DD Support Board and Research Team

[janice shell]

I disagree about monarchs. If you think about it, there haven't been many outstanding ones. Many just aren't all that smart; the best one can hope is that they have a sense of duty. Many are also expansionist, and that means war. Some are crazy. Consider, if you will, the Julio-Claudian dynasty in Rome.

The only good thing about kings, really, is that in these days of constitutional monarchies they tend to be unifying figures in difficult times.

As for me, though, my hero is what it's now fashionable to call the Deep State. the Roman Empire didn't succeed because it had brilliant emperors; it succeeded because it had a very efficient bureaucracy. Same goes for the British Empire.