Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] RM Nixon and GW Bush

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Fri, 24 Jun 2005, Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote:

> Mike Miller wrote:
>
> > I think it's pretty simple.  A free press will report on corruption. 
> > An informed electorate will vote corrupt officials out of office.  A 
> > system of "checks and balances" where some officials are pitted against 
> > others also helps.  If we had a monarchy, for example, how would we 
> > deal with corruption then?  You have one corrupt official leading 
> > everything, including the military, your votes don't count and there 
> > are no checks and balances.  I think it's easy to see why democracy 
> > will control corruption better than monarchy will!
>
> And it is also easy to see that democracy has not been wholly 
> successful. :-)

As they say, nothing is perfect.  The quotations from Churchill suggest 
that he believed that Democracy was flawed, but that everything else was 
even more flawed.  I can't see any way to make a perfect system unless we 
were to have a democracy and the voters somehow became extremely 
competent.  It seems that power corrupts, so I don't believe that a 
benevolent dictatorship can remain benevolent for long.


> Honestly, I think that democracy has done a very good job at fixing many 
> of society's ills.  But I don't think that it is by any means perfect, 
> and I don't hold it as a sacrosanct value.

But do you have something better?

Mike
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