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[LMeire]

Except for you know, North Korea. The Kims have done exactly that and are now held in check only by how they're perceived by larger, more powerful governments.

Also I think you're severely underestimating how much conditioning the average soldier goes through to obey orders, I doubt it would take much more than holding the badge(s) of office for an old enough empire.

The idea that everybody in North Korea is utterly controlled by some kind of evil mind control by all powerful rulers and everybody would rebel otherwise is nothing but propaganda against the North Korean government, there is absolutely no evidence for it whatsoever. 
...

I never said the DPRK used mind control, that's ridiculous. They're controlled by fear, the level of fear one would have knowing that one step out of line could see you, your kids, and your grandkids spend the rest of their lives in a concentration camp. There's no chance of any major changes to the government with that kind of tyranny going on for 70 years now, not from the malnourished masses anyway.

[Quarterblue]

I never said the DPRK used mind control, that's ridiculous. They're controlled by fear, the level of fear one would have knowing that one step out of line could see you, your kids, and your grandkids spend the rest of their lives in a concentration camp. There's no chance of any major changes to the government with that kind of tyranny going on for 70 years now, not from the malnourished masses anyway.

Forgive me but as much as I loathe the DPRK's regime, there's no evidence that the majority of its inhabitants are controlled by fear and not a genuine like of their country's doctrine and leader. That's just wishful thinking on our part because we are afraid of what the alternative could imply. Probably the educated elites are ruthlessly kept in check so as to keep them from defecting because they know what's on the other side (a notable defection actually happened very recently by the way) but for all we know, poor and middle class people who've always lived there and never knew better could be genuinely supportive of their country and its leadership, because they have little reason to believe otherwise. Of course we would like to think that they are all controlled by fear and would all defect at the drop of a hat if given the chance, but we have no way to know that. And it's not like history hasn't proven time after time that people will gleefully elect dictators and that autocratic regimes are often supported by the majority. There are real life examples happening right now.

[Genubath]

North Korean Propaganda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1eUw9EsAR8

Also I think you're severely underestimating how much conditioning the average soldier goes through to obey orders, I doubt it would take much more than holding the badge(s) of office for an old enough empire.

I agree. Although, it depends on the military training. Look at the Nazis and their average soldier. Imagine how much indoctrination went into those guys (some still resisted given the horrifying things they were ordered to do).

I would think that in order for politics to work in DF, there would be a need for some sort of system based on beliefs and incentives for choices.

Example:
In this country, the law giver is a hereditary position, the governors are elected by the citizenry, and the Keeper (head of the church) is elected by a council of bishops.
Issue: Slavery of elves... Ban or keep? (I changed from sheep just so I could make thins more interesting )
Here are our (semi)rational actors:
Nomen - The Lawgiver of our Kingdom (Lawgiverdom?). He holds Executive and Legislative Power. In this case, the executive power holder is also the commander-in-chief on the army. He wants to Ban slavery due to his having an elven mistress.

Bar: This is a governor who rules a province where elven slavery drives the economy and most of its inhabitants follow the predominant religion (important later). His province's industry provides most of the military hardware for the national army and it also has its own militia used mainly for hunting escaped slaves and going on slave raids.

Agamm: This governor rules a province which borders an elven kingdom and has a lot of forests and elves in it. The majority of the people (and the governor) consider elves their equals and are opposed to the slavery of elves.

Thordas: He is the Keeper and has declared elven subjugation to be righteous as dwarfs are favored in the eyes of the gods. While the amount of religious followers in the nation is large, a large number of them are what could be described as 'casual' worshipers. However, there are several fanatical churches that could organize insurrections, lynch mobs, and the like if the issue became heated.

There could be many other factions in the mix like the main slave trade company, the neighboring kingdoms, and factions within the army.
The options of Nomen are few. He could try to mediate between the factions (implementing the social skills already in dwarf fortress). Although, as others have said, one individual does not hold absolute sway over an entire nation. If civil war was inevitable, which side would Nomen take? Would his decision cause parts of the army to defect to the other side? Would other kingdoms intervene (or take the opportunity to invade)? Possibilities.

Each of the other actors also has choices as well. Maybe Thordas could relax his hardline policies in order to be more appealing to the greater populace (and risk being branded an apostate).

Anyways, this long ramble is an attempt to illustrate how everyone in the system has choices and power to attempt to get what they want.

[Quarterblue]

I agree. Although, it depends on the military training. Look at the Nazis and their average soldier. Imagine how much indoctrination went into those guys (some still resisted given the horrifying things they were ordered to do).

I think you have it mixed up. The average German soldier only did, well, average war things. The Wehrmacht was actually full of dissident elements from traditional Prussian generals who despised the little Austrian corporal to pragmatists who thought going to war (and later, alienating almost every country in the world) was a folly that would only lead to Geemany's ruin, and there have been multiple attempts at assassinating Hitler. Most of the atrocities during the war were committed by the Einsatzgruppen and the SS which were specific units chosen for their brutality and loyalty to Hitler. As the war went on and the regular army grew weary of the effort Hitler relied more and more on these and trusted the Wehrmacht less and less. 

Ironically the final solution was designed because even the selected brutality of the Einsatzgruppen was not enough and the executioners were growing crazy from shooting all their prisoners (a fair chunk of Holocaust victims were executed by bullets rather than gas at first). The overall unwieldiness of the process as well as concerns for the mental health of people being forced to shoot literally thousands of people led Nazi officials to plan a more 'efficient' (that word sounds horrible in context) way of mass murder, hence gas chambers.

So it means that 1) the German army was far from completely loyal to its Führer and 2) even those supposedly selected to be the most dutiful in the brutal execution of Hitler's orders had trouble following suit. This doesn't support the idea of a well oiled machine of propaganda controlling millions of potential murderers.

[GoblinCookie]

I never said the DPRK used mind control, that's ridiculous. They're controlled by fear, the level of fear one would have knowing that one step out of line could see you, your kids, and your grandkids spend the rest of their lives in a concentration camp. There's no chance of any major changes to the government with that kind of tyranny going on for 70 years now, not from the malnourished masses anyway.

Yes they are controlled by fear, as are dissidents, rebels, terrorists and criminals in any system at all but yes we can probably safely agree that fear is pretty strong in North Korea in relation to most other societies save possibly other brutal dictatorships we do not hear so much about (their northern neighbors perhaps?) because they are much more amenable to our corporate overlords economic ambitions.  In any case it is not that 24.9 million people are in any way going to be terrified into submission by one somewhat plump individual.  The fear is based upon the power of the party and the military collectively over society in general, the 'malnourished masses' are kept in check by said organizations.  This means that it is not possible for the North Korean leader to do whatsoever he wishes, if he does things that alienate the aforementioned groups then 'major changes of government' are likely to start to happen.  He also cannot alienate the population in general that because ultimately the military and party are drawn from the population in general, but it is difficult to do so because the loyal party spreads propaganda and the military stops anyone from contradicting the propaganda.

To put things in DF terms what we need to model is parties/factions aligned to particular ethics/values/policies which come into conflict with other parties/factions with directly opposing values.  Then once one party gets to a certain amount of strength in terms of the quantity and quality (importance) of their members a political crisis happens, the crisis will take on a particular form according to the ethics and values of the civilization in general (not of the faction itself since they are constrained by the wider population).  In would propose using [HARMONY] to decide whether the conflict ends with a compromise of sorts by which the winner moderates his changes to a degree decided by how evenly matched he is with the loser or whether the winner decides to wipe out the loser using some kind of repression, [HARMONY] lovers tend to compromise their stance while [HARMONY] haters tend to crush their enemies North Korea style.  [TRANQUILITY] could decide how extreme the proposed changes of the factions will tend to be, meaning that societies that hate both [HARMONY] and [TRANQUILITY] will tend to end up with extreme politicized dictatorships of either side.

North Korean Propaganda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1eUw9EsAR8

Also I think you're severely underestimating how much conditioning the average soldier goes through to obey orders, I doubt it would take much more than holding the badge(s) of office for an old enough empire.

I agree. Although, it depends on the military training. Look at the Nazis and their average soldier. Imagine how much indoctrination went into those guys (some still resisted given the horrifying things they were ordered to do).

I would think that in order for politics to work in DF, there would be a need for some sort of system based on beliefs and incentives for choices.

Example:
In this country, the law giver is a hereditary position, the governors are elected by the citizenry, and the Keeper (head of the church) is elected by a council of bishops.
Issue: Slavery of elves... Ban or keep? (I changed from sheep just so I could make thins more interesting )
Here are our (semi)rational actors:
Nomen - The Lawgiver of our Kingdom (Lawgiverdom?). He holds Executive and Legislative Power. In this case, the executive power holder is also the commander-in-chief on the army. He wants to Ban slavery due to his having an elven mistress.

Bar: This is a governor who rules a province where elven slavery drives the economy and most of its inhabitants follow the predominant religion (important later). His province's industry provides most of the military hardware for the national army and it also has its own militia used mainly for hunting escaped slaves and going on slave raids.

Agamm: This governor rules a province which borders an elven kingdom and has a lot of forests and elves in it. The majority of the people (and the governor) consider elves their equals and are opposed to the slavery of elves.

Thordas: He is the Keeper and has declared elven subjugation to be righteous as dwarfs are favored in the eyes of the gods. While the amount of religious followers in the nation is large, a large number of them are what could be described as 'casual' worshipers. However, there are several fanatical churches that could organize insurrections, lynch mobs, and the like if the issue became heated.

There could be many other factions in the mix like the main slave trade company, the neighboring kingdoms, and factions within the army.
The options of Nomen are few. He could try to mediate between the factions (implementing the social skills already in dwarf fortress). Although, as others have said, one individual does not hold absolute sway over an entire nation. If civil war was inevitable, which side would Nomen take? Would his decision cause parts of the army to defect to the other side? Would other kingdoms intervene (or take the opportunity to invade)? Possibilities.

Each of the other actors also has choices as well. Maybe Thordas could relax his hardline policies in order to be more appealing to the greater populace (and risk being branded an apostate).

Anyways, this long ramble is an attempt to illustrate how everyone in the system has choices and power to attempt to get what they want.

The main element here is that we need to think as to what laws, values and ethics will tend to favor which policies.  This is rather easy since a lot of the existing ethics and values that already exist are clearly going to serve certain people's interests.  For instance slaves and slave-owners will tend to have opposing POVs on the ethics of slavery, mercenaries will have opposing views on the value of [PEACE] to crippled war veterans and pretty much anything to do with property is going to have conflicting interests supporting different laws.