For this week’s fun poll, we explore the question of forms of government. Again we owe inspiration to @iptaylor with his post 10 year old drag queen poses with nude drag star
So without further ado, here are your choices:
0 voters
I was too hasty and clicked “monarchy” without really reading the rest. 
Can I specify which king? LOL
I could be persuaded to vote for a monarchy but that’s only because it has a sort of nostalgic, sentimental appeal that would seem “cool.”
Ha. Me too.
@tbbayly, I want to know what “other” I missed in my list that you were voting for. 
I wanted to vote but had no idea which I preferred, and you hadn’t included a “don’t know” option. Whatever the structure, subsidiarity.
I didn’t know there were so many Loyalists still around. lol
56% for monarchy? Some of these cavaliers have awfully round heads!
Haha, I’m surprised as well. Although, I would have supported the institution of America if I had been there despite my preference for monarchy. The American system was an amazing thing while it lasted. But in retrospect a few things degraded us that would not have necessarily degraded a monarchy. Specifically, slavery / the civil war, followed by bad immigration.
It seems as if government, being made up of fallen humans, is doomed to fail us no matter the form.
Which is the reason for subsidiarity…
Couldn’t agree more…The mayor of Rhinelander, after winning the mayorship as a write-in last fall, started attending our church and came to the Lord. We’ve been discussing this. He needs to take more weight on our local government and learn to resist those above him. Instead, local government has been trained, like a fledgling, baby-bird, to constantly squawk, with beak wide-open, for money from the state and federal levels.
Other explained: Structurally, I’m in favor of a Democratic Republic in an anti-federalist sense, strong local, weak central. I put other because I’m not sure what Theocracy as an individual choice means. What structure is that? Church over state?
If simply, “God over state”, then I’m for theocratic, democratic republicanism.
I would have taken republicanism to presuppose subsidiarity, though I suppose that’s just because I’m young and idealistic or something ;p The point of republicanism, surely, should be to enable a pathway for truly significant rulership decisions to work their way up the chain, while everything else is taken care of at the lower levels.
I got curious about this, and found this interesting distinction between republic vs democracy:
The key difference between a democracy and a republic lies in the limits placed on government by the law, which has implications for minority rights. Both forms of government tend to use a representational system — i.e., citizens vote to elect politicians to represent their interests and form the government. In a republic, a constitution or charter of rights protects certain inalienable rights that cannot be taken away by the government, even if it has been elected by a majority of voters. In a “pure democracy,” the majority is not restrained in this way and can impose its will on the minority.
I’m not as educated in this area as I wish I was. But from what I’m reading, a republic is no more subsidiary in nature than a representative democracy.
Interesting.
Next time, make sure you include an option for patriarchal subsidiary republicanism 
Actually, I guess a republic, in some sense is an example of not subsidiarity, but the converse—a limit being placed on government, but from above.
An old roommate once shared this quote with me, by Geoff and Vince Graham, “I am, at the Fed level, libertarian; at the state level, Republican; at the local level, Democrat; and at the family and friends level, a socialist.” And perhaps at the global level, Anarchy?
It summed up a lot of what I had long been trying to put together myself. Early America was more like this, no? No need to have a uniform government throughout the hierarchy.
As pastor @tbbayly said: whatever form, it must include a strict adherence to subsidiarity. Republicanism doesn’t necessarily implement subsidiarity. Subsidiarity is a more organic and vertical mechanism, whereas republicanism enforces checks and balances horizontally by having a mixture of monarchy, aristocracy (or oligarchy as we call it now), and democracy. The point is to offset the weaknesses inherent to each system. While I think that the ideal form would be rule by a good king, as Aquinas puts it… we know that won’t happen on earth til Christ returns. So, in the meantime in the civil realm, I see a republican form as the wisest.
I’d like to see a confederation of small states; at the central level it would be republican, leaning more heavily toward monarchy, but strictly minarchist. At the state and local level the weight could shift more toward aristocracy or democracy… but only as long as subsidiarity is being held to, emphasizing the household as the foundation, and with a proper understanding of the role of civil government as protecting borders and punishing criminals (and that’s it).
Are you saying that the need for checks and balances implies unacceptable problems in the system?
We need things like checks and balances to deal with imperfect systems/people. The only seemingly perfect system wouldn’t include humans. And we don’t want that. We have to always have some allowance or level of toleration for bad people, corruption, immature Christians, simple disagreement. An example is the tension often present here in Sanityville, because we are purposely wanting to grow and to challenge each other. And allowing jaywalkers, and allowing some rich men to hoard their wealth. Allowing pot smokers 
I am seeing here that horizontalness is problematic, which makes sense. It’s where we break from clear authority. So a man and wife in proper position requires less internal tie-breaking, less external arbitration. An attempt at egalitarian marriage is self cursed. It’s a mess when our government’s checks and balances are exercised. It’s much cleaner when problems are appealed to a higher authority. Marriages which try to be properly structured become one of a variety of nightmares when the protection and care from the Church are not above it.
Even if “egalitarian” marriages statistically showed less abuse of some sort, it wouldn’t be an affront to patriarchy, because proper patriarchy includes the safeguards of subsidiarity. (Thanks for the new word)
So where does the Church sit in relation to government? Wouldn’t the right place for the Church be some sort of horizontalness, interacting at various levels. Or is the Church really only acting outside it’s sphere through its people who are directly included in other spheres?
Precisely what needs to happen with denominations. Confederation of small presbyteries with all of them united in repudiating any nationalistic aspirations.