Just because a lot of people are idiots does not negate the fact that people have a natural right to choose their leaders. I for one would much rather have a potentially horrible President I disagree with who was elected by the people than a Caesar chosen from the elite by bloodline, guile, and might.

That certainly isn't to say that monarchy and democracy are mutually elusive. Look and Great Britain and the Commonwealth Realms or other European countries like Spain or Denmark. A hereditary monarchy can be a symbol of the nation which is above politics, and if the people decide to keep it then they should get what they want. However, a monarchy where the state is pretty much the tool of the royals like in Saudi Arabia or a crowned republic like Egypt or some of these African countries is an intolerable abuse of people's natural right to have the government of their choice.


If you would read the Federalist Papers, Tolstoy, you'd see the argument that democracy works best in LARGE nations. I can't remember the number, but Hamilton wrote it. The argument is that a large electorate and population would prevent one group or faction from dominating and forcing its will on the rest. It seems to have worked. There's no denying that the US has had the longest uninterrupted period of constitutional rule in human history and that the US had always been at the forefront of democracy in the world, relative to the standards of the times.

The Founders naturally did not anticipate anything like the internet and the media deluge we have today which we have today with its enormous influence on setting the terms of debate, but the argument does still stand. Despite all the push, Obama did get *only* 53% of the vote. While a very respectable victory, it's hardly a landslide. You also can't say that there aren't people who are informed about the issues and do engage in active dissent. There's a decent chance the President will lose badly on his healthcare agenda due to conservative Democrats being scared of losing their seats from all the letters and phone calls they get in opposition to the reforms. Thousands of people went to those unfortunately named Tea Parties. There are protests against the wars and for both sides of gay marriage and any number of other issues. Democracy is alive in America, it's just a bit sedentary. Surprise, surprise.

To knock democracy just because a guy you don't like got in is absurd. The People are sovereign, but they're not infallible. In fact, they're only human.

@ KaiserAl32: I must've misunderstood, I thought you were South-African because you talked Afrikaans to me. If, perhaps, you are German, you should know what real Dutch is like. If I may ask, why do you want to go to the tomb of Kaiser Wilhelm II?

It's interesting that a lot of the arguments against democracy go along the lines of 'the people who don't agree with me must be the idiots' and 'wah wah wah, I'm paying too much tax' :)

In my experience, the idiots are pretty well distributed across the political spectrum. I'm going to pose a question - of those who seriously propose the reduction of democracy, would you be happy to loose your say in who runs the country and which direction it goes? I think I know the answer to that one...

We may get the leaders we deserve (which means we Brits have been very very naughty), but they are our choice, and we can make those changes.

@Tolstoy - Heriditary monarchs ARE a roll of the genetic dice. Charles will be the next King of the UK, and he is prone to saying some fairly stupid things, especially on environmental topics, and this is despite his being groomed for the role from birth. And it could have been worse. At least a democratically elected government has to convince a large enough proportion of the population that they are right, and have to keep doing that to retain power.

Also if you want to find high tax monarchies - try Belgium or Sweden (or even the UK) - all have higher average personal tax rates than the USA (and that's without looking too hard)

The point in having a military in a one-world dictatorship is to quell insurrection.

Anyway, I prefer democracy because even when monarchy seems like a good idea, it is only because people neglect to realize that in any one-man(or woman) form of government, the head or chief must make their own continuance of power the number one priority, because the history of deposed kings and dictators is not pretty. Free speech, free press, etc. are going to be compromised, as a necessity, in order to continue the reign.

Just because a majority of the people choose you to be their leader doesn't mean you're the best man for the job.

But as mentioned, there are only worse systems available so we're stuck with democracy until someone comes up with a better system.

As for the so called natural right of people to choose their own ruler. If you put any group of people together a leader will emerge. It is probably what lead to the first King anyway... That doesn't mean they are the best leader, but they will have the confidence of their peers so it's probably the most secure system.

Still democratic vetting is probably not enough, and people who think the majority's voice isn't that important if we can have a better leader tend to ignore the majorities voice, leading to bad things.

@Invictus, it is incredibly ironic for you to bring up Hamilton and the Federalist Papers in support of democracy, seeing as Hamilton was a monarchist and the Federalist Papers were his propaganda campaign to get people to buy into a strong and centralized federal government, including a president with (in the view of the time) monarchical powers. Hamilton was trying to suggest in the papers that a strong central government would never become oppressive - but we can all see how that turned out. As for your and Hamilton's specific claim that a 'large electorate and population would prevent one group or faction from dominating', that has been specifically disproved with the example of California government workers dominating the state completely in the face of the largest statewide electorate in the United States (I don't think Hamilton believed half the stuff he wrote in the Papers - he was just a slimy used car salesman who would say anything to close the deal).

It is true that there are a great many people who *are* politically active, but if you do the math you will find that it's actually a very small percentage of the population. The biggest Tea Party in my area had something like 500 attendees, which sounds like a lot of people until you realize that there were about 600,000 people in a ten-mile radius. And for all the hundreds of thousands of people who turned out nationwide for the Tea Parties or anti-war protests in 2003, our elected government still completely ignored them.

And while I disagree with most of his policies, I actually like Obama - I think he's a sharp guy who is genuinely well intentioned and has the gravitas that has been sorely lacking of late from our presidents. But I don't think anyone can dispute that the only reason he won the election was because he's half black.

@PeteU - "of those who seriously propose the reduction of democracy, would you be happy to loose your say in who runs the country and which direction it goes?" - My answer to you is that I have about as much say in who runs my country and my state right now as I would in a monarchy. My vote for president is 1 in 100,000,000. My votes for congressman and state legislators are pointless because the districts are all gerrymandered in California to guarantee safe seats to all legislators and so huge (a California state senator allegedly represents over a million people) that again, one vote - or even ten thousand votes, for that matter - makes no difference. And our politicians know it; try calling a state legislator's office to complain about something in California and they'll just hang up on you. I spent three weekends last year canvassing my election precinct for Ron Paul; statistics say I influenced about 15-20 people to vote for him in the Republican primary last year - but that was still less than .00001% of the electorate. I'd much rather have a monarchy, where there are no illusions about me having any say-so in the system and the head of state has some political freedom of movement in not having to whore him or her self out to every politically connected campaign contributor and special interest.

And Belgium, Sweden, and the UK are all essentially democracies where the monarch is just a figurehead and all policy decisions are made by elected politicians. A palatable constitutional monarchy would be something like Liechtenstein where the monarch has very broad and real political authority over the elected parliament (and where there is a very very low tax burden).

"it is incredibly ironic for you to bring up Hamilton and the Federalist Papers in support of democracy, seeing as Hamilton was a monarchist and the Federalist Papers were his propaganda campaign to get people to buy into a strong and centralized federal government..."

Tolstoy, are you serious? Hamilton was not a monarchist. He certainly favored what was considered at the time a strong central government and proposed a very British program at the Convention, he was undoubtedly a republican. A life term does not a king make. It was a bad plan, but it was a plan for a republic.

The Federalist Papers were "propaganda" in the sense that they were designed to influence people into supporting the Constitution, but they were not mindless indoctrination leaflets. They are written in often beautiful prose and clearly (most of the time...) make the case for our current system of government. Don't forget that these pieces of "propaganda" from a "slimy used car salesman who would say anything to close the deal" are still used for Constitutional interpretation and are an invaluable asset for determining the intent of the Founders.

If you're from California you have plenty of reason to be mad, but you are nowhere close to coherent. How anyone can campaign for Ron Paul and not be apoplectic with how Obama is running things implies a shallow understanding of at least one of them. To turn to monarchism (in America, no less!), further shows that you're just an angry guy who's clutching at straws.

Rather than creating an Emperor of California, why not propose an initiative to expand the membership of the Legislature? You can use democracy to fix problems.

democracy=hypocracy

Tolstoy - you have a say - it may be 1 in whatever, but the fact that you don't like the end results just means your views are not popular. Hey, it's called democracy.

It may be that you are ill served by your politicians - whenever I've contacted my councillor's (parish, borough or county) or my MP (or even government minister) I've always been pretty happy with the response.

It may be we have less obvious funding than the US because of the way our electoral system works - we have single issue Ms, and a good MP can cross party lines when it comes to support

@Ursa, I just know Afrikaans because I learned it on a lark when they were showing all kinds of idiotic anti-apartheid films at my school in order to make us think about the "wider world" in a pre-approved fashion. I am of German descent, but I was born in Colorado. I want to see the Kaiser's grave because i have an irrational attachment to the Kaiserreich.

america is not unstable, and obama is not a thief

@Invictus: Hamilton was most definately a monarchist, though he moderated his views after the signing of the constitution when he realized he could treat the presidency like a monarchy. His proposals during the constitutional convention called for a monarch "with enough power that it will be against his interest to risk much to acquire more" and for a Senate appointed to life terms, sort of like today's House of Lords.

[snip]Don't forget that these pieces of "propaganda" from a "slimy used car salesman who would say anything to close the deal" are still used for Constitutional interpretation and are an invaluable asset for determining the intent of the Founders.[/snip]

More's the pity... Give us back the Articles of Confederation! Many of the heroes of the Revolution like Patrick Henry deliberately sat out the constitutional convention because they "smelled a rat" and wanted no part of selling out the Revolutionary principle of decentralized power. Many states refused to ratify the constitution until varying degrees of force were used - if memory serves, in the case of Rhode Island, the state was actually blocaded until it agreed to 'sign on the dotted line'.

[snip]you are nowhere close to coherent. How anyone can campaign for Ron Paul and not be apoplectic with how Obama is running things implies a shallow understanding of at least one of them.[/snip]

I said I strongly disagreed with Obama on policy, but liked him as a person. You can like someone and disagree with them on policy (at least, with some people). I was responding to someone who suggested that my complaints were 'sour grapes' because Ron Paul didn't win.

[snip]Rather than creating an Emperor of California, why not propose an initiative to expand the membership of the Legislature? You can use democracy to fix problems.[/snip]

In Los Angeles County there are five county supervisors who represent something like 12 million people - that's more people per supervisor than lived in the whole of the United States in the time of the Revolution. There was an initiative a few years ago to increase the number of supervisors from 5 to 9. The Power Elite spent millions of dollars attacking it, calling it a 'power grab' and an effort to 'enrich greedy politicians by making more of them' and all kinds of crap like that. The booboisie swallowed it hook, line, and sinker - the initiative went down in flames. You can be sure a statewide initative would suffer the same fate. Why would the special interests want to have two or three times as many legislators to bribe? A similar initative to fix the gerrymandering problem by having judges instead of legislators draw the legislative districts also failed a few years ago when government workers turned out in droves to oppose it (and a couple of other reform measures the governor put on the ballot, which would've fixed the budget disaster before it even became a problem)

[snip]the fact that you don't like the end results just means your views are not popular.[/snip]

Most will disagree with you. The California state legislature has an approval rating in the single digits, but a 100% incumbent re-election rate. Democracy has failed here in California - I don't see how anyone can say otherwise.

California already had an emperor. He was a batty old man named Norton. He was incredibly popular in the Bay Area, and styled himself Norton I, Emperor of the United States of America.

You're simply too much of an ideologue to have a serious conversation with, Tolstoy. I know it must be frustrating living in California, I live in Illinois and when I look over there it's like seeing three or four years into the future, but you really take it to nuttiness.

How on earth can you yearn for the Articles of Confederation one moment and ask for a Caesar the next? You're mad, and justifiably so, but either of those solutions is ridiculous. If a lot of people are as mad as you California will undoubtedly get sane politicians to run it in 2010 or 2012 or whenever your state elections are. Don't just despair and cry for a king, make democracy work.

As for Rhode Island, the "force" you mentioned was that the federal government threatened to treat it as a foreign nation if it didn't ratify the Constitution. What else do you expect to happen in that sort of situation?

Tolstoy - if the incumbents keep getting re-elected, with single figure approval ratings it says either

1 - No-one comes up with a more attractive option
2 - People lie on opinion polls
3 - People can't be arsed to vote

Yeah Tolstoy, democracy is the best system ever, and if it isn't it's your own damn fault.

*raises hand for Dictatorship*

Come on, I can't be the only one who wants to rule unopposed...

Hamilton's view on monarchy are complicated. He certainly wanted Washington to become King, but after Jefferson and others took power, he changed his mind on whether having a monarch was a good idea or not. He always believed in a strong executive, primarily because he favored efficient government.

Hahaha, so says Hamilton

Efficacy is what a monarchy has in spades. No one can really doubt that. But at the same time, it is muc too dificult to change leaders, should change become necessary.

The hell it is, just kill the king or help his daughter and son in law take over.