Tired of Your Dumb Democracy? Choose Your (Government) Adventure!
Hop Into The Alternative Universe Voting Booth to Choose Your Fate!
Based on a lot of what I've been hearing, y'all aren't happy with how things are going here in the U.S. I get it. It seems like it's impossible to get anything done around here.
Immigrants slip through our borders. Health care mostly sucks. Kids are still getting lead poisoning. Meanwhile, one of our leading presidential candidates has mentioned (probably not jokingly) that he would be a dictator “on day one.”
What we’ve got here, my friends, is One Dumb Democracy.
If this were a game of Monopoly and Jesus were playing, by now, he would have flipped over the card table and called many of us several names that weren't in His Book.
Lucky for us, Jesus doesn’t play Monopoly and we've got an election coming up. And I just so happen to have a Hypothetical Alterative Universe Voting Booth that allows us to see what's on the menu for Other Government Options:
Monarchy
This is where a single person, usually someone like Old King Cole, inherits the “throne,” a pipe, and three fiddlers. He or she rules for life, or until some paparazzi takes some compromising photos. When I asked my friend Artie Fishal Intelligence about this form of government, he said, “Some cons of monarchy are that the people have no say in the government, they cannot choose their leader, and the leader may be a bad ruler or favor a small group of people.”
To that, I say, tough noogies*, as long as I get a piece of the action.
* "Noogies" can include the wholesale random slaughter or imprisonment of entire religious, racial or ethnic groups without notice or reason.
Dictatorship
Now, we're talking. There's no waiting around for some King Baby to be borned, or some fidgety rabble to show up at a school gymnasium to fish in their pockets for some ID to vote. Nope, there's a Man* With A Plan, and he's gonna Get Stuff Done. Now, I sat down and had some coffee with Artie Fishal the other day, and he seemed to really dig this Dictatorship thing: “Some pros of dictatorship are that there is low crime, stability, and less money spent on elections.”
Is “Ringadingding” one word or three?
Who wouldn’t want to be a Dictator on Day One?
Now, Artie might have mumbled something about dictators being able to change laws to stay in power and that they could use the Army against their enemies. I was eating a biscotti and listening to a 10,000 Maniacs song so I can't be sure.
* Because would any man allow the dictator to NOT be a man?
Theocracy
We're getting into a bit of overlap here, but let's just say a Theocrat is a robe-wearing Dictator who tells everyone, “Don't Blame the Messenger, But My Buddy God Wants Exactly What I Want.”
Side effects of a theocracy can include: stifling the innovation and progress of the country, and rejecting or suppressing ideas, facts or discoveries that contradict or challenge religious doctrines.
But who are WE to allow a few bad facts to get in the way of a Hard-Rockin' Crusade*?
Are there any examples of a modern-day Theocracies? In Saudi Arabia, UAE and Iran, women aren't allowed to work, drive cars or marry without their husbands' permission, because Islam Said So. Meanwhile, in Texas, the Holy Republican Caliphate has ruled that women can't leave the state to have an abortion because their Prosperity Gospel Said So. Is there much difference between these two?
Aside from their styles of hats, it's negligible.
* Between 1 million and 9 million people died in the Holy Crusades between roughly 1095 AD and 1291 AD.
Representative Democracy
Ah, now we get to the United Hot Mess of America. Now, I know our Hot Mess is not a Direct Democracy, but let's just wallow in one mess at a time, shall we? Our flavor of Democracy is so twisted up in gerrymandering, Electoral Colleges and two senators for South Dakota it seems like we really shouldn't call it that. I'm not even going to mention that a guy named Joe Manchin can end food subsidies for malnourished Appalachian kids. I'm not that kind of guy.
But let's get back to this Hot Mess' Saving Graces: It's the only form of government (aside from Parliamentary governments) that allows the people who are governed to decide HOW they're governed.
Technically, everyone has an equal say in who becomes president. Built into this notion of Democracy is the Marketplace of Ideas, where if someone has a better way of doing something, the public will head that way. It's no wonder that capitalism took root here so strongly (for good or for bad). In Democracies, we try to stick up for each other, and we like to codify laws that apply to EVERYONE.
Now that's a whole lot of platitudes for a country that can barely pass a budget. Two-hundred years in and this whole thing is still sketched out on a soggy cocktail napkin.
But speaking for Artie and myself, we'll take a soggy cocktail napkin over Greg Abbott's razor wire any day. We’re pulling the slot for another go at Democracy. And hoping we don’t get another Dumb One.