It's like debating a man hiding under a desk.
The republican movement's principal proponent of the very difficult-to-argue proposition that republics perform better than constitutional monarchies continues to insist on his anonymity.
“Publius”, in his anonymity, is both condescending and patronising.
Better I suppose than being called – as I am on the ARM media director's site – a “permatanned Indonsesian-born blow-in”.
…UN Human Development Index…
In the event it is very clear that constitutional monarchies perform better than republics. The Human Development Index of United Nations has demonstrated this for over two decades.
The HDI measures performance in terms of health, wealth and education.
Publius slams the index as one ridiculed by economists. It is not. True, some aspects of it are challenged. But it remains highly regarded.
…conclusions….
We can draw the following conclusions.
First, in almost all indices measuring the performance of the nations, constitutional monarchies usually dominate. Moreover they are almost always disproportionately represented in the top echelons of just about any index
Second, while the UN HDI may not be perfect, it remains the best tool for the measurement of the performance of the nations.
Third, the leading seven oldest continuing democracies are Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Notwithstanding the curious devotion Publius has for the microstate of San Marino, that just does not fall into this category.
Of these seven, two are republics and five are constitutional monarchies, four of which have Elizabeth II as their Queen.
Fourth, the only constitutional model which has been exported successfully – and which has performed well over an extended period of time – is constitutional monarchy along the lines of the Westminster system.
Its success can be seen across Europe, across the Commonwealth, and in selected Asian countries and Arab countries.
When such a constitutional monarchy has been overthrown, the result too often has been a serious deterioration in the quality of governance.
Egypt is one example, Iraq a more egregious one. Similar examples may be seen in Eastern Europe.
The evidence, my dear anonymous republican, confirms beyond any reasonable doubt that constitutional monarchies perform better than republics.
[ Written on 9 May 2011; witheld because of other issues on the site. ]