We could sure use Frederick the Great about now.

I watched a PBS production, Civilization: West, on how the West left Asia in the dust, how North America turned out so well vs SA turning out not so much. It points out that things are going South for the West and Asia is closing fast.

They also had a segment on Fredrick the Great and how he brought progress to Europe vs the fall of the Ottomans due mainly to fundamentalist religion.

It is a 2 part series and they will surely rerun part 1. Part 2 is this weekend I believe.

The point of my title for the post is that I am about ready to stop apologizing for finding the idea of a leader like Frederick an attractive idea.

Fredrick was an agnostic in a time of religious dominance and he promoted religious tolerance and was absolutely brilliant as a leader. He believed that it was his duty to govern honorably and fairly.

Surely we have the ability to train and appoint leaders more effective than our corrupt and cumbersome system. The fact is in our history we have had maybe 4-5 effective elected leaders and in each case they governed more like benevolent despots than the typical potus. I find it hard to believe that we could not live under a system where the right leader serves in the same way we handle supreme court judges.

I have no idea how we would construct a government without a legislative branch, but we probably could take a look at the China system without the totalitarian aspect.