Democracy, of course, does rely somewhat on the voters making good decisions in the first place. For example, in 1981 the small Californian town of Sunol elected a dog as their mayor.
I'm on vacation. Vacations always end. It's the very fact that it's finite that makes traveling special. You could move to any one of those destinations you loved in small doses, and it wouldn't be the spellbinding, life-altering seven days you spend there as a guest, letting a place into your heart fully, letting it change you.
...he would sometimes stand, barefoot, in the kitchen, everything quiet around him, and the small, ugly apartment would feel like a sort of marvel. Here, time was his, and space was his, and every door could be shut, every window locked.
"You loved knowledge and wherever you went you made sure to build a school, a library ( in both of these places you distorted or erased my history and glorified your own).