Animal Mother,
I find Democracy best for all situations. The increased gold offsets, for the most part, the costs of maintaining units, and war weariness isn't a big deal as long as you keep your wars short and objective-based (and the objective should not be "total annihilation of enemy civ").
Just my style though.
Wolfshanze,
Not everyone plays with the Fascist mod - for example, I don't
Hospitals are enabled by Sanitation.
-Sev
EDIT: However, if the AI won't listen to your peace overtures and refuses to make peace when you want it (which happens sometimes) consider switching to Communism, but only in an extreme case, and when all your back-up plans have failed.