Dear Dr. Boli: I’m a bit bored with the government we have, and I was thinking of swapping it for something shinier. Can you explain the various forms of government? —Sincerely, the Hon. M. Johnson, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

Dear Sir: With pleasure. All the major forms of government have the welfare of the populace as their goal, but they differ in their structure because they differ in their assumptions.

Democracy assumes that the average uneducated yokel is the best judge of what is good for the average uneducated yokel, in spite of clear evidence to the contrary.

Monarchy assumes that the welfare of the people will be best secured by placing all authority in the hands of one person whose sole qualification is having been born to a longer line of inbred imbeciles than anyone else in the country.

Dictatorship assumes that the welfare of the people will be best secured by placing all authority in the hands of one person who lacks the only qualification that monarchs possess.

Aristocracy assumes that the wealthiest and most privileged are also the most virtuous, and must necessarily devote themselves to the welfare of the very people who they know would massacre them and take their wealth and privileges given half a chance.

A republican form of government, such as is guaranteed to the states in the United States Constitution, assumes that the evils of democracy can be avoided by having the average uneducated yokels select other yokels to represent them, and that the evils of monarchy, dictatorship, and aristocracy can be avoided by removing the representative yokels from office just when they have begun to figure out how government works.

Communism assumes that the working classes, the most uneducated of the uneducated yokels, are the repository of all virtue, and that their welfare can best be secured by making the proletariat an absolute dictator, as long as that proletarian dictatorship is vested in an educated middle-class philosopher who definitely will not be replaced by a vicious thug at the earliest opportunity.

Theocracy assumes that God himself will choose his own favorite vicious thug to govern his people.

Anarchy assumes that, left to themselves without the interference of a wicked government, ordinary uneducated yokels will be unrelentingly virtuous and will not begin to slaughter intellectuals indiscriminately, starting with the anarchists.