What I think many don't realise is that the people running totalitarian governments, or dictators, don't see themselves as bad people doing bad things. They see themselves as good people doing the right thing for society. Only in hindsight are the warnings realised. There is a scene from a film I watched with my parents in my youth which always sticks in my mind. The film is called Cabaret and it's set in Germany during the rise to power of the Nazis. It's a tremendous film in its' own right but the spine chilling scene is a young brown shirt who starts singing "Tomorrow belongs to me" in a beer garden. Gradually the rest of the crowd get to their feet to join the brown shirt in song. By the end of it the whole beer garden is joined in unison. But in one corner, still seated and shaking his head, is an old man. He's lived his life and seen this before. he knows what's coming. He knows it's not good. But he knows that most others there are too young and inexperienced to realise it. They just all think they are doing the right thing.
