Good Morning, mk

As promised, I read the material on the "Anarchism and Direct Democracy" forum you mentioned. If you saw a similarity between a method of selecting our representatives FROM the people rather than FOR the people and elements of anarchy, I suspect it's because in the realm of political thought some themes are inescapably common.

Nevertheless, I'm glad I went there because it reminded me of my antipathy for the mindlessness of political sects. Under the circumstances, it might be important to offer a little insight into why I put so much thought into raising better people to positions of leadership in our government.

I'm 78 years old. I've read and heard about all manner of schemes "to make the world safe for democracy" and seen more "-isms" than I can count ... capitalism, fascism, anarchism, socialism, feminism, communism. Every single one of them is a search for power. Not one is concerned with providing better government for the people.

Among the things I learned as I watched the gradual degradation of my homeland is that no government can be better than the people who lead it. Morality is a top-down phenomenon; it flows downward from our leaders. Until we learn to select the best of our people as our leaders ... rather than the most base, as we do now ... our society can not improve.

Instead of looking for a doctrine that might create a better world for the humans among us, I started pondering why bad things happened in my country. Slowly, very slowly, I came to understand that bad things happen because the people we entrust with our government are not trustworthy. Thereafter, and even more slowly, I considered methods of finding trustworthy people for positions of leadership in our government.

You may or may not agree with my conclusions, but you can be sure they are not in service of any doctrine except the selection of better people to be our public servants.

Fred