"I think a benevolent autocrat might work well."

There's no such animal.

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" That's Lord Acton, I believe. I've seen nothing to make me disagree.

Years ago I read an editorial that Acton was wrong, that in fact power often ennobles. He was talking about Richard Nixon, who had just been elected. He thought being president would make Nixon a better man, but the joke was on him, and all the rest of us, too.

clint