All of these great "Republics" you mention happened to be guided by members of the royal houses of Europe, if you want to pretend like the Dutch Republic was operated at the whim of the people rather than the stadtholders of each individual province who just happened to be a member of the House of Orange, then be my guest.Sapper Redux said:Yes, they are responsive to the people. Imperfection and the existence of some corruption does not place them on the same level as the dictators and murderers you admire. As for scientific, artistic, and cultural innovation, the greatest advances of these have happened in more open, pluralistic societies. Even during the early modern era, more open societies like Venice, Florence, the Netherlands, and England, saw greater cultural innovation than revanchist states. Certainly amongst your idols, the only thing they were good at was murder. Yew is the only outlier and it's not surprising that he wasn't interested in book burnings and fascism.DeProfundis said:You have to be dreaming if you feel that our elected are responsible to the people. Look at the expense accounts of our elected officials and you'll find lavish spending that would color the face of a Borgia.Sapper Redux said:
The fun thing about elected representatives is that they are part of a larger body and in the case of the president, responsible to the people and term limited. Monarchs are not, no matter how inbred and ignorant they may be.
The greatest societies this world has ever known have had their roots in under authoritarian forms of government. Feudal Japan, Imperial China, The Catholic Kingdoms of Europe and Caliphates of North Africa and the Arabian peninsula all great engines of scientific,artistic and cultural innovation.
In the more modern period the 'Strong Man' has been a great protector when faced by marauding hordes of godless marxists. Ioannis Metaxas, Generalissimo Franco, Augosto Pinochet, Lee Kuan Yew, and even Pope St.John Paul II all authoritarian all great victors over the scourge of marxism.
You for some reason made monarchy and open and pluralistic society mutually exclusive and then blew your own exclusion apart by naming England as an example. The UAE now is extremely authoritarian, it is also extremely pluralistic and prosperous without ever needing to hold a vote.
Yes, with regards to my idols, sometimes to stop people from burning down churches, raping nuns, and redistributing family lands to "friends of the party" you have to kill some people. You'll notice that I think these are much better reasons for killing people rather than the great democracy of Israel who needs only "Hey I think that Palestinian kid has a rock" and the USA of "the 4 of clubs in the terrorism deck is hiding in a Syrian wedding so some kid in Colorado Springs is going to hellfire his ass with a drone".
Every single criticism you can level at authoritarian forms of government can be leveled at democracies, but with democracies I don't see an upside, the madden crowd is always stupid. I forget which author said it but to paraphrase "With monarchy you may get Nero but you also may get Augustus, Democracy always votes to release Barabbas".