Long Live the President!

"'There will be no boots on the ground', the president said at a press conference called just before his vacation. This just days after he signed an executive order authorising airstrikes.." the news roundup informed me as it showed the president behind a podium set up in front of his white palace. What power. Ordering military strikes without parliamentary approval in the morning, the first family, the first dog and entourage enjoying a much deserved summer vacation by the afternoon. That got me thinking as I left home for the train station.

Democracy is the best solution out of a list of poor choices. We believe this to be true. However we should keep in mind why democracy is our preferred solution to the problem of deciding who makes the rules. We should also remember what is wrong with the alternatives and why democracy is still problematic and is not out of place in a list alongside military dictatorships, absolute monarchies and a council of religious elders as forms of government.

Democracy has won. Just one hundred years ago, monarchy was the way of things. One by one, the old dynasties fell, or in western Europe, got relegated to symbolic roles in government. Good riddance. Monarchy is a bad idea. It's not so bad if you have a good king. But what if the next in line is a psychopath like Ivan the Terrible? What if, as sometimes happened, the monarch dies to leave a child to take the throne? What if he dies childless? Minorities (rule by a monarch who is a minor) and bad dynastic luck often threw kingdoms into turmoil. It was such an instance that prompted Harold Hadrada and William the Bastard (later the conqueror) to invade England in 1066.

So here comes democracy to save the day. The people will elect a 'king'. They would not chose a madman or a child. They will chose someone who they think can address their problems. After all, he who is best choice for the majority of people would surely do the most good for most people. Why didn't they think of this before?

They did. Democracy is very old. The very word is coined five centuries  before Christ. Indeed, many monarchies started out as being elective, where the nobles of a kingdom would get together and elect one amongst them to be the next king. Only after many generations of the same family winning the election, would traditions of inherited monarchy emerge and elections forgotten.

The possibility of getting stuck with the wrong man for the job is bad enough, but the problems of monarchy do not stop there. There is an inherent unfairness of having one superior to all others, whose word is law, whose person has a special grammatical case and who gets to have all the swans. Monarchy adapted and improved as the public demanded more protection from the moodswings of their king. Ramses was god and Pharaoh one could scarcely stand in his presence, the English king Charles II had to ask permission from parliament to to make important decisions. The trend continued until the hands of kings were securely bound by law, by a constitution.

Democracy is three wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for dinner. Does it really make that much difference to elect a tyrant instead of have him inherit the throne? Changing the tyrant every four years or so, having a council of tyrants, the problem remains. The problem is tyranny, the only solution is freedom. Democracy does not solve this problem, only a strong constitution can save us from the excesses of power.

I am not advocating a return to constitutional monarchies. Electing our representative leaders is a pretty fair way to select those in charge. What I am trying to point out is that democracy is not a substitute for freedom. I would rather live under a constitutional monarchy than an unbridled democracy that can vote me into serfdom.

This photo is relevant to the above article, I promise.