Due Process and Arbitrary Power
On the whole, apart from the dictators themselves and their minions, most people think that dictatorships are 'a bad thing'. For all the flaws of democracy, people generally don't like arbitrary power placed in the hands of one person or group without any accountability. This has not always been the case, and it is not universally the case even now, but it is generally a hard, up-hill slog to argue against democracy at the present time. There is also little faith in the idea of benign dictatorship. This is hardly surprising since even benign dictatorship rests on the arbitrary, and possibly idiosyncratic, decisions of one person or small group of people, and the power to challenge decisions rests either on coercion or influence, rather than good governance.
'Due Process' is an important notion because it embodies what people sometimes call 'a level playing field'. It is no use having a democratic process and a system of laws if the application of the laws themselves is partial, selective and arbitrary. This can be hard as King Arthur discovered when forced to try his own wife in order to uphold the rule of law (so the legend goes). Through most of history there has been very limited 'due process' - there have usually been underclasses to whom the law gave lesser protection and privileged groups who believed (or maybe hoped) that the law was mostly there to protect their interests rather than to serve all with impartiality. These are issues that can seem theoretical and abstract if you just concentrate on the words rather than the very practical issues behind the words. So far from being just abstract theories, these are issues behind both the English Civil War in the seventeenth century and the American War of Independence in the eighteenth century, not to mention the civil rights movement of the twentieth century.
Interestingly, and perhaps paradoxically, Western civilisations have not only accepted but positively encouraged dictatorship in one field: religion. In the West we tend to associate religion with god, and generally with a single creator god. So much do we do this that it seems like a contradiction in terms to speak of a religion without god, or perhaps a corruption of the word 'religion' (as when 'Marxism' is sometimes referred to a godless religion). However not all religions place a (possibly) benign dictator at the pinnacle of creation. Some religions place good before god, and this is where the interesting link with 'due process' comes in.
Let me pose a question: can a creator god be 'bad' (in the sense of doing something that contravenes ethical law)? If a creator god is the ultimate standard of all that is, then surely the answer is 'no', because his (or her or its) word would, literally, be law. Not just conventional, negotiated state law, but ultimate absolute law. Unlike ex-President Nixon who though that an act was legal because he said so, a creator god makes an act right by doing it - for there is no higher standard to appeal to. What God does is good by definition. You can't really argue that God has 'off days'. Since, in this view of existence, morality depends on the benign, but arbitrary, application of the will of a supreme being one day you could wake up and discover that the rules have been changed and coveting, killing and adultery are all obligatory and proper. (The order of application would probably be covet, steal, adultery and then killing unless human nature was radically changed at the same time as the ethical basis of existence). In this view of existence you can't say that its not in God's nature to make such a change, because God is not constrained by any higher force and can arrange things as he/she/it pleases and change them at a whim ... though there would be nobody with the right to judge such actions 'whims'.
Yet somehow I guess most people feel that there is a right and wrong that does not depend on arbitrary commandments. There is a sense that God tells people what is right and wrong, but they would still remain right and wrong regardless of whether we were told about these rules of existence. Various Eastern religions (notably Buddhism and certain aspects of Taoism) embody this view at the heart of their teaching. Although they both accept the existence of 'higher beings' (gods of various kinds), some of which have awesome power, the ultimate purpose of life and nature of existence is not about conforming to the will of higher beings or appeasing them. Even the gods must accept the consequence of the moral order of the universe. In the Buddhist view of existence there is 'due process' both on Earth and in Heaven (to rather simplify their world view).
For centuries there has been hatred and oppression resulting from opposing factions both claiming to be performing 'God's will'. The oft-given apology for this from each side is that the other side is deluded (at best) or an evil corruption (at worst). From the view a non-theistic religion the justification of 'doing God's will' avoids the real question: is the action constructive and helpful. Clearly the terms 'constructive' and 'helpful' need a lot of unpacking to make the meaning clearer, but the fundamental point is that 'doing it because the boss says so' does not remove responsibility for the ethical consequences of an action.
One final provocative thought: if you really believe in a lawful, 'fair' universe perhaps deep in your heart you are closet Buddhist who has not yet 'come out'.
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