I find that there are much more good things of a kingdom than a republic. In a kingdom, you get folk who are trained to be king by the current one, and folk that have experience being kings (not just 4 or 5 year switch-offs). You may say that's just genetic favoritism, well, the king (in this example, should) picks who he wants to succeed him, whether family or not. And frankly, there's genetic favoritism in play with true republics. You're not going to vote for a leper, or a polydactyl. If they look like you or are like you (Turk to Turk, Orthodox to Orthodox), +1 on the subconscious level for you. These folk have an unfair disadvantage, not to say about what it needs money-wise. In short, more money = more reclame = more likeliness of wining (as long as you have a decent reclame team). So only the wealthy, pretty folk who are what the majority is can win.

Imagine if China was democratic. You think some Hongkonger Englishman's going to get picked? Imagine if America was democratic. You think a Muslim of any kind could get picked?

Republics corrupt, too. You need a revolution every time to stop it. America, India, Brazil, they all corrupted. A long time ago. Getúlio Vargas, great man. Generally agreed he was dictator of Brazil. He was and is loved by the Brazilians. He stopped messing about and actually developed this crap country into a middle class country. He ruled and kept ruling, he cared about the Brazilians so much that he killed himself when the Gen-Staff ordered him to resign.

Tell me which fat cat rulers will do that in any semi-democracy.

An absolute has these problems formalised, noone is fooled, but actually gets rulers who care about their folk, who have been trained, and who are experienced.

one mode of governance isn't better than another. They all have their flaws and debating which is better is pointless. It is the people in positions of power that are more relevant and what they do with their power. I prefer the republic because in an autocratic system the needs of the average person tend to be ignored in favor of people with something to offer to autocrat. Think of it in these terms: which is harder to buy out an entire senate or 1 person? I recommend you read some books by Locke in order to gain better perspective on the downsides of an autocratic state.

Edited 3/1/2016 06:57:32

^+1

I agree a good king is better then a flawled democratic system. But however, you'll eventually have bad kings, and in this case they're gonna be really worse then that democratic system.

As you talked about Brazil, I imagine you're probably against our current government (no prob, pretty much everyone is). Now imagine if any of our top gvt politicians was a king with absolute power? Would be waaaay worse, as they'd try to "fix" the country using their methods and would eventually ruin it.

Now imagine that with their absolute power they just started to use it to avoid going to prison when condemned for corruption? They already do that, but with absolute power you can control the media, the whole judiciary power and the legislative too.

If you're a bad ruler, having absolute power would screw up the fucking country.


The political debate is good to avoid these kinds of mouvements. If the actual democratic system is very lame and hard in making any reforms in the country, it also prevents any autoritarian shift by the executive because of how hard it is to have a consensus between every branch of government.


So let's go now to your fairy tail scenario. We have a good ruler. Things go well, and one day he dies. Let's imagine there's not a struggle for power (very likely to happen in successions), that the heir is as good as his predecessor and that he manages to keep things the way they were. That's kindda of a lucky thing at the end of the day... You'll eventually have a stupid ruler with as many bad qualities as titles. And then your hole system crumbles...

Plus, even an educated person might not be fit to rule. There's a lot of intelectual scumbags over there, you just need to search them well.


Democracy seems for now the best current system available, in the long run at least.
As Churchill would say: “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others”

And frankly, there's genetic favoritism in play with true republics. You're not going to vote for a leper, or a polydactyl
Am I the only person that read this as pterodactyl? Like the big (not) birds from Jurassic Park?

constitutional monarchy?

I completely agree with Xapy.

This is why Franco is a hero, and should be canonised.

Constitutional Monarchy (see British Empire) is good because shit kings get sorta covered. I personally like an oligarchic system. That way, uneducated, property-less people can't vote themselves free money.

Franco a hero? You kidding right?

One thing to note is that Historically, Empires/kingdoms were much more stable than republics have been. In fact, with the exception of San marino(and possibly others, I haven't done in-depth research on the topic), the United States actually has the longest continuous government of any republic in the world at over 200 years.

There have however been longer continuous governments in kingdoms such as the UK or Oman though...

And that's not even taking into account historical empires, a lot of which were around for over a thousand years.

Edited 3/1/2016 14:47:03

The Roman Republic was far older (nearly 500 yrs), but to be fair was more oligarchic and had unique circumstances, plus a lot of civil wars. Good point still though

If I recall it well the ancient Greek city states as republics lasted way longer than the US, same applies for the Roman republic. Netherlands also used to be a republic for centuries, the funny story is that it ended indirectly with the pro republican French revolution.

Greek cities never had republics; they had direct democracies or tyrannies/oligarchies/monarchies. Netherlands was a good example; Rome I already mentioned.

I thought Athens was the only Democratic Greek city-state.

Republics corrupt, too. You need a revolution every time to stop it. America, India, Brazil, they all corrupted. A long time ago. Getúlio Vargas, great man. Generally agreed he was dictator of Brazil. He was and is loved by the Brazilians. He stopped messing about and actually developed this crap country into a middle class country. He ruled and kept ruling, he cared about the Brazilians so much that he killed himself when the Gen-Staff ordered him to resign.

I can confirm that, but with a catch: he left power around 1945 because he sent soldiers to hunt for nazis under the excuse of "fighting for freedom", and they came back thinking Getúlio was very similar to Hitler (he sort of was, though). This caused him to resign.

His suicide happened MUCH later when he was democratically elected (1952 if I recall?), and he did it because he knew he wouldn't get power back entirely and now he was stuck with knobheads that didn't want him to finish the reforms. Expecting a coup, his suicide was an attempt of preemptively stopping the coup and keeping the corrupt guys away from power (just a minor delay; 8 years after his suicide, we had our military dictatorship phase).

~~~

Franco a hero? You kidding right?

He is pretty much a dream leader for any country. His problems with the basques was because you misbehaved. I'd rather have him over any of the choices for the upcoming elections (or the past one, for that matter).

~~~

As Churchill would say: “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others”

To be fair, that varies from country to country. A country has the ruler it deserves; the good thing about a dictator is that he does everything very quickly and with little to no opposition, so as look as he's not a murderous asshat, he's prone to develop the country well.

As you talked about Brazil, I imagine you're probably against our current government (no prob, pretty much everyone is). Now imagine if any of our top gvt politicians was a king with absolute power? Would be waaaay worse, as they'd try to "fix" the country using their methods and would eventually ruin it.

Now imagine that with their absolute power they just started to use it to avoid going to prison when condemned for corruption? They already do that, but with absolute power you can control the media, the whole judiciary power and the legislative too.

Sadly, the truth is, in such situation, I'd rather stick to the cray-cray bank robbing old lady holding little actual power than trust a bearded pig with full control.

~~~

The Roman Republic was far older (nearly 500 yrs), but to be fair was more oligarchic and had unique circumstances, plus a lot of civil wars.

Arguably.

The Byzantine Empire, basically the only part of Rome that wasn't falling apart few decades after the republic was abolished, lasted 1123 years. 303 more if you count the byzantines as part of rome instead of a direct successor. Total: 1326 years vs the republic's 500ish.

And the roman republic was plagued with unrest and internal strife.

~~~

And that's not even taking into account historical empires, a lot of which were around for over a thousand years.

Well, on the republics' defense, back then it was much easier to build and hold an empire, as civilization and unification was an unfair advantage not many had.

@Zeph. I know the Empire lasted longer; I was saying the Roman Republic was longer than USA

@Pe
yes thats right about Greece

@Zeph
Franco is among the worst leader that pushed is country into 40 years of darkness, since you are not familiar with it, before the 90s Spain was a shitplace and people were living in a great misery, see North Korea? This was kinda like it, if Franco or his successors were still in command you would be sure to see a copy of North Korea in Western Europe, fortunately things changed and the Spanish people moved on.

And Gosh, the Basques misbehaved? Ever heard of the bombing of Gernika during the civil war? immortalized by the masterpiece of Picasso, It was the first bombing of the history ever led against innocent civilians, notably orchestrated by a join force of the German Luftwaffe, the Italian fascist air force and Franquists. Most of the inhabitants of Guernica were killed during the bombings. By this action, Franco attacked one of the most sacred symbols of the Basques: Gernika is a sacred place for the Basques a kind of spiritual capital where even the Spanish Kings for centuries since they were conquered by Castile prostrated before the sacred tree and made an oath to respect the special rights and old laws (fueros and lege zaharra) of the Basques. Nowadays the parliament of the Basque country is located in Guernica. And the town has been rebuilt entirely. The civil war in the Basque country was particularly violent because it was one of the last regions to fall, in 1936 the basque government created the Basque Army (Eusko Gudarostea) against Franquists, many towns were entirely razed to the ground like Irun or heavily destroyed like Bilbao. Despite being close enough from France, France never helped the Basques against the Franquists. After the war a regime of terror was initiated particularly against the rebellious provinces, that's why the Basques finally started to have a hatred from the Spanish state and government ever since from that period, ETA (Basque IRA) was created in the 50s at the beginning as an armed group fighting the Franquists, if you took this violent answer from the Basques as a misbehaviour... blame Franco for this.

If Spain is facing troubles currently against seceding regions, again blame Franco. If you believe Franco was a hero, Franco was a monster, ally of Adolf Hitler (the two leaders met in my hometown in 1940), Franco led Spain to chaos, Franco was the one responsible of 40 years of misery and isolationism. The real heroes are the people who fought against Franco and his minions since the civil war.
Franck a hero? Not at all.

One advice : about the civil war and Spain of this period, read Hemingway.
Also if you really want to know who we are here's one documentary made by Orson in the 50s about the land of the Basques:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJlKx3NPuts

FOR THE EMPIRE VS FOR THE REPUBLIC

FOR THE SWARM!!!!

one mode of governance isn't better than another. They all have their flaws and debating which is better is pointless.

Maybe, but I think kingdoms and dictatorships unearningly get bad report.

I prefer the republic because in an autocratic system the needs of the average person tend to be ignored in favor of people with something to offer to autocrat.

A republic does the same.

Think of it in these terms: which is harder to buy out an entire senate or 1 person? I recommend you read some books by Locke in order to gain better perspective on the downsides of an autocratic state.

It doesn't matter how many folk there are, just how much the combined money is. To be truthful, it is easier to buy out a majority of folk than 1 person. Let's say 50% their yearly income is their buying point, and the kingdom has 300£. With 1 person having all the 300£, you need to pay them off 150£. With 3, each with 100£ income, you only need to pay them off 100£ to get a majority. Also, a king would have the kingdom money as personal money, so the buying price would be really really high.

As you talked about Brazil, I imagine you're probably against our current government (no prob, pretty much everyone is). Now imagine if any of our top gvt politicians was a king with absolute power? Would be waaaay worse, as they'd try to "fix" the country using their methods and would eventually ruin it.

Now imagine that with their absolute power they just started to use it to avoid going to prison when condemned for corruption? They already do that, but with absolute power you can control the media, the whole judiciary power and the legislative too.

If you're a bad ruler, having absolute power would screw up the fucking country.

Nothing President for Life can't do. And the likeliness of a bad ruler is lower than the republic, especially since the last king picks the next, and they are very trained and experienced - know what works and what doesn't. I get what you're saying, but I doubt it's a big problem.

The political debate is good to avoid these kinds of mouvements. If the actual democratic system is very lame and hard in making any reforms in the country, it also prevents any autoritarian shift by the executive because of how hard it is to have a consensus between every branch of government.

President says "I pay gunman to shoot you if you say no.". You are a judge. Will you say no? (and you won't always get a warning)

So let's go now to your fairy tail scenario. We have a good ruler. Things go well, and one day he dies. Let's imagine there's not a struggle for power (very likely to happen in successions), that the heir is as good as his predecessor and that he manages to keep things the way they were. That's kindda of a lucky thing at the end of the day... You'll eventually have a stupid ruler with as many bad qualities as titles. And then your hole system crumbles...

Well, that is and was a likeliness in this kingdoms, due to ambiguities in fine text, but here, in my "fairty tail scenario", it's easy and unambigous (and thus can't really make succession war) - old king chooses the new king. And succession wars happen in republics, too - one president gets picked, some others say he is an evil vote-rigger (and maybe he is), and so the republican succession war begins.

Plus, even an educated person might not be fit to rule. There's a lot of intelectual scumbags over there, you just need to search them well.

I wasn't really talking about education to be ruler (though that is a bit of it), I was talking about overall rule that they won't teach in school, Civilisation 4 stuff.

X some people can't be bought out that was my point in bringing up majority consensus.