[Conservative til I die]

Great thoughts from both of you. I tend to fall somewhere in between, feeling that the idea of monarchy in and of itself is neutral, same as say, a gun. The only difference between a bad king and a bad democracy is that power lay in the hands of one vs. many.

I think democracy is a little more inherently negative, in that if you have a large great unwashed mass, they will continually vote to stick it to the haves, as we see in our own country today (yes, I know we're a Republic).

A democratically elected government is only as good as The People. Unfortunately, most people are no damn good.

[NZerFromHK]

You beat me to the point. :-) Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore is, for instance, much better than Jimmy Carter. And similarly, you would rather live in Prussia of Frederick the Great than Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Human nature itself is defective and deeply (in Christian jargon, it is because of our sin nature inherited from Adam) and in this age God has authorized human leaders to do His will to uphold justice (Romans 13:1-8).

I think the best possible way of human government (short of Jesus returning today) would be to have an alert citizenery coupled with leadership that is constrained. We can't afford to have a Nero or Peter the Great just because we don't want to have a Schroeder or Clinton.