Would it be terribly rude of me to suggest that maybe Stephen Colbert should run for president. heh-heh, just kidding. P-40, you really should pick up a history book before you make such statements. The fact of the matter is that Democracy starts with ideas first. Our republic is a prime example. The guys who started this country (Franklin, Jefferson etc.) got some of their ideas from guys like Rousseau and Voltaire, just to mention a couple. They wrote pamphletts and essays about the concepts of democracy before anyone picked up a gun. The Boston massacre started as a protest, after all. It was only when then British met their arguments with a gun barrell that the colonists responded in kind. Tyranny, starts with a gun barrel, P-40, and goes nowhere from there. Once again, democracy starts with reason and intelligence, not the gun barrel. Ayn Rand actually put it best, to paraphrase, the choice is simple, you either decide things using reason or you decide things using force. It's one or the other.