h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Okay, I'm really being a bit silly myself , but I suppose this is for people who are into anarchy or strictly local control. Actually, I suppose it could also be for people who are into totalitarian regimes as well. I don't know...

...Or for those in favour of a totally federal Europe.
How about it, eh?

Better to be a big voice in a big pond than a small voice in an ocean, surely?

Could a monarch really be a monarch without being totalitarian?

yeah. Echoing my comment from the Monarchy thread, take a look at the Belgian king.

How about Holland, and Sweden? They're monarchs, but the Dutch queen has very little power, and the Swedish king none at all....
I think I kinda like it that way....

Ah the Swedish king is another example. Wasn't he the guy that got done for speeding, or something?
That's what I'm on about, royalty who act like people.

Well - you can have democracy with neither a president or a monarch. Some might argue that it's better because you don't get all the power going to a single person's head - and a number of people in charge means that a number of opinions have to be considered. It also means that a single assasination/insanity/plain crash doesn't throw your entire country into chaos.

That said, left-anarchism has a lot going for it.

There's a lot to be said for this, and in a utopian world people would self govern themselves and there wouldn't be a need for leaders! Some say that this is anarchy - they mite be right!

Anyone want to play monopoly on mayday to hasten this result
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A538463

What about the Belgian King? Proud heir to king Leopold the mercifull?

There he is again, see? King of Belgium.

The proper senatorial system the Romans nicked off the Greeks worked with neither monarch nor president - for a while. Unfortunate how slaves and women were forbidden to vote, though.

The problem with having a system whereby two senators are elected annually (as has been suggested elsewhere on this thread - though can't remember where exactly) is that a) still loads of room for political backstabbing/corruption; and b) the administration couldn't possibly hold togther long enough to do anything. Globalisation is a bugger there. Plus ancient politics was fuelled by bribery...

For an alternative alternative, try my entry.... http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A183935

Nice idea, but I can see where people might start to say "haaaang on a minuuuute!" and start wondering whose paying the electorate of seven...

Sad but true.

The problem with true democracy - i.e. that the people get to decide - is that the people can make just as big a screw up as any politicians can, simply by not having the time to consider all the evidence.

So my suggestion is some sort of random jury service - 200 people, just randomly hauled off for five years (40 people selected each year) with the choice of spending the time in government or in jail if they'd prefer and no political immunity whatsoever afterwards (except that they cannot be selected again). The 200 people can argue among themselves who is the head of state, because bigger electorates almost always go for someone with large amounts of cash backing them up, but they don't have to pick someone if they don't want to.

Of course, this may well be a far worse way of running a country than the British, US, or French systems, but no-ones tried it yet, so who can tell?

Neither is best. I've yet to meet anyone who can tell me what heads od state are for, whether executive or not, whether elected, heriditary, appointed or reincarnated (or chosen by magic swords in stones).

Of course, some might say that a state without a head of state is a kind of republic, like Rome used to be, but that's another matter.

Now, if only the American founding fathers had put in checks against the political parties they thought they could avoid...

Unless you have a republic like the U S where the head of state it also the head of the administration I don't see the point of haveing a head of state as such.
To my way of thinking the person who presides over the upper chamber of the parliament could also be the head of state. In the UK that is the lord chancellor.
That person would have a useful job of work to do and there would not be an army of relatives and hangers on.