Dinner with Guests:
- Melon au Porto (I know I'm not drinking alcohol in July-August but this is eating!)
- St Pierre aux courgettes, tomates et basilic
- Pommes de terres au four
- Fromages
- Fraises, framboises et airelles
They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. We had some Israeli-American friends over for a last dinner (before they return to the US) and one of the topics of conversation was the impact of Trump on the American democratic system. One point of view is that the election of Trump has been a wake up a call to the fact that we cannot take freedom, democracy and liberal values as a given. Thanks to this disastrous election and the resulting policies Americans will realise that their vote actually matters and that disengagement has consequences. I hope that is indeed what will happen but I must say that my initial reaction is more to despair of the democratic system in its current form. If democratic elections can result in a brainless fool being head of state then I'm not sure what is the advantage over the Monarchy. A famous Churchill quote is that "democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time" but I think that is a cop out. If democracy is not working then we need to find a different version rather than just assume that we have somehow arrived at a definitive system.
As a first suggestion I think we should revisit the original Greek democratic system which was based on a lottery. Lets replace elections with lotteries, I'm pretty sure the results could not be worse than our current crop of politicians.
To be continued tomorrow...
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