Yes. I think this is a common misunderstanding about democracy. Democracy is not good because it provides the best government, or even competent government; muc

Yes. I think this is a common misunderstanding about democracy. Democracy is not good because it provides the best government, or even competent government; much of the time it manifestly doesn't. Democracy is good because it provides for stable succession; if a discontented group is strong enough to stage a successful coup or revolution, then in a democracy it's probably strong enough to achieve its ends at far lower cost and risk by waiting a couple of years until the next election. The EU was founded in large part to prevent yet another European war; that's a noble goal and for all its flaws I think the EU can claim a lot of credit for 70 years of peace. Warnings against complacency that "it could never happen again these days" are well-made and well-taken. But we haven't had a violent revolution or civil war in western Europe for a fair while either - anything since Franco? - and I think that's largely thanks to functional democracy. Messing with that is not to be taken lightly either. You don't have to go back very far to find everyone collectively soiling their breeches every time a monarch started getting on a bit without a solid heir in sight.