It is Better to Rule through Fear than through Love

The Possibility of Mistake(s)My opponent has said that a ruler who is ruling through fear will make a mistake, and this mistake will lead to a revolution. And while I cannot deny the possibility of mistakes being made, let's consider the fact that leaders make mistakes all the time, and they don't get immediately kicked out. Sure, sometimes a leader screws up in a really, really big way, and he is forcibly removed. However, the general attitude of the ruled toward the ruler is to follow, and to say, "What're you gonna do?" if something they don't like happens. As long as a leader doesn't push them too far, that kind of attitude can preserve him against overthrow thanks to a small error. On top of that kind of passive attitude, the fear this leader induces can help keep people down when he makes a mistake. Perhaps my opponent will say that a leader inducing fear may make his subjects to afraid to tell him he's messed up, and therefore the problem will grow until it's unstoppable. Simple solution: make them more afraid of not telling. Be sure that your subjects know there is no punishment for telling you what's going on, but that there are punishments for keeping you out of the loop.Now let's see what this properly represented idea of mistakes leading to overthrow is up against. We're talking about the long odds of making one mistake that is so bad you lose your throne, versus not being able to enforce any laws and not being able to keep order beyond your charm, which as I have already explained, simply doesn't work on some people. It is far more likely that a man ruling through love only will lose his state to the chaos of anarchy long before a man who actually has laws accidentally slips up, and by long odds that slip up is so horrendous he is overthrown.Being SurpassedThe idea that a ruler who uses fear might be overthrown uses the following as much of its reason:"Plato said that the just man would be penalized by having an unjust one come to power, so he would pursue rule, in order to prevent the injust from ruling."This debate is over using fear versus love, not justice versus injustice. A ruler could rule entirely through fear and have both good intentions and just laws. Therefore, possible leaders wouldn't look up to their ruler, see a bad man, and try to remove him for justice's sake. If that did happen, it would be because said leader hadn't heeded the words of Niccolo Machiavelli, which say that ruling through fear works, as long as you don't incur the hate of your subjects. In this section my opponent describes an unjust leader who works only for himself. Not only does that make unfounded assumptions about an all fear leader's motivations, it also paints a picture of a ruler who has incurred hate, which is NOT part of my position. My position is fear only. Therefore any repercussions related to incurred hate are invalid arguments against all fear ruling style. I have already shown how one can be feared and not hated. More generally though, people who would naturally want to surpass this leader would have a harder time. The people who might help them are afraid of the leader. In the interests of self-preservation, there'd be too few people who'd want to help overthrow their ruler if they knew the punishment would be death. Then if we look at the all love state, that is, a state without rules, we see that a man who wanted the top spot could probably find enough shady individuals who didn't care that their ruler was nice, and then execute an overthrow. General Quote Rebuttals"You serve others through love, and you are payed back through benefits."Yes, by some. As I've already stated and exemplified, some people are too self-centered to care about how nicely they've been treated. Aside from the self-centered people, even people who like you may do things that they think won't directly harm you. With those two things being said, plus the lack of laws, even if you don't get overthrown during all the chaos, the general welfare of your people will go down majorly thanks to the civil strife."By being a fearful ruler, you are being unjust.."This is simply not true. By making people fear you and your punishments, you ensure order and stability, which is a justice to the people you rule over. Look at the all love, and you see no fear of punishments, because there are none. Civil strife would run amok, and that would be an injustice to a ruler's subjects.PLEASE NOTE:Thanks to his time constraint forfeit, my opponent gets to attack my rebuttals and main argument without the possibility of me firing back. Therefore he'll be having the last word, in a very big way. So I'd like voters to keep two things in mind:1) Civil strife versus the long odds of being overthrown for making a mistake. The fact that an all love state will fall apart much quicker than an all fear state where you wait for a ruler to make such a huge mistake that the entire thing comes crashing down. 2) The fact that 'tough love' can't be used, because tough love invokes fear as its main way to get things done. Therefore, punishments cannot be utilized by an all love ruler. My opponent may try to get around this to help his argument, especially since I won't be able to respond, so please, please remember, 'tough love' invokes fear, therefore it isn't a valid tool in all love ruler-ship.3) Since my opponent gets an advantage in his arguments, please take the time to thoroughly judge all other categories, please don't just award argument points and then stop looking to see who did better in the other categories.Thanks for reading.