Masterful diplomacy

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to ruling the world without other entanglements, but we are also nothing if not realistic. In the short term, at least, it seems we'll have to deal with existing organizations and governments. In these dealings we have learned a few secrets of diplomacy, one of which we will share with you today.

The secret we want to share with you today is that to get people to agree with you there are two options: (1) find something that everyone agrees with, or (2) find something everyone can agree to be against.

In practice the only things people generally agree on are things like "being hospitalized is unpleasant" and "paying less for the same thing is good." We could keep listing this type of statement for quite a while without touching on anything that would help forge a real relationship. I mean, nobody will help you in a war just because you agree that hospitalization is a drag.

The real power of diplomacy is to make people do what they don't want to do because they believe it is in their best interests. Much of our diplomatic success stems from the fact that brads and hole punches are so universally loathed once people understand what they stand for and that the organizations pushing these devices on the unsuspecting public are so villainous that only they themselves can deny that they are purely evil. Another thing that most people in the world will condemn is the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939, where they agreed to carve up eastern Europe for their own purposes. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wisely chose to condemn it this week, creating good feelings around the world because they, too, hate evil.

We hope this post has been instructive, and we'd like to let you know that we are currently recruiting for several positions in our Ministry of Propaganda and Diplomacy. If you are interested, please submit form TDSI-2254L-a (we no longer accept form TDSI-2254L) to your local GPD office at your earliest convenience.