Rummel's Law
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Rummel's Law states that the less freedom a people have, the more likely their rulers are to murder them.
American columnist Arnold Beichman named the "law" after American historian and sociologist R. J. Rummel. Beichman says that Rummel's research:
- "has shown that more people in the 20th century have been killed in cold blood by their own dictatorial governments right and left — 3 times as many — than have been killed in the heat of battle." [1] (http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20040209-090305-6821r.htm)
Examples include genocide in:
- China - Mao Tse-Tung
- Soviet Union - Lenin & Stalin
- Germany - Hitler, Nazis
- Cambodia - Pol Pot, Khmer Rouge
- Rwanda
- Congo
- Liberia
- Sudan
- Afghanistan
- Iraq -- Saddam Hussein and his sons
- North Korea -- Kim Il-Sung and his son Kim Jong-il
See also
External links
- Freedom Minimizes Political Violence (http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/WF.CHAP5.HTM)