The best form of Government – 2008-09-29

Vladimir Putin could not be re-elected President, so he had a puppet elected in his place, Japan has just faced the resignation of yet another Prime Minister, the US is entering a national election, - as is Canada - so perhaps it is not an inopportune time to examine what is the best form of government for our time.

We admit that there is no perfect form of government because government is made up of people and people are not perfect. Likely benevolent dictatorship would be tops on our list – but where does one find a benevolent dictator - and if one did find him how long before he was overthrown or assassinated.

In our view the framers of the US Constitution looked at the British Parliamentary system and recognized its failings – that the leader of the government is not directly elected by the people to lead the country, and that with a majority government this one person is a relative dictator for as much as 5 years. Add to that the leader of the governing party alone can choose when it is to his benefit to call another election.

No wonder Americans guard their Constitution like it was written by the Almighty himself. The framers of the US Constitution did a marvelous job of creating a well thought out set of rules and principles that has stood the test of over 200 years.

Those politicians who govern under a British Parliamentary system do not want to relinquish it, not because it is the better system, but because the do not want to surrender the power it gives them to maintain power.

As an example Canada’s Parliament recently passed a law calling for fixed elections every 4 years (like the American system), rather than discretionary elections called by the ruling party. But now Canada faces an election more than a year before that fixed date – because the government that passed this law left themselves a self-serving back door to circumvent that law.

I know what you are thinking watching the US Congress squabble over whether to bail out Wall Street, or not and under what terms. But to paraphrase Winston Churchill "American style Democracy is the worst form of government... except for all those others that have been tried."