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Comment by monocasa | Hacker News Reader

Angela Merkel doesn't have a term limit, and has been in her office about twice as long as Xi Jinping. Is Germany a dictatorship?

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You seem to be completely ignoring my point. It's not the term limits or the absence of term limits. It's the removal of term limits that is concerning, because it is an expansion of the leader's power. Worse, it's done to extend the power of the person currently holding power. It is therefore a bad sign about the person holding power who makes the extension happen.

So because China aligned their term limits to Germany's they're now moving to be a dictatorship?

Or Germany's not a dictatorship, because they never had term limits in the first place?

What part of "It's the removal of term limits that is concerning" don't you understand?

What part of "changing their laws to match other countries that you'd never call a dictatorship" don't you understand?

I believe what AnimalMuppet is trying to say is that it raises concern when you think about the motivation behind removing limits for the current incumbent, vs a situation where there were never limits in the first place.

Even if you think it's not cause for concern, you have to admit it's at least a different situation with different parameters.

The part where that's relevant to what I said. You said that like it was a reply to my point. It's not. You keep trying to reply to me with arguments that are beside the point.

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