become impossible and it essentially becomes magic. For your scenario to work, human nature would have to change so much that it’s meaningless to discuss. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2026, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701/27 "2026-05-07T00:52:07Z")
[I imagine a liberal tyranny might look something like this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAcxE5w52vI) ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2026, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701/28 "2026-05-07T14:29:43Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > The thing is, we have historical precedents for leftist regimes trying to force their policies and social engineering on the population and it often ends in economic and humanitarian disaster. But a lot of it depends on the policices. > [@Jas09](#): > > I agree with @msmith537 - a “liberal tyranny” is a contradiction in terms. > > If you mean a economically left-wing tyranny, we have seen that in places like the Soviet Union, Cambodia, and Cuba. > [@Babale](#): > > It sounds like you explicitly mean the latter, in which case, the question is quite easy to answer - you can look at the various left wing totalitarian dictatorships that have marred our planet’s history. > [@JRDelirious](#): > > “Enlightened Despotism”, I believe was the old school term for what y’all are talking about. > [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > I find it funny that two modern day examples of an enlightened absolutist monarch in the quoted wikiarticle are the Shah Reza Palehvi and Mohammad Bin Salman. I was going to mention the Shah of Iran as the only example from the past 100 or so years that seems to actually qualify. Based on how Iran is today vs. how it was back in the days of the Shah, I think at worst we can say that a progressive dictatorship is worse than a reactionary one. Had the Iranian Revolution not occurred, I suspect that present day Iran would look a lot like Japan or South Korea. That is a modern western nation in terms of the lifestyles of the people, which just so happen to be of non-European heritage but are otherwise up to the same standards. In other words, progressive authoritarians are batting 1.000 in the modern era, unless you all would include someone other than the Iranian Shah in the discussion (and I certainly can’t think of any). I would most certainly not include countries and leaders like Cuba under Castro, Venezuela under Chavez, the Soviet Union under Stalin, China under Mao, etc. Those guys were not in any way progressives, they were merely asshole tyrants playing for a different team than the ones they replaced. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2026, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701/29 "2026-05-07T15:28:12Z")
Apologies for the double post. Going back further, I think one could include Napoleon Bonaparte and Emperor Meiji. Any further than that and the whole concept begins to lose meaning since liberal democracy wouldn’t have been an alternative. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2026, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701/30 "2026-05-07T15:45:25Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > Any further than that and the whole concept begins to lose meaning In my wikiquote for Enlightened Absolutism (no, discourse, come on, it’s OK, let me repeat the **[link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightened_absolutism)**) you can read: > Enlightened absolutism is the theme of an essay by [Frederick the Great](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_the_Great), who ruled [Prussia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussia) from 1740 to 1786, defending this system of government. > [Charles III](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_III_of_Spain), King of Spain from 1759 to 1788, tried to rescue his empire from decay through far-reaching reforms such as weakening the Church and its monasteries, promoting science and university research, facilitating trade and commerce, modernizing [agriculture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture) and avoiding wars. > Emperor [Joseph II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor), ruler of Austria 1780–1790, was over-enthusiastic, announcing so many reforms that had so little support that revolts broke out, and his regime became a comedy of errors. That all clearly predates Napoleon. And Emperor Meiji by a century or more. The alternative to liberal tyranny in the eyes of the liberal tyrants was not the liberal democracy you assume, it was tyranny pure and simple, as it had always been, without the enlightened element. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2026, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701/31 "2026-05-07T15:54:07Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > That all clearly predates Napoleon. And Emperor Meiji by a century or more. > The alternative to liberal tyranny in the eyes of the liberal tyrants was not the liberal democracy you assume, it was tyranny pure and simple, as it had always been, without the enlightened element. I was assuming that we were considering only progressives, and ignoring the run of the mill, plain old fashioned tyrants, whether modern ones that I excluded like Chavez, Stalin, Castro, and Mao, or any of the other thousands around the world going back to when humans were first humans. In other words I was posting under the assumption that we’re comparing tyrannical progressives vs. democratically elected progressives, not enlightened tyrants vs. unenlightened tyrants. > [@Velocity](#): > > “Well, we don’t have the votes or power to achieve what we want” Although looking at my list of who I excluded, and where the countries I mentioned are today, another omission comes to mind. The Soviet Union under Gorbachev would be another enlightened tyranny to consider. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2026, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701/32 "2026-05-07T17:01:59Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Bigots, racists, sexists, homophobes - not a problem, they’d face prison time or other penalties for expressing their views. While I disagree about what some other posters have said aren’t liberal things, this particular one is decidedly not liberal. I mean, I’m definitely not a liberal, but I do know free speech is very much a liberal cornerstone. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701/33 "2026-05-08T01:01:12Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > While I disagree about what some other posters have said aren’t liberal things, this particular one is decidedly not liberal. I mean, I’m definitely not a liberal, but I do know free speech is very much a liberal cornerstone. The problem with the term"liberal tyranny" is that tyranny is antithetical to freedom and “liberality” in general. Which means a liberal tyranny is going to be liberal in name only (not unusual for tyrannies, admittedly). ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701/34 "2026-05-08T10:55:22Z")
Yes. “Liberal tyranny” is at best a confusing misnomer and these days more often a mythical threat used by the Right to scare people about such horrors as secular public schools teaching real history. The alternatives of “progressive tyrant” or “Enlightened despot” should be better in the sense of a regime that says “no you peasants DON’T get a choice, you WILL have legal equality and broad education and a safety net and will adopt modern ways, OR ELSE!” ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701/35 "2026-05-08T11:12:30Z")
Nobody is ever going to take away the people’s free speech and voting rights, and grant them other rights instead. It doesn’t work that way. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701/36 "2026-05-08T11:18:19Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Yes. “Liberal tyranny” is at best a confusing misnomer and these days more often a mythical threat used by the Right to scare people about such horrors as secular public schools teaching real history. The Right does love pushing the idea that preventing _them_ from persecuting and oppressing other people is tyrannical. > [@Alessan](#): > > Nobody is ever going to take away the people’s free speech and voting rights, and grant them other rights instead. It doesn’t work that way. Yeah. That’s the kind of thing a dictator promises in order to get into power. Good luck on him delivering on his promises. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2026, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701/37 "2026-05-09T13:15:40Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > The alternatives of “progressive tyrant” or “Enlightened despot” should be better in the sense of a regime that says “no you peasants DON’T get a choice, you WILL have legal equality and broad education and a safety net and will adopt modern ways, OR ELSE!” Every oppressive regime thinks the world would be “better” if everyone just followed their ideology. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2026, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701/38 "2026-05-09T20:47:16Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Which means a liberal tyranny is going to be liberal in name only (not unusual for tyrannies, admittedly). (And let’s not forget enlightened despotism’s more recently strongly trending cousin, “illiberal democracy”) ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2026, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701/39 "2026-05-09T22:04:33Z")
One liberal tyranny was Taiwan under President Lee Teng-hui AKA Mr. Democracy. Lee, from what I’ve read, was a pure example of a democratizing dictator – being both Taiwan’s last dictator and first freely elected president. From the POV of Lee’s supporters, he wasn’t a tyrant, because he was exercising power legally. They said that he was authorized under the constitution to end the long-standing state of emergency that prevented a rule of law, and that it was also constitutional for him to release the political prisoners. His opponents said, and I presume sincerely felt, that he acted illegally. When I read a biography of the man, it seemed to me he was following the constitution and law. But, then, I would say that because I favor Taiwanese democracy. I do not think a liberal tyranny can last for long. Letting Taiwanese vote to bring back the old dictatorial Kuomintang party, which does sometimes win the presidency and/or a legislative majority, is the price Taiwan pays not to sink into something like the theoretically left-wing government ruling mainland China. So far it has worked, but nothing in politics is guaranteed to be permanent. What about something like universal health insurance? It was enacted in 1995 by Chiang Ching-kuo AKA CCK, Lee’s predecessor, who hand-picked the eventual Mr. Democracy to become the ruler after CCK’s death. CCK was an ambiguous figure who over time became less and less oppressive. I think the relevance to the thread is that there can be a liberal tyranny for a bit – say, ten or maybe even twenty years. But you cannot reverse everything illiberal instantly. And to avoid sinking into a really bad form of tyranny, the risk of free elections needs to be taken before long. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-a-liberal-tyranny-regime-perform/1029701.md?page=1)