Before democracy, there was only force.  Kings and oligarchs ruled with the supreme authority of the sharpened blade.  To question power was to die.  The only way to change the occupant of the throne was to kill him. Howsoever one might complicate this assessment, peasants and nobles alike always understood it. Today, we consider ourselves more civilized than the ancients.  Majority rules, bloodlessly and peacefully.  Imperfect as the modern system is, and indeed it has many imperfections, it is nevertheless, as Sir Winston Churchill pointed out, the worst form of government except for all the others. Every once in a while, the so-called thin veneer of civilization vanishes, as it did during the French Revolution, and brute force prevails.  He who would be king achieves his ambition by becoming the most brutal SOB in the realm, slaughtering all opposition, often by torturous means, as a deterrent to would-be rivals. Between the extremes of...(Read Full Post)