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7
Letters to the Editor
The Honorable Enrico
Paesano
Minnesota Board of Journalistic Integrity
1 Capital Centre Plaza
St. Paul, MN 55102
RE: Democracy: A Kinder, Gentler Feudalism
Dear Commissioner:
hy
is democracy considered the highest form of government? Isn’t a
dictatorship much more efficient? Dictatorships eliminate an entire
class of useless rogues (i.e., politicians) since dictators don’t get
elected — they seize power! Of course, you and I would be out of a job
then, but we have our other sources of income…
eople
think government has progressed so much since the Middle Ages when power
depended mainly on three factors. Whoever had the
most
Then
(Above): Conflict resolution in the good old days: Wars kept down
the population (Battle of Auray, 1364 from Froissart’s
Chronicles).
Now (Below): Conflict resolution in
modern times: "Peacemaking" gives national leaders something
to do. Bloody wars usually follow (l.—r.: Israeli Prime Minister
Yizhak Rabin, American President "Slick Willie" and Jordan’s
King Hussein).
Now (Below): Rulers like Pres. "Slick Willie" Clinton and his staff lord it over the populace in the White House in Washington D.C.
mercenaries and thugs could pillage and loot their people the best. Whoever had the best swords could beat up his neighbors better than anyone else. And whoever had the biggest castle could lord it over the peasants the grandest.
n other words, things
haven’t changed much at all since feudal days. Instead of kings,
barons and lords, we have presidents, senators and representatives.
Instead of mercenaries and thugs, we have real estate appraisers and IRS
collectors. Instead of settling disputes with swords, we use lawsuits.
Instead of castles, we have luxury condos like Dave’s (supported by
robbing the taxpayers, just like in the old days)!
ack then, a ruler could
call himself whatever he wanted as long as there was no one around to
dispute it. If you staked out a fiefdom of barren, icy wasteland in the
middle of literally nowhere (say Lapland) and named yourself King, well,
who cares as long as the nearest kingdom was hundreds of miles away?
n the same grounds,
early American settlers staked out a similar icy, barren, literally
nowhere territory called Minnesota and named it a State so some joker
could be called State Governor, which is a better-
"Things
haven’t changed much since feudal days… Instead of mercenaries and
thugs, we have real estate appraisers and tax collectors… Instead of
castles, we have luxury condos."
Ed Cynicus, Esq., Ph.D.
