Before we discuss political systems however it’s helpful to address the confusion that has been spread about the political spectrum many have been led to believe that the political spectrum places groups such as communists on the far left fascists or dictators on the far right and political moderates or centrist in the middle, however, a more accurate political spectrum will show government having zero power on the far right to having 100% power on the far left at the extreme right there are no government the extreme left features total government under such labels as communism socialism Nazism fascism Prince’s potentate’s dictators kings any form of total government those who claim that Nazis and fascists are right-wing never defined their terms this amounts to spreading confusion toward the middle of the political spectrum can be found the type of government limited to its proper role of protecting the rights of the people. so let’s analyze the basic forms of government they are a monarchy or dictatorship ruled by one oligarchy ruled by a few democracies ruled by a majority Republic rule by law and anarchy which is ruled by no one in discussing these five will see that they can be narrowed down to even fewer.

looking first at monarchy or dictatorship this form of government doesn’t really exist in the practical sense it’s always a group that puts one of its members up front a king has his Council of nobles or Earl and every dictator has his bureaucrats or comma czars the men behind the scenes this isn’t ruled by one even though one person may be the visible leader it’s ruled by a group so let’s eliminate monarchy dictatorship because it never truly exists.

Oligarchy which is ruled by a group is the most common form of government in all history and it is the most common form of government today most of the nations of the world are ruled by a powerful few and therefore oligarchy remains at the other end we find anarchy.

Anarchy which means without government some people have looked over history and found that many of its worst crimes were committed by governments so they decided that having no government might be a good idea but this is a mistake because as the ancient Greeks stated without law they can be no freedom our founding fathers agreed and held that some amount of government is a necessary force in any civilized orderly Society in a state of anarchy however everyone has to guard life liberty and property and the lives of family members everyone must be armed and movement is severely restricted because once property has to be protected at all times civilized people have always hired someone to do the guarding a sheriff a police force or some branch of government once law enforcement was in place the people were freer they could leave their property work in the fields and so on ensure the proper amount of government makes everyone freer there are some who advocate anarchy however not because they want no government it’s because they don’t like what they have they use Anarchy as a tool for revolutionary change the condition of anarchy is very much like a vacuum where something rushes in to fill it these calculating anarchists work to break down the existing government with riot and killing looting and terrorism tragically the people living in such chaos often go to those best able to put an end to it and beg them to take over and restore order and who is best able to put an end to the chaos the very people who started it the anarchists who created the problem then create a government run by them in oligarchy where they have total power this is exactly what happened in Russia that led to Lenin taking total power and in Germany where Hitler’s brown shirts created the chaos that brought him to power but anarchy is in a stable form of government it’s a quick transition from something that exists to something desired by the power-hungry it’s a temporary condition and because it isn’t permanent we eliminate it as.

The word democracy comes from two greek words demos meaning people and Crotty’ meaning to rule democracy, therefore, means the rule of the people majority rule this of course sounds good but suppose the majority decides to take away one’s home or business or children obviously there has to be a limit the flaw in democracy is that the majority isn’t restrained if more than half the people can be persuaded to want something in a democracy they rule.

Republic that comes from the Latin res meaning thing and pública meaning public it means the public thing the law a true republic is one where the government is limited by law leaving the people alone America’s founders had a clean slate to write on they could have set up an oligarchy in fact there were some who wanted George Washington to be their king but the founding fathers knew history and they chose to give us the rule of law in a republic not the rule of a majority in a democracy why let’s demonstrate the difference in the setting of the Old West consider a lynch mob in a democracy thirty five horseback riders chase one lone gunman they catch him and they vote thirty-five to one to hang him democracy has triumph and there’s one less gunman to contend with now consider the same scenario in a republic the thirty five horseback riders catch the gunman and vote thirty five to one to hang but the sheriff arrives and he says you can’t kill him he’s got his right to a fair trial so they take the gunman back to town a jury of his peers is selected and they hear the evidence and the defense and they decide if he shall hang does the jury even decide by majority rule no it has to be unanimous or he goes free the rights of the gunman aren’t subject to majority rule but to the law this is the essence of a republic many Americans would be surprised to learn that the word democracy does not appear in the Declaration of Independence or the US Constitution nor does it appear in any of the Constitution’s of the 50 states the founders did everything they could to keep us from having a democracy James Madison rightly known as the father of the Constitution wrote in essay number 10 of the Federalist Papers democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property and have in general but in short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths Alexander Hamilton agreed and he stated we are a republican government real Liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of democracy Samuel Adams a signer of the Declaration of Independence stated democracy never lasts long it soon wastes exhausts and murders itself the founders had good reason to look upon democracy with contempt because they knew that the democracies in the early Greek city-states produced some of the wildest successes of government imaginable in every case they ended up with mob rule than anarchy and finally tyranny under an oligarchy during that period in Greece there was a man named Solon who urged creation of a fixed body of law not subject to majority whims but where the Greeks never adopted Solon’s wise counsel the Romans did based on what they knew of Solon’s laws they created the Twelve Tables of the Roman law and in effect the a republic that limited government power and left the people alone since government was limited the people were free to produce with the understanding that they could keep the fruits of their labor in time Rome became wealthy and the envy of the world in the midst of Plenty however the Roman people forgot what freedom entailed they forgot that the essence of freedom is the proper limitation of government when government power grows people freedom recedes once the Romans dropped their guard power seeking politicians began to exceed the powers granted them in the Roman Constitution some learned that they could elect politicians who would use government power to take property from some and give it to others agriculture subsidies were introduced followed by housing and welfare programs inevitably taxes rose and controls over the private sector were imposed soon a number of Rome’s producers could no longer make ends meet and they went on the dole productivity declines shortages developed and mobs began roaming the streets demanding bread and circuses from the government many were induced to trade freedom for security eventually the whole system came crashing down they went from a republic to a democracy and ended up with an oligarchy under a progression of the Caesars thus democracy itself is not a stable form of government instead it is the gradual transition from limited government to the unlimited rule of an oligarchy knowing this.