 Tell me more about your leaders who is the current leader of your species, and where are they leading you? We don't have just one leader for the whole planet The world is divided into countries and each country has a leader of its own and a government of its own You don't have one government that rules the whole planet No, this planet is really big and there are billions of people on it The world is divided up because people in different places want different kinds of leaders and governments How many countries are there a Couple of hundred I think so there are millions of people per country Yes, or hundreds of millions in some of them and all the people in a country live under one single government There can be layers of government, but there's only one government in each country. That's how it works But you can have multiple governments on the same planet Yes, and it's better that way if you had a single government for the whole planet and it turned tyrannical There'd be nowhere to escape to and no one to oppose it And I wouldn't want to be ruled by a bunch of people living thousands of miles away on the other side of the planet It's better having government more local because then it's more accountable How far is it from here to where the rulers of this country live? The capital of this country is hundreds of miles from here So you don't want to be ruled by a bunch of people living thousands of miles away But you don't mind being ruled by a bunch of people living hundreds of miles away That's just how it is I guess Why don't you and your neighbors set up your own country here so you can keep a close eye on what the individuals acting as your government are doing? I don't think our government would allow us to do that So you have these countries some big and some small and the individuals living in each country Separately choose which people are going to be their politicians and actors government of that country Yes, although not everyone is lucky enough to live in a country where we get to choose our leaders a lot of countries have Kings or dictators or warlords running their government people in undemocratic countries don't get to choose their leaders So you consider yourself lucky because you live under a democratic government where you along with millions of other people Get to vote and whoever gets the highest number of votes becomes leader of the government the gang that tells you what to do and robs you Yes, but there's more to it than that Democracy isn't the only thing that's great about the government of this country In fact democracy itself is not an ideal system at all everyone knows that with a pure democracy the majority rules Because the politicians do whatever the majority of people want them to do and this can be a problem for minorities We know this the real reason why we're lucky in this country is that our government is not a pure democracy But a republic With the Republic minority rights are protected against the tyranny of the majority How? Our rights are listed in our constitution the document that established our government it lays out how government is supposed to work It says what government is allowed to do and what it isn't allowed to do What does it say government is allowed to do? Government is allowed to collect taxes for things like national defense Hold on the Constitution says that government is allowed to collect taxes So it says that the individuals who are acting as government are allowed to rob everyone else using threats of violence Yeah, but only to do good things Where did the Constitution come from? It was written by the founders of this country the people who first set up the government The first politicians of the country Yes So a bunch of regular people just got together and wrote on a piece of paper that they're allowed to rob everyone else As long as they call themselves government and call their robbery taxation Then because they have this special piece of paper Everyone just sits back and lets these guys rob them You're missing the point the founders wrote the Constitution to restrain government They made sure there was a separation of powers so there were checks and balances in the system They did this to strictly limit the power size and scope of government They made a list of things the government can do and must do and everything else the government can't do They even wrote about specific things that the government can't do like violating the inalienable rights of the people To life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness Okay, but I don't see why the piece of paper is so important I mean Hypothetically, what if the majority of the people want government to do something that the Constitution says government shouldn't do Couldn't the people vote in politicians who promise to do it for them regardless of what the Constitution says? How does having your rights listed on an old document help protect your rights today? Well, if the politicians who get voted in want to pass unconstitutional legislation Then the third branch of government the judicial will step in and not let the legislation pass The founders recognized the problem of democracy So they gave us a Supreme Court and their role is to check whether legislation is constitutional or not But the Supreme Court is itself part of the government Yes, politicians get voted into positions in the executive and legislative branches, but the judicial branch is made up of judges So if a majority supports the government violating the rights of a minority the judges of the Supreme Court simply won't let it happen Are these Supreme Court judges just regular humans? Yes So how does a regular human become a Supreme Court judge? They are appointed By who? the politicians But then what is to stop the democratically elected politicians just appointing judges who will allow their popular but unconstitutional legislation to pass Well, they just aren't allowed to do that By who? By the Constitution The piece of paper Yes, I admit. It's not a perfect system. I suppose what you're saying could happen Does the government of this country, which you consider yourself lucky to live under, ever do things its own constitution explicitly forbids? Yeah, a lot of things actually The government is a lot bigger now than it was when the Constitution was written The politicians pay lip service to the Constitution, but they trample over our rights anyway What about the Supreme Court? I guess that system hasn't worked very well lately Government does pass unconstitutional laws all the time The separation of powers worked for a while though. It's not a bad system Powers were separate. I thought you said that the powers were all in branches of the same government Well, yes, the branches of government are totally independent and separate from each other Except that they're all part of the same Organization and all funded by taxation So when you said the system had checks and balances in it, you meant that the government would check itself and balance itself That was the idea So let me get this straight. A long time ago a small bunch of regular humans had a meeting and created a document called a Constitution That said that they can rob everyone else millions of people using threats of violence to make everyone obey their rules and commands But so that the masses of the people would let them get away with this robbery and slavery That small bunch also promised in the same document that there were some things the government would never do And they described a way to structure government so as to restrain it But over time the promises have proven to be worthless The restraints have proven to be useless And government has grown significantly in size power and scope violating more and more of the rights of the people It sounds to me that if the constitution was written to constrain government Then it's been a complete failure Well, the real problem is that people just don't believe in the constitution anymore The constitution only works when people know what it says and why it's important If people just knew that then they wouldn't vote for politicians who violate it An informed populace. That's the only way to really restrain government Wait, you said you feel lucky because this country is a republic not a democracy And a republic has these supposed checks and balances that prevent government from violating people's rights Even when a majority wants to violate the rights of others But now you're telling me a republic can only work if people refrain from electing politicians who will violate the rights of others in the first place That's the same as a democracy We're back to where we started I see your point Is there anywhere on the planet where government is despite the imaginative labels Anything other than a gang of thieves and bullies? But there'd be chaos without government I'm sure that's what they tell you