Chapter 4 Departed and Depraved Megalomaniacs

Chapter 4

Departed and Depraved, Megalomaniacs

Idi Amin; François Duvalier; Muammar Gaddafi; Saddam Hussein; Saloth Sar (Pol Pot); Adolf Hitler; Empress Dowager Cixi

With the exception of Empress Dowager Cixi, these megalomaniacs started out in their dubious, political careers believing in the myth that they and they alone, were fit to rule. Each man held fast to his own wonderful self image, a self image in which he believed himself to be a savior for the poor suffering people who, in the final act of the play, would probably adulate and adore him. They saw themselves as brave conquering heroes because they had managed to cast out the corrupt, sitting governments that gripped their countries before they took power.

Instead they are remembered as mass murderers despised by the whole world. With no exceptions, they set about to strip the wealth from those whom they despised, bring the masses under control, dictate the laws of the land and eradicate those who opposed their totalitarian rule. Empress Dowager Cixi did not start out believing in this myth, but she grew into it when the opportunity opened up to her.

Pol Pot believed in the communist principle that wealth should be evenly distributed throughout the land, but he failed to understood the principle that if enormous wealth held by the few is distributed among the masses, the wealth will just disappear and the country will remain poor.

Duvalier held to the principle that if he cleared the country of all wealthy people, the country would take care of itself. But he didn’t understand the principle that if the government doesn’t provide employment for its people, the wealthy are the ones who can and do provide jobs for the working poor.  

Hussein, Hitler and Gaddafi were savvy enough to use the wealth of their countries to build better economies, but they did not understand the principle that it’s not what you do that counts, it’s what you are as a person that will dictate your legacy. They might have started out as saviors but they ended up as despots.

Idi Amin wanted it all for himself and his legacy is just one of horrendous horror.

Idi Amin Dada (1925-2003)

Idi Amin Dada is an example of a Melancholic gone mad with power. He was the third president of The Republic of Uganda, a land-locked country in East Africa. He held power from 1971 until 1979 and was known throughout the world as the butcher of Uganda. This eccentric buffoon had plural wives and approximately forty children and it was known that he also practiced brutality even within his own family.

Under Amin’s rule there were human rights abuses, corruption, torture and ethnic killings. It is estimated that the number of people who died as a result of his murderous policies range from 100,000 to 500,000. Nobody really knows how many people died during his reign of terror.

Idi Amin was a brutal, notorious dictator and the people who knew him best described him as egotistical and subject to quick mood changes. He could be charming and charismatic one moment, but in the twinkling of an eye his mood could change and he would become angry, violent and savage. He was self aggrandizing, arrogant and very adept at downplaying his history of horror.

Just like Jeffrey Dahmer, melancholic Idi Amin kept the heads of some of his victims in his freezer and just like Papa Doc Duvalier it was reported than Idi Amin used to talk to the frozen heads in order to admonish them for their wrongdoings.

Terror reigned as the butcher of Uganda ordered mass execution of whole tribes of people who had been loyal to the previous president. He terrorized the populace with his use of murderous killing squads who were tasked with eliminating every person who opposed his rule.

Amin also grabbed the businesses and properties of all residential Asians and Europeans with the exception of some physicians, lawyers and teachers and just like Adolph Hitler who blamed the Jews, Idi Amin blamed residential Asian Indians for the woes of the country. All Asian Indians, approximately fifty thousand of them who held British passports, were ordered out of Uganda resulting in the collapse of the economy.

Idi Amin sported a long list of titles all of which had been self awarded. He was filled with self importance, intent on being a star and he pursued power so aggressively that he would stop at nothing to achieve his end. Some of his self bestowed titles included, His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal, Lord of Everything, Conqueror of the British Empire and Doctor of Law holding a Victorious Cross (not a British Victoria Cross). This melancholic despot appointed himself as King of Scotland just because he happened to like Scottish people. He was the master of manipulation and he left a legacy of horror in a country that he despoiled for eight years. After his downfall he was given sanctuary in Saudi Arabia where he died in August of 2003.

Not much is known about Idi Amin’s childhood except that he was supposedly deserted by his father, and his mother was a diviner, in other words his mother was a witch doctor. Because his behavior swung so rapidly from one end of the scale to the other, some people held the opinion that Idi Amin might have been bi-polar. Another name for bi-polar is manic depressive indicating a person who has violent, emotional mood swings. Amin’s mood swings were not an illness. He was just being who he wanted to be. He was a tyrant who kept people on their toes at all times and who, in the end, wanted people to be afraid of him. He was a man who had embraced with pleasure the extremities of the negative propensities of the melancholic temperament.

 In the beginning Amin’s regime was financially supported by both the Soviet Union and East Germany. This was followed by support from Muammar Gaddafi the Libyan dictator. But Idi Amin received his military training from the British who ruled Uganda before Uganda’s independence.

In his youth and before he became president of Uganda, the British military awarded Idi Amin the highest rank possible for an African serving in the British army. Their golden child from Uganda evolved into a cruel, murderous, belligerent bully who was renowned for his penchant for chopping up the bodies of his enemies. His hatred for the Israeli people was well documented and just like Muammar Gaddafi, Amin gave his support to terrorists, especially those Palestinians who were practicing terror activities against Israel.

Idi Amin has been quoted as saying, “I’m a good Muslim and I’m only interested in Islam.” It is an incredible notion to think that this man truly believed that he had God’s blessings, when he carried out his despotic acts of terror.

              François Duvalier (1907-1971)

Another example of a despotic melancholic ruler was François Duvalier often referred to as Papa Doc Duvalier. Duvalier was the President of the Republic of Haiti from 1957 until his death in 1971. Haiti is a very poor Caribbean country occupying the western part of the island of Hispaniola and French speaking Haitians share Hispaniola with the Spanish speaking people of the Dominican Republic.

To carry out his orders, Duvalier formed a militia known as the Tonton Macoute, a name that can be roughly translated as Bogeymen. These bogeymen were a frightening group who terrorized the people of Haiti using voodoo, torture, rape and murder. This reign of terror caused the deaths of 35,000 of Duvalier’s own countrymen.

It is said that on one occasion Duvalier gave an order that the head of one of his enemies who had been executed, should be packed in ice and brought to him so that he could speak to the spirit of the dead man. This gory practice of communing with the severed head of a person is believed to be part of the Voodoo religion. Somehow Voodoo beliefs managed to get incorporated with Duvalier’s Roman Catholic beliefs; he alternated between Voodoo and Christianity supposedly to ensure that he could keep the benefits of both.

The brutal melancholic Haitian dictator ordered peepholes to be carved into interrogation chambers so that he could watch his prisoners being tortured as they were submerged into tubs of sulfuric acid. But Duvalier truly believed himself to be an intermediary between God and the people; an intermediary who had been specifically chosen by Jesus Christ himself to lead the country of Haiti into prosperity. He was a religious zealot but he was also a cruel, tyrannical despot who started out in life as a golden child, a melancholic golden child.

Papa Doc Duvalier was an educated man with a license to practice medicine. In his youth he was widely esteemed as a champion of the poor, black majority of Haiti and he spent his medical career trying to eradicate and control the spread of those tropical diseases that so easily infected the poor people of that area of the world.

But Duvalier had political ambitions and this golden child grew up hating the wealthy, biracial, mulatto elite who held all the positions of power in Haiti. This hatred is what propelled him forward in his desire for power. This same hatred was instrumental in Duvalier forming a strong belief in the superiority of the pure, black African bloodline. He agreed with Hitler that the races should not sully their bloodlines by producing biracial children. But whereas Hitler believed in the superiority of blue eyed, white skinned blonds, Duvalier believed in the superiority of brown eyed, black skinned Africans.   

Duvalier rigged elections, he forced his enemies into exile, he expelled all of Haiti’s foreign born Catholic bishops and he rigged an official referendum in order to make himself the president for life. He wanted to have absolute power and absolute power is what he did achieve for himself. Duvalier also misappropriated millions of dollars of international aid that was provided by the United States, dollars that made Duvalier personally wealthy.

This repressive regime instituted the death penalty for all known communists. The regime used intimidation, bribery and extortion to enrich itself and it grabbed land from the poor peasant population causing widespread famine and starvation.

Papa Doc Duvalier created what is known as a personality cult around his own image; a personality cult that painted him as a saint and a person worthy to be worshipped. This once loved man was so seduced by the adulation of the masses that he wanted to keep this adulation forever. But Duvalier was so wrapped up in himself that he was unaware that the legacy he was creating for himself was not a legacy of honor it was a legacy of hate.

It is recorded in history that in 1804, the first successful, black slave revolt in the Americas happened in Haiti. After two hundred years of French rule Haitian slaves gained their freedom and Duvalier did express in a televised interview that because Haitians were the first to fight for their freedom, he as the current leader of the country, was entitled to be named leader of the black world. Not only did he want power over the Haitians, he wanted power over all black people throughout the entire world. Like Hitler he called his own country the fatherland.

One of the main differences between Cholerics and Melancholics is their manner of speech. Duvalier spoke with the careful, studied speech pattern of a Melancholic. In contrast Cholerics speak at a more rapid pace and their speech pattern is not well thought out; the speech pattern of a Choleric is usually driven by instinct alone. Cholerics like to be blunt and they favor speech patterns that have an underlying force to them. Cholerics like to get quickly to the point whereas Melancholics sometimes meander around the point similar to the way that the man who ruled Iraq, Saddam Hussein, meandered around the point when he made his impassioned plea for leniency to the court that presided at his murder trial in Iraq.

Papa Doc Duvalier grew up in a low to middle class family. Nothing much is known about his childhood except that he was a diabetic from birth. He managed to get an education, and because he was an intelligent man he was also able to earn a medical license. He was loved by the people when he was a young doctor but love can so easily turn to hate because only a very thin line separates these two human emotions. But someone who hates intensely has inside him or herself an equal capacity to love intensely.  

Love is fickle and human love is always conditional. If the circumstances surrounding a loving relationship change for the worse, the relationship will also change for the worse. François Duvalier was quoted as saying, “God and the people are the source of all power. I have twice been given the power. I have taken it, and damn it, I will keep it.” When religious Melancholics reach the pinnacle of power, they do tend to assume that they are specially anointed by God and it never crosses their minds that it could be Satan the devil who is anointing them.

Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (1942-2011)

Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi was a revolutionist who, in a totally bloodless coup, unofficially took over as ruler of the State of Libya. He deposed the monarchy and set up his own government with the religious laws of Islam as the country’s guiding light. Gaddafi, who was a legalistic Choleric, renamed Libya as the Libyan Arab Republic and he also imprisoned, but did refrain from murdering supporters of the deposed monarch. At the beginning of his dominant rule, Gaddafi did not choose to put his enemies to death. The death sentences came much later as his taste for power grew.

King Idris who was the first and only king of Libya was the man who had instituted a monarchy in Libya and he was the only person that Gaddafi sentenced to death. King Idris was sentenced to death in absentia, because he had escaped the country, but he never returned and so was never executed.

 Libya is a country in North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea, and Gaddafi’s rule lasted for forty two long years. He was condemned by the world at large as a violator of human rights but Gaddafi was not a Melancholic, he was a Choleric.

Because he hated the West so much, Gaddafi took revenge on those who had rejected him and his culture. He took revenge by supporting terrorism against western countries, and because he had at his disposal vast deposits of Libyan oil, the sale of the oil gave him the funds to do it. He supported militant groups and radical terrorists throughout the world and for a while he even allied himself with Idi Amin.

American President Ronald Reagan who had a sanguine temperament, described Gaddafi as the mad dog of the Middle East because of Gaddafi’s vocal anti-imperialist stance. Western rulers made fun of Gaddafi because of his flamboyant, Arabic manner of dress and this incited him to take further revenge on the West. It was reported by those who knew him that Gaddafi believed himself to be on a divine mission with possible world domination as the end result.

Gaddafi was an extraordinarily proud man. He was proud of his Bedouin lifestyle and preferring the simplicity of a tent in the desert, to an opulent palace fit for a king. He was described as a dictator, an autocrat, a despot and a tyrant.

 In his youth, British officers who were charged with the training of Libyan soldiers found Gaddafi to be rude and insolent but later on when Gaddafi was sent to England for more training, he was described as amusing, hard working and conscientious. Cholerics do not have the ability to switch different personality traits off and on in the same manner as Melancholics, but Cholerics are reactive and as such they will instinctively react in kind, to whoever is communicating orders. They can be like chameleons that change colors to match who they are with, at that particular moment in time.

     After Gaddafi nationalized the oil industry, the people of Libya began to live well but his social reforms severely restricted the freedoms that the Libyans had grown used to. Alcohol and night clubs were banned, Christian churches were a thing of the past and by law the Arabic language was the only official language that was to be used in government communications. Gaddafi was a legalist and many Cholerics do love to be legalists; it gives them a sense of justification. They feel sure that they are following the rules set down by God and Government.

     But under Gaddafi’s leadership new social welfare programs were introduced, housing projects were built, healthcare for the masses was improved drastically and compulsory education was expanded for elementary age students. University education was made free and Gaddafi became a popular man of the people.

He had a natural charisma that disappeared as he aged, but he was a radical and took strong measures to rid the country of foreigners and seize their assets. Like Idi Amin, Gaddafi hated the United States of America because of its support for Israel. In retaliation, and because America supported Israel, Gaddafi decide to provide support for the Palestinian Liberation Front which is Israel’s main enemy.

 By the year 2011 Gaddafi’s government had become unpopular because of widespread corruption and patronage and because unemployment in Libya had reached thirty percent. Rebel groups sprung up and for the first time since Gaddafi took over government soldiers opened fire on unarmed protesters killing hundreds. After all these years of Islamic rule, law and order broke down on all sides, and both rebels and government henchmen started committing human rights abuses. These abuses consisted of revenge attacks, torture and executions.

Gaddafi’s father was a poor goat and camel herder but the family prided themselves on their Berber heritage. They led a nomadic lifestyle and in spite of being poor, Gaddafi managed to get an education and ended up in law school.  But Gaddafi dropped out of law school and joined the military where his main interest lay.

The friends he made at school described Gaddafi as a popular student who made friends easily. He was an extrovert who did not hide the fact that he hero worshipped President Nasser of Egypt and this is what urged him into politics. He and his friends openly demonstrated against the monarchy and eventually they formed themselves into a group, a group that intended to overthrow the government in a well-planned coup. Like most choleric men Gaddafi was a man of action.

Gaddafi’s biggest mistake was that just like Mike Philpott, he couldn’t keep his big mouth shut. He was proud of his own courage in defying the United States and he was so vocal in his views that even the other Arab States wanted to silence him. In his interviews and speeches Gaddafi was blunt and got straight to the point. He came across as a man who believed that he was right about everything and the sad thing is that he was absolutely right about many things to do with world affairs, but he had no idea that he was hated intensely for his choleric, braggadocio attitude.

In the end, Gaddafi’s own people first beat him severely and then they shot him to death. Muammar Gaddafi has been quoted as saying, “We have fifty million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe.” To this day Islam has not yet gained victory in European countries because Europe still remains a Christian enclave, a religion that has held sway in Europe for over two thousand years.

  

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (1937-2006)

Because of incessant news coverage of the war in Iraq most Americans and Western Europeans are only too familiar with the despotic melancholic nature of Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti, the fifth president of Iraq known around the world as the Butcher of Baghdad. This war between an American and British alliance and the regime of Saddam Hussein lasted for seven years.

The war was started in 2003 by the alliance, under the presidency of choleric George Bush and sanguine Prime Minister Tony Blair. Saddam Hussein was accused of having weapons of mass destruction and of having ties to the terrorist group al-Qaeda, the group that was responsible for the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York, September 2001. The war in Iraq was a war of revenge and Cholerics are revenge driven people.

Iraq is a country situated on the northern part of the Persian Gulf. Saddam Hussein rose up to power in 1979 and was captured and hanged in 2006. In an Iraqi trial, Hussein was accused and found guilty of ordering ethnic cleansing and committing crimes against humanity. He was notorious for terrorizing his own people and he was responsible for the deaths of approximately 250,000 Iraqis. Hussein’s henchmen practiced widespread imprisonment, torture, murder and rape and his adult sons were also feared for their brutality and acts of bestiality.

Children grow up following in the footsteps of their parents even if the adult children do not value the examples or the morals set down by those who give birth to them. History tends to repeat itself not only in world affairs but also in family affairs.

In his earlier years, Saddam Hussein was reported as being a very good politician with some progressive ideas. He was a skilled organizer, a persuasive negotiator and he was credited with being an initiator of western styled social services for his own people. Melancholics can be great organizers and Saddam Hussein was without doubt a Melancholic.

Like so many dictators this man started his political career wanting to do good things for the people. It is the acquisition of power that provides a corrupting influence on those who have never in their lives had any power. The way to handle power is something that needs to be learned and not many people on a fast rise to the top take the time to study all the negative influences that accompany the acquisition of power. Powerful people have enemies and those enemies are always waiting for the chance to topple a power monger from his or her throne.

With the aid of the French government Hussein started Iraq’s own nuclear, enrichment program. The United States, Europe, and some members of the Arab League financially supported Hussein’s long war against Iran and for a time Hussein was regarded as a civilized defender of the Arab world. But in the inner circles he was also viewed as egotistical, cruel and power hungry. Melancholic Hussein hated the state of Israel and was angry with American President George Bush senior for supporting Israel. He had no idea that his end was in sight, an end that was brought about by the son of the president that Hussein hated so much.

This is why Adolf Hitler ordered all Jewish children to be put to death. Hitler knew that if the children lived, they would grow up to avenge the deaths of their Jewish parents. It was an astute observation. President George Bush junior avenged his father President George Bush senior by attacking Saddam Hussein.

Saddam Hussein was described by his own adult daughters as a tender, kind and loving father. This tender, kind and loving father was guilty of permitting the torture of men, women and children throughout his reign of terror. He was so egotistical that like a man who was trying to portray himself as a God to his own people, Hussein gave orders for thousands of statues, portraits and murals of himself to be displayed throughout Iraq. Hussein was a self worshipping, self-consumed Melancholic and his motto was, love and obey me or I will kill you.

Saddam Hussein’s birth father either deserted the mother of his child when she was pregnant, or was killed somewhere along the line resulting in Hussein being raised by his maternal uncle until he was three years old. After the remarriage of his mother, Hussein returned to live with her but was abused by his stepfather for the seven years that he lived with them. This resulted in Saddam Hussein returning to live with the uncle but it was too late to remedy the situation. The abuse had already happened and the boy was already damaged.

Iraq is known as the cradle of civilization, the place where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet and the place reputed to be where Jehovah communed with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Ancient Mesopotamia, as it was called, gave birth to the first known civilization. It also gave birth to the first writing system, and this advanced civilization flourished for approximately three thousand years.

Most areas of the world have had their chance to rise to the top of the totem pole. All ancient civilizations have greatly expanded the wealth of human achievement, and in fact one civilization provides the foundation for the next civilization, no matter which part of the world the next civilization springs from. But these civilizations always collapse from within due to corruption, the collapse of morality and the growth of brutality.

Every empire will fall because of the existence of human evil. This evil is often condoned by ordinary, normal, functioning people because many times evil enters unnoticed. It comes in disguise. Evil is often perceived as good until it is too late to do anything about it. Saddam Hussein has been quoted as saying, “Allah is on our side. That’s why we will beat the aggressor.” It seems that evil dictators often see themselves as close companions to whatever God they believe in. It is often a case of, “Look at me, look how powerful I have become. I must be blessed by God.”

Saloth Sar (Pol Pot, 1925-1998)

Saloth Sar (Pol Pot) was a Cambodian, communist revolutionary who originally was opposed to the royal rule of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, but who eventually aligned himself with the ousted Prince with a plan to overthrow the government.

The Kingdom of Cambodia is a very populous country located in the southern part of the Indochinese Peninsula of Southeastern Asia. Cambodia used to be called the Khmer Empire and Pol Pot, another melancholic dictator who rose up to become the leader of the communist party, was responsible for the Cambodian genocide that killed millions of his own people.

The communist party was given the name Khmer Rouge, and the members of the Red Khmers used forced relocations, forced labor, torture and mass executions in order to establish their own particular form of socialism.

The people were to be cleansed from the evil influences of the existing corrupt society and this cleansing was supposed to result in a purified population. The methods used for this cleansing were similar to the methods used in Nazi Germany. People were murdered if they were wealthy, if they were educated or if they were members of the police force. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, ex government officials, Chinese, Vietnamese and Muslims were all slaughtered in order to rid the country of people who were viewed as having a corrupting influence.

Pol Pot got his inspiration from reading about both Marxism and the Cultural Revolution that was instituted by Mao Zedong in communist China. German born Karl Marx and Chinese born Mao Zedong believed that their own capitalist societies were corrupt and that these capitalist societies needed to be disbanded. They believed in a shared labor workforce and they held the belief that hard work would set everyone free. The desired end result of these revolutions was supposed to be the creation of a Utopia where everyone who survived the massacres could live happily ever after.

The Khmer Rouge tried to create an idealist agrarian society as opposed to the Nazis who tried to create a thriving industrial society. The Cambodians wanted the land to be cultivated but this version of Utopia needed slave labor in order to make it happen. Land production was to be the wealth of the country, but the plan failed because the collective farms full of slave labor could not produce enough food for the whole country.

A large percentage of the Cambodian population died from starvation. Estimates are that twenty five percent of the Cambodian population was dead after Pol Pot’s reign of terror, a reign of terror that lasted for four years. The dead were discovered in what is known as ‘The Killing Fields,’ mass graves sites for the thousands of people who were deemed to be expendables and who were executed in the name of freedom.

In 1998 Pol Pot either died of a heart attack, committed suicide or was poisoned by a dissenting faction of the Khmer Rouge. No one really knows the truth about the circumstances of his death except that he was a prisoner of the faction at the time of his death.

 Pol Pot’s younger brother described him as a kind gentle boy who had a smiling face and a quiet manner. This could never describe a choleric boy, but it could describe a boy with a melancholic temperament. His other siblings painted a picture of a loving family where the parents, who were devout Buddhists, taught their children respect for human life. This could possibly have been a case where the family members linked arms for the purpose of keeping the family name unsullied, except for their renegade brother Pol Pot.

The family was connected by marriage to the Cambodian Royal Family and by comparison to the ordinary peasants around them, Pol Pot’s family was relatively affluent. It is interesting to note that Pol Pot ordered the brutal murders of the same kind of people that surrounded him when he was a boy. Pol Pot was a Melancholic. In one of his televised interviews he refused to take any of the blame for the mass killings that had taken place when he was in power. He disclaimed ownership of all the atrocities that were carried out under his orders.

Pol Pot is quoted as saying, “My conscience is clear.” Pol Pot did not promote himself as a religious man but the question that needs to be asked is if he didn’t believe in a God, why was it necessary for him to have a clear conscience. It is most obvious that a clear conscience is of paramount importance to many dictators when death becomes imminent, just in case there is a God waiting on the other side of life. Like Duvalier, Pot Pol had a foot in both camps except that in this case the two camps were not Christianity and Voodoo; most likely Pol Pot’s two camps were Buddhism and Atheism.

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian born leader of the Federal Republic of Germany. Germany is a country located in Western Central Europe and the Germans prided themselves on the fact that they believed themselves to be direct descendants of a superior Aryan race that had disappeared from the annals of history.

Hitler was a choleric leader of the German Nazi party from 1933 until he committed suicide in 1945. He swallowed a capsule of cyanide and simultaneously shot himself in the head just to make sure that the conquering, invading Russians would be unable to torture him before he died.

As Chancellor of Germany, Hitler caused World War II because of his desire for world domination. His desire for world domination arose out of an act of revenge against those European leaders who had initiated the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I. But this treaty had deprived Germany of its right to reorganize and rearm because of the fact that Germany had also started World War I.

  Hitler was a ferocious Anti-Semite and on his orders the Jews of Europe were to be totally exterminated. This horrendous extermination program was carried out in German and Polish concentration camps where it is estimated that at least six million people were slaughtered. Not only were the Jews to be exterminated but also the Slavs, Gypsies, Homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Communists as well as those unfortunate people who were mentally challenged or physically handicapped.

Hitler was the most depraved and the worst dictator the modern world has ever known and from listening to his rage filled speeches it can be determined that Adolf Hitler was indeed a proud, strutting, rage filled Choleric who never doubted his ability to conquer the world. This raging Choleric did not need the help of God Almighty; he was going to conquer the world using his own mental strength and power.

The Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party (Nazis) started out as an organization that dreamed of raising Germany up to its former glory and it did manage to do that for a while, but just like the Roman Empire, the cruel, murdering German empire fell to pieces. 

At the end of World War I, in November of 1918, a European alliance between Austria, Germany and Hungary suffered a humiliating defeat at the hand of the British, French and Soviet alliance, and Germany had not recovered from its downfall. Unemployment was rife, living conditions were poor and there was an incredible amount of unrest in the country.

Hitler blamed the Jews for the unrest and his first intention when he gained power was to chase all the Jews out of Germany. This plan escalated into chasing all the Jews out of Europe and then because so few countries were willing to accept shiploads of sanctuary seeking, Jewish refugees, Hitler and his cronies in the Third Reich came up with a final solution. The final solution was annihilation; death to all Jews including men, women and children. The Jews were the scapegoats who were blamed for everything that was wrong with dysfunctional Germany.

Hitler permitted nightmarish experiments to be performed on concentration camp victims. These experiments were carried out by the notorious Josef Mengele, a German officer and physician who worked in Auschwitz concentration camp located in Poland.

All concentration camp prisoners were tattooed with an identifying number and some of the survivors of these concentration camps have had no choice but to live out the remainder of their lives with this numerical tattoo branded on their forearms. It is a constant reminder of how one nation was able to reduce another nation (the Jews) to no more than numbers recorded on their own skin. These people were considered to be slave laborers who were not worthy to be part of the human race.

This is similar to the way that white American slave owners believed their African slaves to be only three fifths human. Nazi Germany was history repeating itself and in both cases the black Africans and the Jewish people survived and lived to populate the human race, just like everyone else.  

It has been said that if it wasn’t for the Holocaust the State of Israel wouldn’t exist. Israel, the country that pushed its own dysfunctional Palestinians to the side lines, has now become the golden child of the United States. 

 Proud Hitler’s goal was world domination. He wanted to create a world that was ruled by the so-called superior German Aryans, with himself at the top of the mountain. He promoted himself as Der Fuhrer, the father of the fatherland who would rid the world of all those whom he considered to be inferior species of humanity. Like Charles Manson’s followers, the German people viewed Hitler as a loving father who would take care of them for the rest of their lives, as long as they followed his every command.

Hitler was a mama’s boy, and he was greatly saddened when at the age of forty seven, his mother died of cancer. But he expressed no regret about causing the deaths of a total of approximately twelve million people, six million in the war and six million in the concentration camps. He went to his cowardly death unrepentant as many Cholerics do. They have a difficult time bending the knee to say, “I’m sorry, I was wrong.”

Some of Hitler’s paintings survived his death. It has been reported that he was quite talented as an artist but not talented enough to be accepted into the art school of his choice in order to pursue art as a formal career. Possibly if the art school had accepted him as a student, the course of history would have been changed for the better.

Hitler was a powerful screaming, yelling type of orator but he was also described as having a magnetic appeal and a charismatic personality. Although it is difficult to comprehend from a modern viewpoint, Hitler managed to persuade a whole nation to his way of thinking. The proud but downtrodden Germans rallied to the hysterical ranting of a would-be savior. Hitler believed in his own superiority. No other temperament type has the ability to use hysterical rants and hatred so effectively, but the circumstances in Germany at that time were ripe for this kind of propaganda. A melancholic orator would have spoken using a more seductive speech pattern, a sanguine orator would have been friendlier and a phlegmatic orator would have been cool, calm and collected.

Although Hitler was raised as a Roman Catholic it was well known that he participated in occult practices. He sought out supernatural knowledge in order to strengthen his own power and to get closer to whatever spiritual entities he believed in.

As a veteran of World War I and on the recommendation of his German, Jewish, superior officer, Hitler was awarded the Iron Cross for bravery. His World War I experiences turned him into a man who loved the art of war; like his victors Field Marshall Montgomery and Winston Churchill, Hitler loved the whole atmosphere and excitement of war and he deliberately led his own country back into a world war when it had barely recovered from the previous one. Just like many other Cholerics, Hitler trampled over other people’s wisdom, cared nothing for other people’s advice and he pushed on to the bitter end with his own stupidity.

The Nazis plundered Europe. They stole treasures and art from the people whom they slaughtered and very little of it has been returned to the descendants of the families it used to belong to.

As a child Hitler was physically and mentally abused by his father but Hitler loved his mother who tried to protect him from the beatings his father inflicted on him. According to Hitler’s sisters, after his father’s death Hitler tried to fill his father’s shoes and take care of the family. He was a caretaker but he was also a bully and a tyrant and after his mother’s death, Hitler decided to continue his role as caretaker, not just caretaker for his immediate family but caretaker for the whole of Germany. He named himself Der Fuhrer i.e. the father of the fatherland the man who would take care of his people.

This Austrian-born problem child grew up to be Europe’s biggest problem child and it is hoped that his legacy of mass murder will never be forgotten. It was to be hoped that the world would never let anything like this happen again, but it is happening again in troubled countries throughout the world although on a much smaller scale.

The Jewish Holocaust was a grim reminder of the depths of depravity that ordinary human beings can sink to. One nasty little choleric man almost brought the entire world to its knees.

Adolf Hitler has been quoted as saying, “I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the almighty creator.” How is it possible that a destroyer can come to the belief that he is in accordance with the wishes of a creator? Megalomania tends to wipe out common sense.

Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908)

     Empress Dowager Cixi was an example of how the strange quirks of fame and fortune can raise a child from relative obscurity to be the most powerful ruler of nineteenth century China. History gives her mixed revues. She is remembered both as a ruthless despot who contributed to the collapse of the Qing dynasty, but also as a kind and gentle woman who loved dogs and opera.

   This shrewd Empress Dowager was given credit for being a powerful reformer who pulled China kicking and struggling out of the dark ages into the light of modernity, but conflicting reports describe her as a charming, graceful but relatively insecure person. She could be a monster of depravity or she could be kindness personified. This is a description of a Melancholic woman who could be either cruel or kind depending on whom she was dealing with.

     When she was only sixteen year old, this Manchu teenager was chosen to be one of the ruling emperor’s many concubines and as a result of this great honor, she was confined to the Imperial Palace deep inside the ‘Forbidden City,’ a forbidding, fifteenth century building located in the heart of Peking (Beijing). Even though Cixi was glad to get away from her unhappy family situation, she hated being confined to the palace but was given no other choice.

     It is reported that at one time Cixi fell in love with one of the palace eunuchs. Castrated eunuchs were the only kind of male servants who were allowed to have contact with any of the royal women, but the love affair was discovered and the eunuch was killed. Cixi must have been devastated and her life as a love deprived concubine seems to have molded her into a hard nosed, scheming and determined woman. She couldn’t escape the palace therefore she set about to make it her own.

     Because this royal concubine managed to get pregnant by the emperor and because there was no other heir to the golden throne, when his father died, Cixi’s son ended up becoming emperor at the age of five. By right, Cixi could now claim the title of Empress Dowager and she was shrewd enough to form an alliance with the other Empress Dowager who had been the emperor’s wife. The other Empress Dowager who was also Cixi’s cousin had not been able to produce a son for the throne, therefore she was probably glad to align herself with Cixi who was the stronger of the two women. This was a strong alliance born out of suppression. The two women joined forces against those powerful men who wanted to usurp them and gain power for themselves. Suffering together and having the same enemies forms strong bonds between people.

     With the passage of time the Dowager Empresses grew more powerful. The two dowagers wanted to escape from under the yoke of the eight ministers who had been designated by the previous emperor to take charge of his only son and so the two scheming women instigated a coup. As a result of the coup, three of the ministers who were in charge of the young emperor, were captured and beheaded while the other five ministers were ordered to hang themselves.

     Because she was a Melancholic, Cixi was the more powerful of the two women and she was the most power hungry. The coup that they had pulled off was popular with the people because China needed a change in the way things were progressing in the country because China had not changed since medieval times. This incredible woman became an indomitable ruler, an amazing stateswoman and in the end she ruled for almost half a century.    

     Dowager Empress Cixi had a lot of common sense. She knew that her country was backwards and she knew that she needed foreign help to pull China into the modern ages. The doors to China were opened to Western influences and she even sent a group of Chinese boys to America to be educated as potential future leaders of China. She was a great planner and had lots of foresight.

     Dowager Empress Cixi also initiated many reforms. She has been credited with modernizing China, banning the practice of foot binding and introducing a western legal system into the country. She also introduced a free press, banished the practice of ‘death by a thousand cuts’ which was a punishment for treason, and she tried to introduce a parliamentary monarchy.

     Unfortunately the Dowager Empress was not a good mother and her son grew up lazy and practically useless. He died at the age of eighteen and, eager to retain her power, the Dowager Empress appointed her three year old nephew whom she had adopted, as the new emperor. But the new emperor grew up completely dominated by his aunt. He did have ideas of his own but she squashed him until he was no more than a puppet dangling on a string.

     The young emperor died from arsenic poisoning only one day before the Dowager Empress died. It was obvious that the Dowager Empress had poisoned her nephew because she did not want to leave the future of China in his hands. Cixi, like many other controlling people, thought that she could exert her influence over the country even after her own death. Like many others she wanted to rule from the grave.

     The melancholic Dowager Empress was greedy for power but she was also greedy for wealth. It has been reported that she squandered money on fabulous luxuries, built lavish palaces with magnificent gardens for herself and almost bankrupted China. After her death three thousand boxes completely filled with jewels were found in one of her vaults.

     Photographs of Cixi portray her as a somber individual. Those who knew her well described her as a puzzling old-fashioned woman. She tried to introduce the vote. She opened China up to foreign influences but at the same time she was suspicious of foreigners. The Dowager Empress could not give up trying to control the destiny of China. She tried to reform the old system of government but she retained many old-fashioned views on how things should run in the governance of China. Her interference stopped many of the new reforms from going through

     Because of her mixed up policies and her dreadful military errors, millions of Chinese died during the empress’s proxy rule, but she had an attitude very similar to Winston Churchill one of Britain’s greatest statesmen. “So what if millions die, we have millions more to take their place.” Cixi valued her own high moral standard but she saw nothing wrong with ordering clandestine murders to be carried out so that none could usurp her power. The laws of the country decreed that a woman could not rule but she broke those laws and became an autocratic ruler whom no-one dared to challenge.

     It is in the nature of mankind to challenge autocratic rulers but the Dowager outwitted everyone who posed a threat to her. She allowed her killer instinct to take over when people around her became a nuisance; suddenly the nuisances would disappear and everyone knew who the boss was. Many people died at the hand of the Dowager empress. In this respect she was just like Amelia Dyer who murdered babies because they were a nuisance to her.

     Cixi was not the Dowager’s birth name; it was a name given to her during the years she served as a concubine. She had relatively humble beginnings but she was born into a noble Manchu family, a bloodline that was acceptable to the emperor. Not much more is known about her early years except that she was unhappy because she was not the favorite child of her parents.

     The Dowager Empress once stated that she had had a hard life because her parents had ignored her. Becoming a sex slave for the emperor was a step up in Cixi’s eyes and she definitely made the best of it, even if millions died of starvation or died in wars and skirmishes that broke out under her rule. To the Dowager Empress, China was so populous it didn’t matter if a few million died. 

     Despotic rulers can be found in the annals of history as far back as the time when history was first recorded. These rulers both male and female (but more men than women) rise up or have risen up in every major civilization around the globe. They appear and disappear from century to century and their histories are much the same.

     Like most people, despots live and rule as if they were not going to die. Very few of them ever question their own actions or even give a thought to whether a God or a Spiritual Being might disapprove of their actions. These despots rise to power, they murder and pillage and they are greedy for wealth. Although they might start out thinking that they are functioning as saviors to their countrymen, in the end they care only for themselves.

     The reason that most of these despots have either melancholic or choleric temperaments is that it takes a strong aggressive nature to be able to subdue people with the use of brutal force, torture and murder. First in brutality are the Melancholics, next in line are the Cholerics followed by the Sanguines and trailing way behind are the Phlegmatics. It is rare to find a despotic ruler with a sanguine or phlegmatic temperament but it is not impossible.

     Melancholics tend to think of themselves as a class above ordinary mortals. The other three temperament types condemn people in a slightly different manner. Cholerics, Sanguines and Phlegmatics tend to look down on others as inferior specimens of humanity but the Melancholic is the opposite. In their own minds the Melancholic lifts him or herself up to a higher level than ordinary mortals. It is a fine difference but it is most definitely there lurking in the shadows of the minds of the four temperament types

Sir John Dalberg-Acton, an English historian, politician and writer of the nineteenth century, made the history of liberty his life’s work. He was remembered for his pungent aphorisms, those pithy observations that contain a general truth. Two of his aphorisms fit the picture:

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.

These despots could not have risen to power if they had not believed at the beginning of their power trip that they were fit to rule, fit to rule for the benefit of the people. But the acquisition of absolute power served only to make rise in them, something that was already there hiding in their genes, their own inherent, murderous Melancholic or Choleric negative traits.