{"id":534,"date":"2009-01-11T23:40:12","date_gmt":"2009-01-12T04:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/?p=534"},"modified":"2009-01-11T23:40:46","modified_gmt":"2009-01-12T04:40:46","slug":"democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/?p=534","title":{"rendered":"Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” – Winston Churchill, 1947\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I was talking with a friend today about the tragedy of countries where a benevolent monarch or dictator – someone good and kind and truly caring of the people – is succeeded by some corrupt idiot who causes untold suffering. I found myself conjecturing that in such situations one of the benefits of family succession from parent to child is that a monarch’s own child is more likely to remain true to the ideals of the original ruler. This might tend to help maintain stability and decent rule for a few generations. But of course – as history consistently shows – sooner or later the wrong descendent ascends to the throne, and then the situation quickly goes to hell.<\/p>\n

And so I found myself thinking about Churchill’s famous dictum – something he said, by the way, after he had been voted out of power, and before he had been voted back in again. Our nation has just been through a terrible time – a disastrous war, an erosion of civil liberties, natural disaster met by government incompetence, lack of federal oversight leading to financial meltdown, the list goes on and on.<\/p>\n

And yet when push came to shove, we still had the power to throw the bums out – to give somebody else a chance to try another way, for better or worse. This remains our greatest strength, and the greatest legacy bequeathed by the founders of this nation.<\/p>\n

With all of the problems we face, it is worth taking at least a moment to give thanks that we have managed to hold on to a system of government that empowers its citizens to give themselves another chance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” – Winston Churchill, 1947 I was talking with a friend today about the tragedy of countries where a benevolent monarch or dictator – someone good and kind and truly caring of the people – … Continue reading “Democracy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}