The most efficient and effective form of government is totalitarian dictatorship.  In such a system, things get done.  No time is wasted on the niceties of debate and protest.  The order is given, the minions obey, and the trains run on time.  Roads and bridges get built.  So also do the prisons, which are filled to overflowing, and also the graveyards.

Fortunately, our nation emerged from its roots in monarchy and, albeit imperfectly, developed a constitutional governing philosophy founded in individual rights and personal liberty.  That imperfect system is infinitely better than the brutal governments in North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela, among many others.

With such a powerful, enlightened, and practical method of self-government, one might suppose that it would be spectacularly successful.  Alas, reality can disappoint.  Indeed, our Founders were not entirely optimistic.  As the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, a Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"  With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."

That has turned out to be a very big "if."  While the republic remains strong, after having weathered wars both civil and worldwide, its feet of clay have come under severe attack by corrupt politicians, malicious activists, and greedy special interests, including corporations.  At times, one is reminded of the saying that the craziest inmates have taken control of the asylum and at other times that the barbarians have crashed through the gates.

Thus, we have the Orwellian specter of illegal aliens demanding that we change our laws to accommodate them.  Muslim immigrants who hate and reject our founding values seek to impose their will upon us.  Large swaths of our population are utterly dependent on taxpayer largesse and continually demand even more.  Courts have invented rights that the Founders would have recognized as toxic to society, including the celebration of sexual perversions of seemingly every stripe.

It becomes ever more difficult to maintain faith in the American people, especially when vast numbers of them are not American at all, but are instead foreigners, imported to undermine America.  So-called news organizations have become, openly and blatantly, propaganda ministries for the social left, not only fabricating stories to discredit our values, but carefully concealing all news that upholds those values.

History has shown that when a nation is foundering, abandoning its principles, and instead seeking bread and circuses, there will be created a power vacuum.  Into that vacuum will step the strongest of the strong, a leader without moral qualm, who will stop at nothing to gain, exercise, and keep power, crushing all signs of resistance.

Don't take my word alone for it.  Again quoting Franklin, "[o]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom.  As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."

We cannot hope to avoid the grisly fate of nations that chose dictatorship, not unless we turn to a power far greater than our own.

"[W]ithout His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel; we shall be divided by our little partial, local interests, our projects will be confounded and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword down to future ages. And, what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing government by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war, or conquest."  –Benjamin Franklin