re: #442 Ding-an-sich Wannabe

I can imagine a “nice” dictator who is basically a 99% liberal, an enlightened monarch, who is “with us on everything but” elections. Still illegitimate, but sorta nice, OK. Doesn’t exist too. Never had, never will.

In the real world it’s the choice between bad and awful, or, in some cases, between not that bad and bad. Nice is too relative :)

Not many elected rulers meet that bar. For the most part, I’d go with “not soaked in your people’s blood, we can do business.”