I think you are focusing too much on the modern world. You’re ignoring the Middle Ages and before, and also eastern monarchies as well. Many of them existed for centuries with petty succession squabbles but in general being the same government, in the sense that they were ruled by the same royal family or one with close ties and maintained over that time similar aims. Every 4 or 8 years our governments have to change aims in response to crises that were caused because our government can only implement projects on a 4 to 8 year basis which is often not enough to fix problems. Something akin to technical debt in software, but societal.

Also I think you forget that Democracies existed in the ancient world and they didn’t last long either. They weren’t modern democracies but democracies nonetheless. And they were famous already for being short lived back then.

I’m not saying that we might not see a long lasting democracy, just that the evidence seems to point that democratic states have by their very nature an expiration date in which they enter a stage of some form of dictatorship until a total collapse happens, which is then followed by a renewal of democratic institutions under a new constitution. Maybe this may be construed as the same that happened with civil wars during monarchies but I think the key difference is that the government changes drastically between stages, even the national identity itself may change in these shake ups.

Just look at the US. One of the longest living democracies in the world right now, founded by some of the smartest men of their time who designed a system that could withstand the inherent weaknesses of democracy and yet it is on shaky ground only 250 years in.

You got me pal, excellent argument.

You’re honing in on the very point in time in which monarchy collapsed entirely, disregarding that many of these governments existed continuously for centuries in one form or another. There is no democracy that has lasted 1,000 years, but there’s a few examples of monarchies that did last that long.

1. All of those happen in modern nations, doesn’t say much about the nature of monarchic rule rather more about the nature of power itself. Again I never said monarchic rule was preferable to democracy, I just said it is not as terrible as we like to paint it through our modern lens. Monarchy has a coherent political and ideological system, unlike fascism or other forms of totalitarian governments. There are very few, if any, examples of totalitarian monarchs. They had to balance their decisions between the interests of all groups in society.

2. There’s plenty of democratically elected leaders that fill that same description. But yes your argument for violence is a good one, that is indeed how democracy solves the problem of violence when a ruler goes rouge. But once more, I never said monarchy is preferable to democracy, it’s just not inherently bad like most people think.

3. The difference is that monarchs are hardly ever totalitarian rulers because the structure and source of royal power is different from dictators. Look, find one dictator/totalitarian ruler that doesn’t pretend that they run a democracy. Find one. Their entire basis for power is the creation and perpetuation of crises driven by propaganda and misinformation. A monarch doesn’t need that shit to justify their rule, and their job and lives are much much better if they simply let the people be and step in when shit gets out of hand. Otherwise their lives tend to be very short and violent.

The thing people like the least about monarchies other than the violence that you rightly mentioned is how hierarchy is baked into the system and social mobility is almost inexistent. But increasingly that’s becoming the case under democratic liberal rule, so it’s no wonder that people would start looking towards monarchies again since that at least has the benefit of the ruling class being able to implement long term plans that benefit the nation instead of the shit that happens in polarized democracies where there is no long term vision for the nation, and no plan to reach any goals except to keep things humming along by patching crisis after crisis with duct tape.

I think democracy is the best system in practice, but I don’t think monarchies are the worst form of government either. And a disfunctional democracy is worst than a monarchy imo.

Well historically it is not a terrible system, it is very stable and tends to not self implode regularly like democracy does. You could argue that it leads to abuse of power but that happens equally under any system; if you look at monarchies historically they tried very very hard to avoid having rebellions in their hands and usually worked in the interest of the nation, as the interest of the nation was the interest of the monarch.

I don’t think monarchy is better than democracy or even desirable all the time, but democracy imo hinges on an educated population and when that fails democracy immediately starts to collapse into fascism which is not monarchic unlike what the popular idea of a king might suggest. So if a democratic nation seems headed towards anti democratic rule, it would seem to me that a better goal would be to install a monarchy instead of a fascist.

Democracy has never, not once in the history of democracy, meant that every one gets to participate. That’s the idea of it, but it’s not the reality of it. The concept of citizens is there to explicitly denominate those who can and can’t participate in it.

I like this, I’m in favor of an aesthetically liberal state that is in fact not liberal because it is openly hostile to illiberal ideas. But before you agree with me, bear in mind that most illiberal ideas arise from religion, so the state needs to be hostile to religion, like France. Although not being French I do not know the extent of laicité. In my model I think that would mean that no one who openly practices any religion could hold any legislative office. And culturally I would wage soft war against Islam, sorry but it’s just not compatible. It was designed as a religion and a political and legal system, so it cannot be reformed unless a complete breakaway from the Quran happens and I don’t see that happening.

Frogs being based as always.