Definitions of Politics (from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000)
1.	(used with a sing. verb) 
a.	“The art or science of government or governing, especially the governing of a political entity, such as a nation, and the administration and control of its internal and external affairs.”
b.	“Political science.”
2.	(used with a sing. or pl. verb) 
a.	“The activities or affairs engaged in by a government, politician, or political party”: “All politics is local” (Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr.). “Politics have appealed to me since I was at Oxford because they are exciting morning, noon, and night” (Jeffrey Archer). 
b.	“The methods or tactics involved in managing a state or government”: The politics of the former regime were rejected by the new government leadership. If the politics of the conservative government now borders on the repressive, what can be expected when the economy falters? 
3.	(used with a sing. or pl. verb) “Political life”: studied law with a view to going into politics; felt that politics was a worthwhile career.
4.	(used with a sing. or pl. verb) “Intrigue or maneuvering within a political unit or group in order to gain control or power”: Partisan politics is often an obstruction to good government. Office politics are often debilitating and counterproductive. 
5.	(used with a sing. or pl. verb)”Political attitudes and positions”: His politics on that issue is his own business. Your politics are clearly more liberal than mine. 
6.	(used with a sing. or pl. verb) “The often internally conflicting interrelationships among people in a society.” 
7.	(A street-level definition: “Who Gets What, When, and How”)

Other important definitions pertaining to governments:
Power: the ability to influence the behavior of others
Influence: the capacity to control and modify the perceptions of others.(I.C. MacMillan)
Political legitimacy: The popular acceptance of a governing regime as an authority.
Political efficacy: Citizens' individual faith and trust in government and their own belief that they can understand and influence political affairs.
Political socialization: How individuals gain their political beliefs.  Comes mostly from parents and educators.
Authority: Who officially holds political power in a country.
Sovereignty: The exclusive right to have complete control over an area of governance, people, or oneself.

Three general types of governments generally exist all over the world.  They are:
Unitary: Where power flows from the top down.
Federal: Where power is divided between a central government and local governments.
Confederal: Where power is almost completely held by local governments in a nation or similar entity.

FEUDALISM:
You have two cows. The lord of the manor takes some of the milk. And all the cream.

PURE SOCIALISM:
You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows.  You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM:
You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers.  The government gives you as much milk and as many eggs as the regulations say you should need.

THE REAL DEFINITIONS OF SOCIALISM: 
1.	Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy. 
2.	The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved. 

FASCISM:
You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.

THE REAL DEFINITIONS OF FASCISM:
1.	A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism. 
2.	A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government. 
3.	Oppressive, dictatorial control. 

PURE COMMUNISM:
You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM:
You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

THE REAL DEFINITIONS OF COMMUNISM:
1.	A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members. 
2.	Communism 
a.	A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people. 
b.	The Marxist-Leninist version of Communist doctrine that advocates the overthrow of capitalism by the revolution of the proletariat. 

DICTATORSHIP:
You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

MILITARISM:
You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

THE REAL DEFINITIONS OF MILITARISM:
1.	Glorification of the ideals of a professional military class. 
2.	Predominance of the armed forces in the administration or policy of the state. 
3.	A policy in which military preparedness is of primary importance to a state. 

PURE DEMOCRACY:
You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY:
You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY:
1.	The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures.  The press dubs the affair "Cowgate". The cows are set free.
2.	You have two cows. The government taxes you to the point you have to sell both to support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow, which was a gift from your government.
•	THE REPUBLICAN PARTY: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So what?
•	THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being successful. You vote people into office who tax your cows, forcing you to sell one to raise money to pay the tax. The people you voted for then take the tax money and buy a cow and give it to your neighbor. You feel righteous.

INDIAN DEMOCRACY:
You have two cows. You worship them.

BRITISH DEMOCRACY:
You have two cows. You feed them sheep brains and they go mad. The government gives you compensation for your diseased cows, compensation for your lost income, a grant not to use your fields for anything else.  And tells the public not to worry.

SINGAPOREAN DEMOCRACY: 
You have two cows. The government fines you for keeping two unlicensed farm animals in an apartment. 

BUREAUCRACY:
You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them.  After that it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

ANARCHY:
You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to kill you and take the cows.

CAPITALISM:
1.	You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
2.	You have two cows. You lay one off, force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when it drops down dead.

HONG KONG CAPITALISM:
You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly-listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows' milk back to the listed company. The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because the Feng Shui is bad.

21st CENTURY CAPITALISM Biotech company genetically engineers Cow v2.0(tm). These cows are bigger, grow faster, are more disease resistant and produce more milk than regular cows ...but they are sterile and die early, so each year you have to buy your replacement Cows from the biotech company. You can only buy Cow v2.0(tm) from the biotech company.

AMERICAN CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead.

FRENCH CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.

JAPANESE CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them world-wide.

GERMAN CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

BRITISH CAPITALISM: You have two cows. They are mad. They die. Pass the shepherd's pie, please.

ITALIAN CAPITALISM: You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You break for lunch.

RUSSIAN CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 12 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

SWISS CAPITALISM: You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You charge others for storing them.

BRAZILIAN CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You enter into a partnership with an American corporation. Soon you have 1000 cows and the American corporation declares bankruptcy. 

CHINESE CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported on them.

ISRAELI CAPITALISM: There are these two Jewish cows, right? They open a milk factory, an ice cream store, and then sell the movie rights. They send their calves to Harvard to become doctors. So, who needs people?

ARKANSAS CAPITALISM: You have two cows. That one on the left is kinda cute. 

ENVIRONMENTALISM:
You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.

FEMINISM
You have two cows. They get married and adopt a veal calf.

LIBERTARIANISM
You have two cows. One has actually read the constitution, believes in it, and has some really good ideas about government. The cow runs for office, and while most people agree that the cow is the best candidate, nobody votes for her because they think it would be throwing their vote away.

OLYMPICS-ISM 
You have two cows, one American, one Chinese. With the help of trilling violins and state of the art montage photography, John Tesh narrates the moving tale of how the American cow overcame the agony of growing up in a suburb with (gasp) divorced parents, then mentions in passing that the Chinese cow was beaten every day by a tyrannical farmer and watched its parents butchered before its eyes. The American cow wins the competition, severely spraining an udder in a gritty performance, and gets a multi-million dollar contract to endorse Wheaties. The Chinese cow is led out of the arena and shot by Chinese government officials, though no one ever hears about it. McDonald's buys the meat and serves it hot and fast at its Beijing restaurant.

AUTHORITARIANISM:
(See Fascism or Dictatorship)

TOTALITARIANISM:
You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed.  Milk is banned.

THE REAL DEFINITION OF TOTALITARIANISM:
Of, relating to, being, or imposing a form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life, the individual is subordinated to the state, and opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed: “A totalitarian regime crushes all autonomous institutions in its drive to seize the human soul” (Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.). 

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS:
You are associated with (the concept of "ownership" is an outdated symbol of your decadent, warmongering, intolerant past) two differently-aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender.

COUNTER CULTURE:
Wow, dude, there's like... these two cows, man. You got to have some of this milk.

SURREALISM:
You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.