The Great Dictator – IOTW Report

The Great Dictator

NM sent me a compendium of quotes by famous people. One stood out for me.

Charlie Chaplin

As for politics, I’m an anarchist. I hate governments and rules and fetters. Can’t stand caged animals. People must be free.

This has never been my understanding of Chaplin’s politics. It made me go back to the soliloquy in The Great Dictator.

When you listen to it it is pretty much all over the map. How do you interpret it?

12 Comments on The Great Dictator

  1. The 1940 soliloquy, in 2016, is like cheesecloth.
    This is a speech a sneaky lefty would make, but they can’t seem to quite hide their true intentions – big government collectivism.

  2. The “Anarchists” joined the Socialists to form a “Republican Government” in the Spanish Civil War. “Anarchist” was just another branch of the socialist tree. Another lie to deceive and confound their enemies.

    Anarchist, Liberal, Progressive, Leftist, Demonrat, Republican, Socialist, Communist, National Socialist, Inter-National Socialist, Democratic Socialist, Social Democrat – all branches of the same evil, lying, traitorous, hateful, deceitful, murderous, enslaving tree.

    He also referred to himself as a “humanist” which was another euphemism for socialist.

  3. It’s not “all over the place.”
    I think you’re judging the 1940 speech by 2015 standards.

    The deal about “borders” was a crack against Hitler’s national socialism.

    Everything else I heard was him (he’s a barber in Hitler’s clothes, remember) calling upon citizens to arise/take control of their own destiny.

    What exactly concerned you? In what did you hear the “big government” stuff?

  4. Truly the greatest speech ever made, to an audience who didn’t deserve it, because they were too fearful or corrupt ever to act on it.

    Thus do tyrants rule.

    So it has been, so will it ever be. It is the nature of mankind.

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