The fundamental difference between rulers and leaders is choice. You choose to follow a leader, but a ruler rules over you against your will.
Obvious? When we consciously think about it then it is pretty obvious, but linguistic garnish in society has always been a good tool for misdirection and the distinction between rulers and leaders has been obscured through dishonest and misleading language.
Our world "leaders" are called that to hide their insidious nature.
Though the puppets who hold these positions are not the definitive rulers of anything, their status is far more accurately described this way and to call them leaders is to hide their true role and the dictatorial nature of the governments they represent.
Throughout history societies have been governed by rulers. Various forms of dictatorships, many of which posing as democratic systems, have ruled over people and ultimately enslaved them to varying degrees.
Whether it is the overt slavery of the past, the economic slavery of the present or the other varying degrees of subjection that have served the ruling elites, they have never allowed people to be truly free simply because their power relies on their monopoly of the initiation of force and the claims of ownership they have made on everyone and everything.
True leaders must prove their worth and if their leadership is considered inadequate in any way then it can be rejected by anyone and everyone.
Unlike rulers who impose their will on us, a leader is there to take charge only if we want them to, the only authority they have is what we grant them and such authority can be removed as and when we choose.
Modern politics tries to trick people into thinking that they get to choose their rulers, therefore promoting the fallacy that their authority has been granted to them by us. But, apart from the fact that the democratic choice we are told we have is largely illusory and the so called "leaders" we elect are nothing but puppets for the real rulers anyway, the other reason why they are, by definition, rulers and not leaders is that we cannot chose whether or not to follow them.
Dictatorships are properly defined by their dictatorial nature. Yet meaningless elections are used as a reason to claim that we are not ruled under a dictatorship, even though by all meaningful standards of the word we clearly are.
In fact you could argue that the only difference between an officially recognised dictatorship and a so called democratic society (as they are defined today) is that your ruler is revealed to you under a classical dictatorship while under the so called democratic systems the true rulers are hidden from public view.
If you believe the elected officials are the true rulers and reject any notion that they are puppets for higher authorities you may dispute this characterisation but the distinction between rulers and leaders, along with the defining characteristics that determine which describes the heads of governments, remains unrefuted.
Even if the government was truly democratic the dictatorial nature remains.
Democratic rule still involves rulers rather than leaders.
At the end of the day it doesn't matter who you believe the true rulers to be, the absence of choice is the compelling factor when characterising our societies as a dictatorship.
For this reason it seems impossible to rationally deny the claim that we do not actually have leaders, of any description, as much as they would like to be characterised that way, and are in fact ruled over in a dictatorial manner.
Even if we had a true democracy, which we clearly do not at this time, the dictatorial nature of government would remain.
Obviously in this case the "ruler" would not be one person or a small group of people (as it is today) but the majority of the population.
Democracy is essentially majority rule and while this may be preferable to the rule of a numerical minority that we currently have, the lack of choice or consent is still there and as such the dictatorial nature remains.
Linguistic dishonesty is used to mask the insidious nature of government and an obvious example of this is the use of the word leaders, over rulers, even though the so called world "leaders" of today bare no actual resemblance to the definition of a leader and are in fact rulers in every sense of the word, with the only possible exception being the claim that they are not the actual rulers but rather the representatives or puppets of.
This dishonesty can fool the average citizen, who has neither the time or inclination to scrutinise the accuracy of such language, into thinking that they have freedom of choice. Most do not even consider the deception involved in such inaccurate language, or even that the language is inaccurate, whether by fault or design.
The politicians in power are called "elected officials" or "leaders" so you will forget that they rule you against your will.
Though some citizens may insist that they are not ruled against their will, that they accept and choose the society they live under and are happy to accept the rules of society and the authority of the rulers that they ironically and mistakenly (or dishonestly) refer to as leaders, the fact remains that their professed consent is irrelevant and while they may claim to agree with and accept such authority over them, many citizens do not and the freedom of choice is simply not there.
The reason the distinction between rulers and leaders is so crucial to understand is because it is key to understanding the fundamental problems and immorality of modern society.
Good ideas do not require force.
If leaders were serving us they would not need to use force, they would not need to dictate over us as only rulers do. If they were leaders they would serve us and we could reject such service at any time.
Following a leader is a choice and that choice is vital to making sure our leaders are truly accountable and are truly serving our best interests.
When you have rulers, as we currently do, your needs or desires are irrelevant. There is no choice and the only reason effort is made to create an illusion of choice is to avoid encouraging revolts or revolutions among the populace.
Convince people they are already free and they will not fight for freedom (as they already think they have it).
Along with the divide and rule ethos adopted by those who rule over us, this illusion of choice and the linguistic garnish that is used to facilitate such deception is an important tool for the oppressors.
Remove the literal chains from around our feet and we are more likely to buy into the false claim that we are free, that we live in a free society.
After terrorist attacks occur the common party line from the politicians is often to claim that the terrorists in question hate us because of our freedom.
Countries like the US claim that freedom is what makes them different from the other nations they demonise. Rulers of nations like China or Iran, for example, are called rulers by our so called "leaders" but the authority those dictators claim over their citizenry is no less absolute.
The western world likes to point to more authoritarian states and call them dictatorships so you won't consider their rule over you to also be a dictatorship.
It is easy to consider yourself "more free" in most western nations when you compare your situation to a nation like Saudi Arabia, where authority is far more overtly oppressive and brutal.
But while our grass may be greener, in that respect, than a Saudi Arabian counterpart the authority our rulers have over us is basically the same, they just exercise it in a more subtle way.
Such subtlety is exercised not out of compassion for us, not out of attempts to grant us more freedom, but to trick us into thinking we have such freedom already, where as in fact all that has really happened is that they have changed us from slaves to free range slaves.
Free range slaves, in addition to being more efficient as slaves and cost effective for our self appointed owners, are less likely to even realise they are slaves.
A literal chain around your leg is there to remind you that you are not free. Removing those literal chains of bondage fools you into forgetting that you are still a slave.
Neither an overtly chained slave, consistent with the traditionally recognised definition, or the free range economic slaves of today are free in any meaningful way.
We think we have rights, but we don't.
As George Carlin once pointed out, rights are not rights if someone can take them away.
All we have are privileges, temporary privileges that can be removed at any time for any reason if those who claim authority over us choose.
The slavery of the past has been replaced with economic slavery. The physically chained slaves of old are replaced with free range slaves, most of whom do not even realise they are slaves.
This is all done to fool us into thinking we are free, that we have freedom of choice and basic rights, when the reality is that we actually have none of these things.
Looser figurative chains, larger invisible cages and an illusion of freedom does not negate the definition of captivity.
We are not free just because a sizeable portion of the population has been fooled into thinking we are free.
The truth remains where and what it is regardless of these subtleties.
Such realisations are necessary for us to see the objective truth of the real situation. We are not free, we are captive slaves. We do not have any rights, we have temporary privileges. We are not guided by our chosen leaders, we are ruled by violent oppressors.
Such claims may appear extreme to some people at first, but they stand up to scrutiny when it comes to the defining of things like force, theft, rulers and leaders.
Just as equating tax with theft may be disputed by some, and even seem extreme at first, the validity of such a claim is revealed under scrutiny.
Taking from you with out your consent is theft and only a fool would try to argue that tax is in anyway voluntary. So even before other factors are considered tax = theft. Regardless of how extreme such a statement may appear to some before proper examination or consideration.
The same is true regarding the distinction between rulers and leaders and which term actually is the accurate description for those who rule us against (or at least regardless of) our will.
When you are considering whether our societies operate under leaders or rulers you only need to consider the lack of choice you have.
