I remember Jonah Goldberg writing somewhere that the best form of government is putting absolute power in the hands of a single, good, wise, benevolent person--the "Good Tsar" form of government.
The trouble is, the absolute *worst* form of government is putting absolute power in the hands of a *bad* person. And there's no way to set up a system which guarantees "good tsars" and no "bad tsars".
Democracy is a much more fault-tolerant system. Things can go wrong, and it's slower at getting some things done--but one of the things it's slower at is fucking things up. A despot can take a whole country to hell in a hurry (viz. Zimbabwe). A democracy plods along, and is much less likely to make drastic changes for good or ill.
Of course, it helps if it's a democracy of people with guns. Keeps our goverment from getting too uppity.
--AMS
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