When did he stop claiming that? Has he said he isn't claiming this anymore? This is genuinely news to me. I can't see why he would do that.
That sounds more like Trump.
Because he once failed to mention it, he is no longer claiming it? That is not a useful meaning of "no longer claiming it". He mentioned it a bunch the day before.
In the first instance, my objection to the word "acceptable" remains. Going slightly beyond that, the question is a practical one. You couldn't have operated a monarchy that would have scored well on that scale being quoted earlier in the early middle ages. You'd have been conquered or deposed very quickly. The need to have the power to rule, and the balancing off of other powers and forces within and without has to come first before any moral considerations enter into it.
Certainly.
Because I don't believe in a universal moral truth that any particular system of deciding on leaders needs to agree with. There have been many contexts where a perfect democracy would have been terrible. My view on this is practical and will change with circumstances. I think it is very useful to have people believe in a universal moral truth that makes the rules legitimate, but that doesn't mean it is actually true.
Which claims are they?
I wasn't careful in my wording. Which option do you prefer to live in?
As in what system of government? Monarchy, aristocracy, anarcho tyranny?
There was a point where every claim they could find was thrown out there. The last time I heard Trump go on about fraud, it was more drop boxes, ballot harvesting, dirty rolls etc...
Which option of my a/b/c options.
The questions assume a view of the world I do not hold. One could live in an entirely legally constituted hell hole that offended ones every moral fibre, or live in a far less law governed society that was quite pleasant. There is no answer to the question as you have formulated it. It is a meaningless, abstract question to me.
I'm well aware of that, apart from China... I don't recall that coming up a year ago. The company and the machines do not seem very good, but I don't think that it is a very fruitful line of enquiry.
I've given you my political preferences multiple times already, just not at the abstract deracinated level that you want them. I think societies are better when they have some kind of positive shared national story and positive idea of national purpose that almost everybody buys into. If you can't do that, I think you are in a world of trouble. I think the family is the bedrock of society and that for societies to function, families have to function. I think the individual has replaced the family as the basic social unit to a degree that undermines society. Just like with a family, I think there are more important things to the happiness of its members than how democratic it is. I think democracy is largely a shell game. I think the 17th amendment was unfortunate because it meant that senators were no longer answerable to people who had a clue about what they were up to or how the grift worked and hence further centralised power. I think there are dark days ahead. I think getting concerned about whether or not your vote counts the same as somebody else is just fiddling while Rome burns. It might have been a meaningful question 150 years ago, but not now. What I care about is basically an onion that has my family at the center and goes out from there to the wider culture, community, and eventually nation my family is part of and the chain of all that going into the past. Right now it's looking pretty ******. Pretty standard stuff.