[caver]

What is it that some countries such as Germany, Austria and even Russia would rather have a dictator rule over them than be free?

[Timber Rattler]

Monarchy, Fascism, and Antisemitism run deep in their cultures and political thought.

Last night I watched a German documentary called "The Unknown Soldier," which was produced in the late 1990s and concerned the Wehrmacht's collaboration with the SS during the Holocaust. During protests of the so-called Wehrmacht Exhibition, a traveling exhibit focusing on Army war crimes, the media tried to interview old German soldiers who felt like they were being wrongly smeared. However, when the 20-something neo-Nazi protest leaders intervened and ordered them to shut-up, they fell right back into old habits and meekly did as they were told.

Very telling.

[PghBaldy]

I think some of it is longing for a time when they were more important in the world, and equating that with Hitler.

[R. Scott]

No thought required, much like our zero tolerance policies.

[Jabba the Nutt]

I'll answer that question. Because they get stuck in a hybrid system of social democracy. You have a system which inevitably locks up into gridlock, because they're trying to do economic planning within a democratic framework. No plan gets majority support, so you have gridlock. The government becomes at once all powerful and all incompetent. It makes promises it knows it can't keep. Just think of Obama's big lie to get ObamaCare passed.

If you follow the law, you're a chump, while the connected, the politicians, the crooks and gangsters all get incredibly weathly, while your situation deteriorates.

Eventually, people look for a strong man to bring the government under control and make it behave rationally.

They never ever try limited government and individual freedon. So, Europe goes through these political cycles.

[x]

What is it that some countries such as Germany, Austria and even Russia would rather have a dictator rule over them than be free?

It's what they're used to. It's tied up with the great periods of their history.

And over time, artists, intellectuals, and politicians create a cult or mystique of the great leader and the grateful, dependent, submissive Volk.

I'm not so sure that today's Germany (or even today's Austria) is really looking for a dictator, though.