Princess Celestia is a tyrant/dictator

To rebut: "Celestia's priority first and foremost is her subjects." Is it really? I'm having a hard time seeing any evidence of this. As I stated earlier, she apparently wields not just absolute political power, but also an enormous amount of practical (magical) power? How does she use this to the benefit of her subjects? She doesn't; in fact she will try to avoid helping her subjects even when they need her most. She consistently puts her subjects in unnecessary danger when she could easily solve a dangerous situations with a flick of her magic god-pony horn. Consider the following: "Dragonshy." When a dangerous dragon causes some minor air pollution, Princess Celestia sends six untrained teenagers to deal with the problem. She does nothing. "Sonic Rainboom." With multiple ponies falling towards their deaths, the Princess watches from the stands and does nothing. She could use her magic to safely move them somewhere else, or fly to them herself, yet she does nothing. "Return of Harmony 1 & 2". She lets her student and her friends match wits with an ancient and powerful foe that they have no experience in dealing with. Her help is limited to trolling her student by throwing her words back at her via mail (Oh, you"re quitting on your friends? I guess these letters make you a liar). "Luna Eclipsed." Her sister comes from thousand years of solitude, spends a year in the castle, and then goes out amongst the hoi polloi. Princess Celestia apparently never tells her that language and customs evolved. She also spent her sister"s banishment allowing her subjects to build a narrative and holiday around her sister being a monster. She does not stop it. "Secret of My Excess." Spike turns into a Kaiju and begins rampaging through town. The Wonderbolts are sent to deal with it (because when the military has a problem, they always send the acrobatic demonstration team). They nearly die and the Princess does nothing. I would note that you can see Canterlot from Ponyville, so a 15 story behemoth running around is almost certainly visible " where else did the Wonderbolts come from? "Magical Mystery Cure." Demonstrates ability to raise others to god-hood. Does this for one pony ever; that pony being the one she has systematically brainwashed to love her. "Twilight"s Kingdom 1 & 2." When faced with a powerful threat she lets a duplicitous semi-ally try to stop it instead of dealing with it herself. When that does not work, she literally abdicates the ability to be responsible for anything and transfers power to her student. Allows most junior alicorn to take on threat. Princess Celestia does nothing. The point is that she never uses her power to benefit anyone, and that she ignores the real danger her subjects are in all the time. The only time she does intervene and use her power to fight a foe it was because it was both literally staring her in the face and ruining her role as master of ceremonies for a wedding (The one time she intervened non-villain affairs was to cover for Twilight's use of the date rape spell). One could make a case that she is giving others the opportunity to shine and develop, but when someone's very life hangs in the balance it is reckless and shows a depraved indifference to the mortality of her people. Seriously, she's fooled everyone into thinking that she moves the sun, that the changing of the seasons require their labor, and that the water cycle involves pegasis-powered cyclones. None of that is to their benefit. It has to be some sort of joke that god ponies play on the proles. Second: "I think she sees her job not as some divine right or entitlement." I don't think there's any evidence for this either. There's no egalitarianism in equestrian political structures. Alicorns are on the top, no doubt, and unicorns are certainly a close second. Consider what kind of ponies can go to special school and become her protege to reach the height of mortal power (and in one case even higher); only unicorns. Another clue is to consider the subtext of the Hearth's Warming tradition myth. Sure the main point is about working together, but the pageant was also about how when left to their own devices and leaders ponies will be reduced to squabbling and possible death. The underlying point is that ponies need her (and her sister) to rule them because normal ponies are bad at it. This is a propaganda piece that she forces high profile celebrities (the Mane six) to take part in for the masses. That is some serious hubris, but it makes sense. Compared to everyone else, she IS a god. Of course she has a divine right because she is divine. No one else can hold a hereditary position (like hers) if that office holder never dies. She's already over a thousand years old; think anyone will replace her? She shaped a society governed by a hereditary monarchy where the monarch is an immortal deity; how is that not entitled? In summation, at no point does the princess demonstrate that she is works more for her subjects than herself. In fact her actions demonstrate that when given the opportunity to help her subjects while they face mortal danger she will punt almost every single time. For some reason her subjects, to include the ones who know and trust her best, live in mortal fear of her wrath. If she was all loving and benevolent there would be no history of her using draconian punishment, thus no reason to fear her. But they do fear her, and when she notices their fear she plays jokes on them. That is malevolence. She also runs a society governed by a super minority of extremely powerful magic users that hold officer for life and show no signs of ever dying. There are no checks or balances, no parliamentarians or supreme courts, only the the absolute monarchs (diarchs), This is the definition of dictatorship. She combines this with a sort of "magic supremacy" where she elevates one race above the others based on both their physical similarity to her and ability to use a date rape spell. That is what a tyrant does. Vote TheButters