The left has always thought that individual freedom was a mistake. They are becoming more brazen in saying so openly as collectivism is more explicitly accepted.

When reality is what it is and Mathews can use his utopian speculation of an alternative, he wins the argument, hands down.

Mr. Mathews says it's good news indeed that "government spending in parliamentary countries is about 5 percent of GDP higher, after controlling for other factors, than in presidential countries." That's a good thing!???

He says it would have been better for people who didn't get the right to vote because without a revolution, they wouldn't have been singled out for disenfranchisement. I say respecting some people's rights was a great step in the right direction that paved the way for respecting everyone, even people who are in some unpopular minority group.

It says it's easier for a parliamentary country to take action, e.g. implement a carbon tax. As much as a I'd like to see carbon taxed, it also makes it easier for gov't take other actions.

It also says the slave owners would have been a smaller percentage of a larger gov't, so the majority would have forced them to abolish slavery earlier. That's good, but it cuts both ways. Being a smaller percentage of the gov't means it's harder to accomplish good things too. Thomas Jefferson wrote about states and even neighborhoods experimenting with different systems of gov't. I think he was completely right about this and people who crave a strong distant central gov't are wrong.