Democracy, it's overated..

Winston Churchill apparently said "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government apart from all the others that have been tried" Well I'm a fan of Churchill the wartime leader (as opposed to Churchill the politician) but he was talking bollocks in this case.

Democracy is too messy, give me a benign dictatorship anytime. Democratically elected governments have one major weakness. They are elected by the general population, most of whom are morons. Every four or five years these morons are asked to elect the government for the next four or five years. Four years in the US, five years if you're lucky in the UK, which means no sooner is the new bunch in than the campaigning for the next election starts. The main problem with that approach is that the government is often faced with difficult decisions, they have a choice, do what will fix the problem, often a slow and painful process, or do what will be popular in the short term thus ensuring at least a fighting chance at re-election. The system is designed to fail, simple as that.

But you don't have to look as high as the government to see how stupid democracy is, look at local government, The UK has a central government that hardly anyone understands and a local government at County level that no one cares about. To see democracy taken to the point of crazy you really need to come to the US. We have elected officials in positions as obscure as school boards. Most parents just want a decent education for their kids but what sort of people do you imagine actually go out their way to get elected to a school board? Busybodies, that's who and they're not to be trusted.  busybodies with an agenda can get together and seriously screw with an education system. Hence we have continual battles in various regions between teachers trying to teach science and school boards trying to get teachers to teach nonsense, such as the age of the planet is 6000-8000 years old. We even elect coroners here, coroners? who cares who the coroner is? You're dead for gods sake.

Get this, we elect Sheriffs, this is like electing the chief of police, except they don't have to be a policeman. Wait, what??? So a plumber could be elected? Yep, what about a cleaner, yep. OK so maybe that's not so bad, we could elect an attorney at least they understand the law. No.... what? You can't elect an attorney, it's against the rules. Here's a thing though, jury's although not elected are selected and this really is stupid. Financial fraud trials are notoriously complicated. Months of convoluted complex evidence is sifted through and argued over, some of the most brilliant financial brains in the world are drafted in for both sides and at the end who decides on  guilt or innocence? A bizarre mixture of coffee shop servers and contractors, it's ridiculous, It'll be different when I'm in charge, that's for sure!

Rant over!