LogicallyRight Loc: Chicago

Some good points.

But I would like to note that Democracy is government by a bully majority. If there are no limits to their power, like minority rights, it becomes evil.

Another point. In my entire life I don't think I have ever had a U. S. Representative or a state Representative that ever represented my interests, Usually they have only represented a party I find offensive, and destructive to all the good America could be.

There are ways we could correct some of those failures to a Democratic system. Meanwhile, we need to concentrate on being a Constitutional Representative Republic and not a democracy with all of its evils.

LogicallyRight Loc: Chicago

Wrong again. Unlimited democracy is government of majority bullies.

LogicallyRight Loc: Chicago

But it would be a good start.

LogicallyRight Loc: Chicago

***That's the other problem with America and democracy today - the fact that too many of us don't actually vote on the issue but on the party line instead. That's lazy. Do the research on the issue or don't vote. People who keep voting for the tribe are eventually going to be exploited and they won't even know it.
>>>Well said. Agree.

Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

You should read that again.

Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

Nope.
All must agree to the will of the majority.
The consensus of what most want.
Not whining and crying every time your dude loses ,
Trying to overthrow a valid government .
Losers can be angry. They cannot behave like little bitch babies.
The idea is that they can work harder strengthening voting population to become a majority.
Catering to the will of the majority and not the minority.
It’s a terrible system , if you’re not willing to accept the will of the majority .
In which case you should not be allowed to vote.
This is the system
Love it or leave it.

Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

Here’s the thing .
The majority never votes to make things worse for the majority .
So , even the minority still benefits .
It isn’t like they’re not getting anything.
They’re getting the same as everyone else.

archie bunker Loc: Texas

You're right. And, with your side in the majority, we're all taking it up the ass.

straightUp Loc: California

Well, let's start with the fact that democracy is NOT a proper noun so you don't need to capitalize it. That means you can relax it's a universal concept going back thousands of years not some extension of the American Democratic Party, nor does it have to be a government by a bully majority. In fact, every major democracy in the world today, from the U.S. to Iran is a representative government who's power is limited by a constitution. The idea that a democracy can only be direct is yet another attempt by propagandists to sway people into abandoning their power.


That means one of two things... Either most of the people who share your district disagree with your views, or the people in your district suck at choosing a representative.


That would suggest that most people in your district don't agree with you on that either.


Since the ONLY purpose of democracy is to allow the people to vote it's hard to imagine what failure could possibly exist. Failure to do what? If laws are determined by a vote, democracy is working, if laws are NOT determined by a vote, it's not a democracy.


Republics and democracies are NOT mutually exclusive. In fact its impossible to have a republic without democracy. A republic is ANY form of government that isn't a monarchy. A monarchy is a government by one, so there is no need to count votes. A republic is a government by the more than one so votes are counted. A constitution is a set of rules to limit what the government can do.

The idea that republics and democracies are incompatible stems from rhetoric aimed at lesser-educated people who don't understand the concepts but might notice that Republican sounds like republic and Democrat sounds like democracy. This helps convince Republican voters to accept the destruction of democracy as a political victory rather than the sacrifice of their own power.

straightUp Loc: California

Last I checked the Republicans have the majority in the House of Representatives, which explains why nothing is getting done and they can't even figure out how to keep the government funded.

straightUp Loc: California

Exactly! In a perfect world, everyone would be happy. But we don't live in a perfect world, so only some people are going to be happy. For the past two thousand years at least, the most fair option anyone has been able to come up with is to make as many people happy as possible, that means giving the green light to the majority.

You're 100% correct - this *IS* the system. People need to get over it or move to some place where they can find a democratic majority or a tyranny that actually agrees with them.

Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

Go ahead , cry with cake in both hands.

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Nope, and neither could our founders.

"Remember. democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.
There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
John Adams

"Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death."
James Madison

"The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived."
John Quincy Adams

"If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.
Samuel Adams

"When the representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their hands, then indeed their continuing in office becomes dangerous to the state."
Thomas Jefferson

"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
Thomas Jefferson


James Madison, Property
29 Mar. 1792 Papers 14:266--68

This term in its particular application means "that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual."

In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.

In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandize, or money is called his property.

In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.

He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.

He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the same, tho' from an opposite cause.

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.

According to this standard of merit, the praise of affording a just securing to property, should be sparingly bestowed on a government which, however scrupulously guarding the possessions of individuals, does not protect them in the enjoyment and communication of their opinions, in which they have an equal, and in the estimation of some, a more valuable property.

More sparingly should this praise be allowed to a government, where a man's religious rights are violated by penalties, or fettered by tests, or taxed by a hierarchy. Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man's house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man's conscience which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection, for which the public faith is pledged, by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest. A magistrate issuing his warrants to a press gang, would be in his proper functions in Turkey or Indostan, under appellations proverbial of the most compleat despotism.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring property strictly so called. What must be the spirit of legislation where a manufacturer of linen cloth is forbidden to bury his own child in a linen shroud, in order to favour his neighbour who manufactures woolen cloth; where the manufacturer and wearer of woolen cloth are again forbidden the oeconomical use of buttons of that material, in favor of the manufacturer of buttons of other materials!

A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species: where arbitrary taxes invade the domestic sanctuaries of the rich, and excessive taxes grind the faces of the poor; where the keenness and competitions of want are deemed an insufficient spur to labor, and taxes are again applied, by an unfeeling policy, as another spur; in violation of that sacred property, which Heaven, in decreeing man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, kindly reserved to him, in the small repose that could be spared from the supply of his necessities.

If there be a government then which prides itself in maintaining the inviolability of property; which provides that none shall be taken directly even for public use without indemnification to the owner, and yet directly violates the property which individuals have in their opinions, their religion, their persons, and their faculties; nay more, which indirectly violates their property, in their actual possessions, in the labor that acquires their daily subsistence, and in the hallowed remnant of time which ought to relieve their fatigues and soothe their cares, the influence [inference?] will have been anticipated, that such a government is not a pattern for the United States.

If the United States mean to obtain or deserve the full praise due to wise and just governments, they will equally respect the rights of property, and the property in rights: they will rival the government that most sacredly guards the former; and by repelling its example in violating the latter, will make themselves a pattern to that and all other governments.

Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

The majority is not voting for this .
That’s a ridiculous statement.
It’s gets better for the losers also .
Or would …
If they would only vote yes for something ,
Anything !

America 1 Loc: South Miami

Republic or Democracy?
Classical History, Republican Governing as Adopted by the United States, and the American Revolutionary War
A distinction with a difference to the American Revolution.

People often use the term “democracy” when referring to the United States.
The distinction between a republic, which is technically what we are, and a democracy seems lost on those who intermingle the terms as if they were synonyms.
If you note that we are not a democracy, but a republic, you risk being mocked as strict constructionists overly wedded to technical definitions and unwilling to acknowledge the importance of popular sovereignty and the will of the people in our system.

This is unfortunate, as the question of whether we are a democracy or a republic is an important one, complex, and reliant on clear definitions of words and their use.
Strictly speaking, the United States is a representative Republic, not a democracy. The distinction has a difference. It greatly influenced the American Revolution, and arguably saved the future Republic from ruin in its darkest days.

First, some definitions. Merriam-Webster (MW) defines democracy, a noun, as “a government by the people” characterized by “rule of the majority,” and as “a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.”
This, of course, does a pretty good job of describing what most of us believe our government is. We the People are sovereign, and we exercise that power through elections.
So far so good.

As for “republic” the definition is similar, but with several important additional elements.
Republic is also a noun, meaning (according to MW), “a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president,” and “a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law.”
As for “republic” the definition is similar, but with several important additional elements. Republic is also a noun, meaning (according to MW), “a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president,” and “a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law.”

From these definitions, it is clear why there might be some confusion.
A representative republic uses “democratic means” to manifest the consent of the governed.
We vote for representatives, who vote on measures.
Voting is democracy in action, but that does not make the United States a democracy.
The measures that our representatives vote on are constrained by law and the Constitution.
We do not have pure democracy or “rule by the majority” because we have constitutionally protected rights that cannot be voted away, operate under the rule of law, and have, till recently, limited government with limited powers.
We also have, however, an expanded voting population that is not limited by aristocracy, wealth, property ownership, or gender.
Any citizen, over 18 years of age, can vote. One could say, therefore, that the United States is a democratic representative Republic.
The original text of the United States Constitution never mentions the word democracy, and only mentions republic as a form of government once in Article IV, Section 4 (“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government…”).
Interestingly, that clause refers to the states, and not the federal government itself.
Throughout the text, the founders refer to the United States as the “union” or as the “United States” but never a republic or a democracy.
The Declaration of Independence does not use either term at all.

That said, the structure laid down in the Constitution contains the elements that MW described, including a “chief of state,” and that power lies with a body of “elected officers and representatives” who vote on the laws that govern the nation.
All these officials govern according to law.

That is a Republic, no doubt.

When asked by “Mrs. Powel” upon the passage of the Constitution in 1787 what we had created, Benjamin Franklin famously replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.
https://constitutingamerica.org/90day-fp-republic-or-democracy-classical-history-republican-governing-as-adopted-united-states-american-revolutionary-war-guest-essayist-jay-mcconville/