A Disturbing Comment

I have a regular barber. I've been going to this guy for over 10 years because he knows how I like to have what little remains of my hair cut: Short, simple, and hassle-free.

He also charges a reasonable price.

However, at my last haircut a couple days ago, our attention was drawn to a national news program, which was discussing--big surprise--the downgrading of the credit rating of the United States.

An aside: The fact that these banks, most of whom received billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money to bail them out during the last financial crisis, had the gall to downgrade the U.S. credit rating, really grinds my gears. But that's another story for another time.

At any rate, my barber, watching how screwed up our political system is, remarked that he wished there was simply one person who controlled the government and made the decisions for everybody.

The fact that this man, who is old enough to know better, would make a comment like that, disturbs me.

I immediately reminded him about what happened in Germany in the 1930's. He seemed to remember this, and reconsider his opinion.

I was reminded of the quote by Winston Churchill: "The best argument against Democracy is a 5 minute conversation with the average voter."

Case in point.

Of course, Churchill also said: "Democracy is the worst form of government--except for all the others that have been tried."

We're stuck with what we've got. It isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but until and unless someone comes up with something better--and many have tried and failed--we're going to have to stick with it.