No one is hurrying you.

DWA: "Your statement brings to mind the concept of "pure democracy", which I believe is just an ideal that may not work very well, except in dry run low consequence elections in high schools."

I write of a spirit of democracy, namely mine, of which I acknowledge you will only have a beginning sense (hopefully one a little enlightened by the page of Authentix Coaches' website on "Authentic Dialogue". I don't know what "pure democracy" means. Do you? You seem to want to presume that it won't work except when apparently it did in your childhood. I feel good that you have had some primitive experience of democracy, and I especially appreciate the humility of your representation of that experience. Perhaps you can lead us forward when you next respond. We don't have to start anywhere except where you are ready.

DWA: "The actuality of possibly selecting out some mature intelligent people (meritocracies?) to lead/control in our better governments is not something I would want to quickly abandon."

That too is good to know. I would like you to know that never have I never once in my life abandoned the idea of rewarding merit. Much as I also believe in equity in BOTH a financial and an emotional sense, I believe that equity cannot be purchased at the expense of abandoning the reward of merit because equity is a concept of relationship requiring people who have dedicated their working hours to being able to reach agreement on when it exists in their relationship, and I cannot see that dedication being initiated except in a structure that values merit by some criteria to which the community/organization/partnership is committed. Authentix Coaches' website has a page devoted to the subject of value disciplines, which is one way one can start a discussion on the subject of merit.

My challenge has been finding people who will not give up on reaching agreement on what merit is in any real-life situation. I confess having met with a lot of egotistical cynicality: behaviours that waste time by claiming that what I want is to be right when there is not a soul in the world who does not want to be right -- for the reason, I believe, that believing one is right frees one from having to think through again one's psychological assumptions in order to maintain equanimity. (The converse is that being wrong is upsetting and exhausting and a psychic space "far away from" equanimity).

Fortunately there is an alternative to thinking in right and wrong terms. It is contributing and assessing attempts to make true statements. Have you thought much about how you might assess how true your own statements are?