I see a bunch of slaves, ruled by a tyrant. Or so it seems to me, given that I am new to the situation and may or may not completely understand their predicament. Should I remove the tyrant, and say to the slaves "This is how I live; now you must do it too"? Do I have that right? If I do it, does it make me the same as the tyrant?

Remove the tyrant and let everyone know if we see another tyrant we are taking him out too but this time not as nicely.

You ride in on your big white hum-vee, whoops, steed and declare "Come ye children, cleeve unto my bosom. I shall show you the enlightened way."

I think it depends on whether you truly want to "free" them from the tyrant or if you simply wish to become their new tyrant. I think to not be the same as the tyrant you would need to incite the people to overthrow their own tyrant rather than do it for them. I don't know.

I say leave them alone. Who are we to judge the way that their culture works.

It they are ruled by a tyrant it is no longer "their culture" it is "his".

Free them, guide them, leave them. Don't enforce anything after they have established some ground. The feeling of pain is universal. Being controlled is going against our instincts, and it is hard for us and painful .

Why do you think there is a tyrant set up there? Because in the beginning, there was some person (or people) that wanted to be above everyone else. They didn't want to suffer while being equal or below another person. By "giving" them freedom from this tyrant you are leveling the playing field, starting over from the beginning, and you have to guide them or else history will repeat itself.

There can't be freedom from everything. You get freedom [I]from something, one thing.

Your culture can be a godsend to the people under this tyrant or they you can be worse because they don't agree with your morals. You won't agree on everything with everyone, so when you "give" them freedom from something, they may consider it enslavement of another type. With culture clashes, there will always be people who don't like it.

I voted other

From Yahoo Dictionary (http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entries/60/k0056000.html): “In 1678, the year in which the word is first recorded, kidnappers plied their trade to secure laborers for plantations in colonies such as the ones in North America. The term later took on the broader sense that it has today.”

The question reformed: I see a bunch of victims, ruled by a kidnapper. Should I remove the kidnapper, and say to the victims "This is how I live; now you must do it too"? Do I have that right? If I do it, does it make me the same as the kidnapper?

Now the answer may be more obvious.

Well, before doing anything, the need for 'tyrant removal' would need to be assessed by finding out if the people want the tyrant removed. Depending on the extremity of his/her actions, it would be up to the slaves more than the outsider. It is not morally right to take away someone's reality only to shove something completely foreign down their throats...

What do you do if the tyrant blocks your assessment?

Suppose you assess and find that 99% of the slaves choose the tyrant, and the next day the one dissenter is murdered. What do you do?

Remove the slaves and the tyrant is no longer a tyrant. ;)

Originally posted by notme2000
Remove the slaves and the tyrant is no longer a tyrant. ;)

best solution yet.

Depends on whether or not the slaves were born into slavery or were taken from their homeland. many slaves of old had a place to return to, so I'd opt to remove the tyrant and send the Slaves home. in this case they would certainly be thankful! those born ito it most certainly have chores to do like farming or tending to animals, if so, grant them each a parcel of land and let them continue as free people to co-op among themselves! give me liberty or give me death comes to mind. Freedom is priceless!

I think that the slaves themselves are in the best position to assess their lives as they are and whether, ultimately, an alternative power would have anything better (or possibly worse) to offer.

They should also be left alone to determine the nature of the alternative based on their expectations, their model of an acceptable/beneficial power system.

There are cultural dynamics that are beyond the understanding of other groups that need to be figured in, so that a new power system sits comfortably with the people. For instance, some cultures might see themselves as a people that need strong leadership, even tyranny of sorts, because they know the alternative is chaos. Tyrants may be a products of their culture as much as the times and the important thing might be getting a "good" tyrant as opposed to a bad one.

If, however, there is clear and sizeable dissent I'd also want to see that the people themselves have come up with their own alternative before even thinking about any role I could play - if invited to do so. This would be the best indication that all's truly not well and that change would be a positive step with a chance at success, because it would be supported by the people, what they want.

I also think that it's possible to overestimate the negatives of life under a tyrant and that we overestimate the freedoms and political control that we exercise in our own "superior" systems. There's a certain level of society at which life doesn't change, regardless of who's in power, and little reason to care if the fundamentals of life are in place.

In theory, remove the Tyrant, and say: ‘Here’s complete freedom, do whatever the hell you want with it, but on one condition- do not call ANYTHING your own but your own self.
And there all crime and suffering is abolished. Which shouldn’t last more than a couple of days.

Anarchy,
leave things as they are,
some idiot with a bigger stick is bound to come along sooner or later.

the name, word, term, or whatever..."Slave" meant to American slaves, that they were "Owned" by another Human! Now if leaving them alone to fend for themselves is the correct thing to do, then the American Civil War was a mistake, and nobody should have helped to free them!