Democracy, and Government as a service.

Here are some thoughts on government.

1. One of the key developments of modern government is the definition of the role of the government as a lowly provider of service to the people.

That said, loyalty to the government should only go so far as that government is acting in the best interests of its people.

2. Democracy is the tool by which the populace expresses its opinions. A perfect democracy wouldn't have Representatives, it would simply defer all the decision making to the public. In the modern era, this would really be possible using the Internet. The main problem with this is that the public is often wrong. Ultimately, we end up with a conflict between expertise, and good intentions. That means, that if we leave the decision making up to the public, we'll often end up making unwise decisions. However, if we give experts unequal weight in the decision making, we increase the risk of corruption.

In the end, it seems that there must be some sort of compromise, or combination of the two.