Who believes that a republic is the best form of government to have?

Question

If you diagree with this then give me a good argument as to why it is not a good goveernment and what other form we should have and why.

Thanks!

Answer 1

jxt299 -

Sounds like you're advocating a monarchy, saying that we should give near absolute power to hand picked individuals...

I would have to whole hartedly disagree with this proposal... the problem with monarchies is the same problem that you have with dictatorships... that is the best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship. This is because a benevolent and wise dictator, or king would be able to accomplish what is best for his/her people without all the procedural novelties that are inherent in a republic... but it is quite a rare thing to find anybody who would rule with only the best interests of his/her people in mind. The old saying goes, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absoutly... so it is highly unlikely that you would find anybody that would rule with such absolute power, and not fall into the trap of utalizing that power for their own selfish purposes.

Even if you could find one leader who was truly benevolent, and wise, what would you do upon that leaders demise? The single greatest weakness of monarchies and dictatorships is that the transfer of power is almost always bad. In some cases the power of state would be passed along to the king's heir, often a son or daughter... there is no telling wether that person would be competent or incompetent... though I would have to put my money on incompetent... after all, look at people like Paris Hilton, who was born into money, and prestigue... and she only has the very limited power that comes from having a rich daddy! Other times monarchies suffer from bloody civil wars whenever a king dies. And if you do get an incompetent ruler on the thrown, the only way to get them off is through a bloody coup d'état... you only need to look at the end of the Roman Empire to see how internal power struggles can reduce a once powerful and prosperous people into a weak nation ready for conquest by outside powers seeking spoils of war!

No... despite the inherent corrupton of republics, they do stand the test of time... transitions of power take place peacfuly, usually we get decent governance... and most importantly it is the best ballance between serving the will of the people, and doing what is best for the people.

Democracy is a great way to find out what the people want, however it is useless in determining if what the people want is right.

As far as I'm concerned there are only a few ways a government can be set up... you can have a monarcy, a dictatorship, a republic, a democracy, a theocracy, a junta, or anarchy...

Monarchies, dictatorships, and theocracies are all pretty much the same... just depends on the justification for having one person in power... with monarchies its heredity, with dictatorships its power and charisma, and with a theocracy it's because the church said so... but all suffer from the problems detailed above.

Democracies, that is direct democracies, can be even worse... that's because democracy is basically just another word for mob rule... and two things about this... first it can only work in very small places... notice how few direct democracies there are in this world... and secondly the main problem is it only takes a short time before the majority realizes it can use its enviable position of power to sieze the property and rights from others in the minority for their own selfish reasons. Thats why democracies generally turn into lynch mobs!

A junta is a unique form of government where the people are ruled by a council of military persons... generals if you will. These regiems are almost universally bruital, and due to their brutality often short lived. They almost always rule over statist systems of governments, ie fascist or communist systems. This is not a good form of government, as it is too easy for the military to force the civilians into nothing more than esentally labor for the maintenece of the military machine.

Finally anarchy... ah yes, what better form of government is there than no government at all? Well, just about any.

Anarchy would be great if only human nature was so perfect that nobody every did anything bad to anybody else... but people are not perfect, and government is absoultly necessary to provide at least a few crutial things for society to function properly, namely defence against foreign and domestic agressors, simple laws to punish those who violate the rights of others, forums to adjuticate disputes, standardization of weights and measures, very limited infrastructure. Without these things you have a very poorly run system into which you will see endless fighting, up until one power is capible of imposing their preferd system... if you want to see how anarchy works, all you need to do is take a look at Somalia...

All that is left is the republic... and despite the shortcommings of the system, namely the possibility of corruption, and inability to get things accomplished efficiently at times, I think it has the best balance avaliable.

Answer 2

Plato's mentor, Socrates, promoted the belief-approximately rule "via the main suitable and brightest" the certainty seeker-King. In practice, it in no way worked out, however. organic democrac, in assessment, is messy. that is kinda like the gridlock interior the residing house of Representatives while no social gathering has a sparkling and veto-information majority yet worse. surely, that became the unique theory for the residing house. The gov't governs maximum suitable which governs least. So shall we build gridlock into the equipment. instead of struggling with against it we could constantly ask your self on the brilliance of Jefferson et al. They wanted the reward of a tyranny and a democracy, and was hoping that the only would grant a verify against the different. "Ambition could be set against ambition" sure I accept as true with that assessment of Plato. the main suitable thank you to make a rustic much less ethical is to bypass extra rules. The Tao Te Ching

Answer 3

I gave a 'thumbs up' to Schaufel's answer because it was articulate and well thought out. I would however like to give an alternative way of differentiating forms of government. Actually, if you don't mind, I would like to substitute a slightly different term for government: governance.

From dictionary.com:

"
gov·ern·ance
–noun 1. government; exercise of authority; control.
"

In the context of our discussion here, governance constitutes the methods of exercising control over human behavior.

Before proceeding, I will suggest that a primary goal of any form of governance is to maximize the level of peace (and as a consequence wealth) in society. Closely related to (indeed, prerequisites for) peace are concepts of honesty, virtue and so forth.

Now, there are two primary forms of governance (the second will have two sub-categories):

1) Internal or individual. When it comes down to it, we each govern our own actions. Even in the face of extreme external influence, we control how we will respond to that influence. The great majority of human action (I would think over 99%) is governed peacefully by individuals.

2) External. Here, we characterize external influences on governing individual human action in two ways:

a) Peaceful. We might also term this Social governance (the term used in the linked article below). This consists of churches, families, customs, choices of association (whether personal or business) and so forth. When an individual might otherwise be inclined to act in a violent manner, there are many social consequences to acting in such a manner. Certainly, social governance often fails. Individuals do sometimes choose to still act violently. On the whole though, social governance works reasonably well.

b) Violent. The linked article calls this Political governance though I prefer my term. Here, we have a dilemma. If our primary goal is to maximize peace in society, then the use of violence may act counter to that goal. Now, I personally think that someone who murders should be violently dealt with. [Whether you advocate the death penalty or prison, either is violence - imprisoning a person against his will is violent.]

Political governance is a form of violent external influence on individual human behavior that constitutes a monopoly on violence. It generally funds itself by the violent practice of taxation (taking money from individuals whether they wish to contribute or not). Political governance is itself conducted by individual actions (whether by a monarch, a dictator, a parliament, a congress or whatever).

There is always the risk that political governance will be used not to enhance peace but to benefit the interests of the individual(s) who act in the name of political government. I believe that history shows that whenever political governments have grown powerful, this is always the case. I do not differentiate by type (and here, Schaufel and I disagree). Any political government that is allowed to become mighty will always become dictatorships. Tyranny always follows power.

So, when we admit that there must be political government (a case may be made for wanting to monopolize violent punishment of criminals, for instance), I think that it should be severely limited and controlled at local levels. I don't really care what form, as long as it is limited. The stated aim of the Constitution was to do just that (state sovereignty). The outcome has unquestionably been a concentration of power in the Federal government.

If you're ambitious, you should study the writings of both the Federalists (those in favor of the Constitution) and the Anti-Federalists (those favoring the Articles of Confederacy). You should seriously ask yourself who was right.

Answer 4

It is the best form. But all the candidates for presidency want to expand the government and make a North American Union, modeled after the European Union. - Except Kucinich Gravel and last but not least Ron Paul. They are the only ones that are for the people. Don't believe me? You tube CFR and presidential candidates. See for yourself...

Answer 5

I used to believe it was a good form but not after this Bush presidency. Its too easy to con the masses into voting for corrupt, incompetent leadership, and then the whole country gets taken down. The US won't be getting out of this, its all over.

Plato's Republic proposes an academy for leaders. You select people based on good human qualities most especially not being ego involved with their leadership, and then you give them virtually absolute power.

This thing we have was a nice try but they never counted on corrupt churches and a corrupt press and corrupt courts.

Its just that this one is out of business, its bust, its broke. Its a shame. Lots of good ideas and ideals, many people sacrificed so much for it, but the people weren't up to the challenge of keeping it. The corrupt churches, press, and courts all killed it. At a trillion and a quarter in debt to Communist China, it is gone, and it ain't coming back.

Answer 6

I do. Representative government is superior to direct democracy. It ensures that laws are not adopted as a knee jerk reaction from popular sentiment. If the legal process must involve representatives and a structure of debate, then voters have time to consider the issues and contact their reps to influence their position. Laws that take more time to adopt tend to be better ones.

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Answer 7

I agree that it is the best form of government that is made up of 50 individual states.

Answer 8

I think it is good.

Answer 9

Me.