K is for Kakistocracy

I can already hear some of you: "He's at it again, coming up with obscure words so we have to go look things up." Some of you might even be thinking, "What the hell does that mean? Did he make it up? Is it even a word?"

Here's the way it really went down:

I was struggling badly with what word to use today. Nothing that I thought of really moved me to write. I had a couple ideas, but none of them seemed quite "right." So I decided to punt. I googled "words that start with K," and that search led me to a crossword puzzle words page, with a long list of K words.

Some were amusing. Some were silly. Some were complicated. None were right...

...until I saw the words "Kakistocracy" in the list. I'd never seen it before, so I looked it up.

Kakistocracy: government by the worst persons; a form of government in which the least qualified citizens hold office.

They have a special name for our government!

Ok, well, all modern governments, really.

I've said for a very long time that the office of President of the United States is foredoomed: no one who is qualified to do the job would ever take it; no one who would ever take it could ever be qualified.

...so no matter who gets the job, they're a bad fit. They're one of the worst choices, since by definition there are no good ones, no best ones.

Dialing it back, you could really apply that standard to any "public office" which calls for one person, or a few persons, to make sweeping, across-the-board decisions for the people they supposedly represent. In yesterday's blog, I laid out an orderly, organized template by which two bodies of people, be they individuals or countries, could find a common ground and reach the best solution possible.

Sadly, no governing body I know off actually uses any such system. I'm sure I'll catch a lot of hell for saying this, but our voting system is crippled at best, and corrupt at worst, and simply does not work. I'm not going to get into any kind of political rhubarb here- I'm not a political animal, not at all- but the simple fact is that this "system" we live in isn't doing any of us any good, except for those who don't NEED the system's help. This topic has been beaten to death in many other formats and many other mediums, so I won't belabor the point, but there it is.

We live in a Kakistocracy. The worst of us are making the decisions for and ruling over all of us.

Something has to change.