henrymidfields

I remember those games on the GBC. Good times.

did you play the NA version or JP version? I heard the Tokay had a gimmick with the -toka suffix that ended up being removed in international versions due to the implications of -toka being translated into a non-Japanese language.

JP version.

I'm doing great in Prague, thanks for asking.

Anyway, my feelings on democracy have softened since I started being a Monarchist, although I still think a benevolent Monarchy where we could avoid evil monarchs with certainty is better than democracy. I think that, on the contrary, intellectual and social elites are in the decline because they messed up. If you look at history, when you have a conflict like this-between populism and the establishment- when the establishment is saying things like "a threat to the Republic" they lose. The cases where the establishment has won- like, for example, in Great Depression USA- has seen them actually make an effort to improve the situation, making Populism lose its appeal. I don't see that happening much at all in the world of today.

It's also a similar case in Japan where the "Lost Two (and still counting) Decades" since the bubble burst of 1991, and the apparent ineptitude of the government to fix the issue of economy (amongst other things) was one big factor in some of the recent swings in the recent elections.

The question would be, then, is to how to safeguard a monarchical government from corruption - which I have to shamelessly admit that I have no hard and fast answer to. And unfortunately, through history, we've seen a lot of cases in how monarchism can also end up being corrupt.

There is no system that's immune to corruption. The issue is that some systems are easier to fix than others. I think Monarchy is easier to fix overall than Republicanism, for 2 reasons. First, in a Republic the system incentivizes selfishness; by portraying power as a reward, and by having a system where people have to want power to get it, you create a very unhealthy view of power. Anyone who would willingly put themselves through all the stress of running an election campaign, and later a country, is pretty likely to have ulterior motives. Since Monarchs inherit their positions, they would likely see power more as a duty; they're still not worthy of power (no one is) but at least since they got it by accident they'd treat it with more respect. Secondly, in order to fix any society you need a consistent plan; when a society is absolutely broken, like America is now, there are a myriad of problems all contributing to each other. Since the US head of state switches every 4 to 8 years, that robs it of the central figure and consistent vision needed to resolve deep seated societal problems.