DEMOCRACY

Have you ever heard of planet Kharistan? Don't be fooled by the name! There are no donkeys in Kharistan. I doubt it anyway. I just recently heard about the existence of this very interesting planet. And amazingly it is also populated. Populated, not by aliens, but by human beings who somehow managed to reach this planet no farther than 1.000503108 trillion light years away.

Or maybe it was the other way around and some of them reached planet earth! They mostly have dark skin but not too dark, dark hair, and some are also quite European-looking, almost blond, all of Caucasian race, with almost commonly large ugly noses, pretty much like average Iranians. These Kharistanis may have just left the Middle East, and most likely the Iranian plateau at some point.

Their traditions and language, or languages, are not known yet. The istan at the end of the name of their planet was the first hint where they may have come from; the Iranian plateau. Their looks didn't hide much either about their possible origins. All this isn't so much interesting anyway, especially for Iranians to read.

But one thing that is incredible is the Kharistani political system. The people of Kharistan have one chosen ruler whom they call the big khar. Again, don't be fooled by the name! He or she is neither a donkey nor a direct descendant of an Iranian Turk. Or at least that's what we know. None of the Kharistani citizens know, or care to know, about planet earth, let alone Iran.

What is amazing about the people of Kharistan is the way they choose their big khar, their ruler. The Kharistanis are extremely lazy, but also pragmatic, people. They don't read the news on printed papers, they don't much watch the news on TV, and they don't much like voting. This resemblance to the population of the Middle East, or Iran, is just another interesting coincidence.

However the Kharistanis have one extraordinary quality that the peoples of the Middle East on planet earth clearly lack. It may be because of the air in Kharistan that has much less gas, gases of all kinds. This interesting quality of the Kharistani people is that they neither dream at night nor during daylight, unlike the peoples of the Middle East who dream virgins at night and democracy during daylight. It is maybe this incredible natural trait that has created the right atmosphere for the Kharistanis to have the amazing political system they enjoy.

You ask, what political system? Kharistanis, being aware of their laziness to watch political debates on TV, or read anything serious on their newspapers (in case we can call them newspapers) about their politicians in order to make their minds about them, or even making the effort to go and cast their votes for their preferred candidates, have devised a political system that suites them best.

By the way, the only things Kharistanis watch, read, or talk about after, or even very often during, work, is the likes of Kharis Hilton (a relatively ugly but rare blond Kharistani girl) and her sex tapes on the Internet (yes, they have lots of earthly inventions like the Internet, don't ask me how and why) and a very interesting sport called football. Kharistanis also have many other things they like; casinos, sandwiches, French fries, beer, video games, porn and the list can go on. And they don't use condoms. That's what they claim anyway.

Okay, let's not prolong it further and talk about the political system of the Kharistanis. Kharistanis make a public auction for the big khar seat once every five years and whoever pays most to each voter, directly to their bank accounts, wins the seat and becomes the big khar. People usually get to know about the elected big khar after they receive their bank statement and see where the money for their vote has come from. It is simple. Kharistanis sell their vote to the highest bidder, and everything is made electronic so that they do not waste their time any more.

The big khar who wins the leadership role of Kharistan planet risks his wealth not for fame, because he can never convince any watched TV channel or even any large website to waste their precious space for something nobody cares about. The big khar pays for the votes simply for a commercial purpose. For his investment he is granted the treasury. The only condition is that he cannot borrow. He gets an empty treasury and he will definitely leave an empty one. He does his best to take as much aggregate (total) tax as he can in order to recuperate his initial investment, plus a profit he may have wished for, or a loss that he may incur. He can raise taxes if he wants risking mass tax-evasion, or he can reduce taxes, hoping for more prosperous economy so he can get an aggregate surplus from taxes.

Don't under-estimate the Kharistanis! Another incredible resemblance of the Kharistanis to Iranians is their talent for tax-evasion. They have the lowest taxes compared to any country on planet earth. Many big khars, during the tumultuous history of planet Kharistan, tried to raise taxes hoping to make big profits and due to immediately-devised intelligent ways of tax evasion Kharistanis stopped even paying what they used to pay before and those big khars very often went bankrupt.

One big khar actually committed suicide and Kharistani citizens woke up selling their votes two years ahead of schedule. They were happy, but somehow sad for the dead man, though his name can hardly be found anywhere, even on wikikhari.org. And the trend is to have lower and lower taxes simply for its logic of having proved to be more profiable for any big khar. The job of the big khar has actually become so uninteresting some rich people are thinking of turning the job into an electronic one, no more wasting precious capital for a not-so-profitable occupation. Last time someone claimed to be the big khar of the time in a party of the rich and powerful in Kharistan he was immediately thrown out of the party.

Big khars are no more among the richest in Kharistan. It was said that the current big khar contacted Miss Hilton to be her partner for her next sex tape, to make some quick cash from some tabloid magazines. His calls were never answered because neither Miss Hilton nor her manager never understood who the caller was, because they never read the smaller sums on their bank statements.

Votes are not so expensive any more, especially considering someone wealthy and famous like Miss Hilton. Any Kharistani citizen contacted agreed to sell his or her vote to Mr Ahmadinejad for 0.5 cents above the best bid and they did not care about Mr Ahmadinejad's political orientations, or even that he came from another planet.

But after having seen his picture, and especially his nose, a very large Kharistani newspaper and media corporation accepted to offer a much more profitable job for the right to use Mr Ahmadinejad's picture taken once a weak, to present the weather on the cartoons section of one of their less successful newspapers, hoping for a readership revival. Kharistanis asked whether they cared about nuclear weapons, or having a big khar wishing to develop dangerous weapons, laughed so much very few of them were able to answer the question. One who did succeed to answer the question said "What? Where is he going to get that much money? Our big khars hardly afford buying themselves a second-hand limousine."