and spectacularly unsuitable to the modern world. The notion of the Republic seems the be the best compromise for large scale governance. A Republic is, depending on your viewpoint, either the best or worst of all worlds: we delegate power for fixed terms, thus providing mandate for tough, necessary and unpopular decisions, insulating the elected from the whims of the electors.

A monarch is inscrutable, beyond questioning. Not only is he not humanly comprehensible, he derives his power not from the consent of the governed but from divine right. They talk to trees. They suffer from teeny weenie syndrome and in the case of Kaiser Bill, they start world wars.

The Snivel Servants may be perfectly understood, individually. They make rulings based on law and with its mandate. Those who live far from cities these days benefit most from The System: look at Senator Lunatick Shelby from Missouri, extorting more pork. All those emptied out western states, each with two hog senators, abusing their powers, leveraging Jeffersonian Democracy, that is to say the inequality of representation, to their benefit.

America was established by elitists for elitists. If anything, we could use a bit more democracy and less republican sentiment.

(by "we" I mean anyone who has knowledge of history". Most any political model works, more or less, when times are good to not so bad. Even a despotism will work as long as the despot isn't too despotic. It's at the margins, under stress, that the differences emerge. I think the problem that most conservatives of the monarchist/royalist/aristocratic type have with democracy is it's pliancy - there's always a temptation to think that a single smart individual can come up with better policies than the horsetrading and bickering of a democracy. In some cases it might even be true. But that pliancy and ability to change under pressure is a benefit as well, it acts as a giant pressure release for the population at large. Maybe my knowledge of history isn't that complete, but I can't recall where a more or less functioning democracy has undergone the kind of revolution that have occurred under monarchies or totalitarian systems. One of the surprising things about the dissolution of the USSR was how peaceful it was compared to overthrows of totalitarian systems in the past (although I think the government actively managed it to be that way).

Yes, modern life is complex and not everyone is educated enough to make sense of large parts of it. But democracy has a self-correcting feedback loop built into it. Governments make mistakes all the time, but the fear of losing office is quite a bit different than the fear of losing ones head, and tends to make for a somewhat more flexible reaction and a more reasoned response to problems.

That's a very keen observation, I think.

...conversation.

...between the artist and the audience, nu?

My own spelling.