On 08/03/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
Authority here derives from the monarch, but is vested in others, and any attempt to exercise power against the will of the people would cause problems.
Historically, *really* pushing it gets your head cut off, which means sensible monarchs get very good at reading the public mood in both the short and long terms.
It took us a couple of hundred years to get the balance right, and it's still changing. But over that entire period, the country remained governable and tolerably well-regulated. Is that so bad? To paraphrase a fellow Englishman, Jimbocracy is the very worst system of government, apart from all the others.
Indeed. We're doing things that have NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE; if we didn't do some *really stupid* things in the process, it'd be a clear case of not being nearly adventurous enough.
- d.