> Nope. Being “loaded with negativity” is besides the point (you seem to love the idea) It's not beside the point in the context of your statement I was replyi

> Nope. Being “loaded with negativity” is besides the point (you seem to love the idea) It's not beside the point in the context of your statement I was replying to, which is why I added the word benevolent to it. > this form of governance is just particularly prone to failing due to the character of the tyrant. But you seem to acknowledge that anyway. I acknowledged it while I refuted it. You can have someone with a similar amount of power and have checks and balances on some of that power. A carefully crafted system allowing for that hasn't really been created in modern day. > Weird. I haven’t read any serious research on this subject that says that America (or perhaps any liberal democracy, but I’ve only read research on America) is a democracy-in-practice. Huh, then I guess you haven't even read the basic stuff, since a representative democracy is a type of democracy. > According to the mainstream elite democratic theory, elites govern with limited input from the general population. You're confused. You're talking about conspiracy theory > So maybe you should blame the elites if things are falling apart. But I bet you don’t want to do that, though. The elites have power because the sheeple let them have it. Again, democracy at work. > The smart-but-naive often think that you can tune politics like a machine. It's not naive to recognize our current system is flawed and we can do better.