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What does this mean: "America is a republic not a democracy"?
    #14764278 - 07/13/11 07:03 PM (12 years, 7 months ago)

I've brought up before that America is a democracy to people and some have said "America is a republic not a democracy". ANd I said well whats a republic, and they said something about a constitution. And I said "can't democracies have constitutions too". And I really didn't get a straight answer.

When people insist America is a republic what are they insisting on? When I say democracy I just mean people can vote for politicians, people can write letters to them, and people can set up lobby groups. And we have this situation in America.

Maybe America is both a republic and a democracy? I have heard before that republic just means you don't have a monarchy and we don't have one of those.


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InvisiblePrisoner#1
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Re: What does this mean: "America is a republic not a democracy"? [Re: lines]
    #14764380 - 07/13/11 07:26 PM (12 years, 7 months ago)

a republic is a form of democracy in which a small portion maintains
government, a democracy would have us all being a part of government
in that we'd all vote on laws being passed instead of just those we
elect to represent us


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Offlineimachavel
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Re: What does this mean: "America is a republic not a democracy"? [Re: Prisoner#1]
    #14766208 - 07/14/11 02:42 AM (12 years, 7 months ago)

:laugh2:

yeah it works like that. but in which country?  :lmafo:


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OfflineSeussA
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Re: What does this mean: "America is a republic not a democracy"? [Re: lines]
    #14766365 - 07/14/11 05:02 AM (12 years, 7 months ago)

> Maybe America is both a republic and a democracy?

The problem with "democracy" is the word has several flavors depending upon context.  A pure democracy is one where every citizen participates in the government and votes on every issue.  There are a lot of problems with pure democracies.  The biggest problem is that the voice of minorities are insignificant and will never be heard.

There are also representative democracies.  In this system, the citizens vote on a small group of people to represent the population.  The small group of elected officials then run the government.

The primary other types of democracies include consensus democracy and deliberative democracy.

A republic is simply a government that has a head of state (president, king, etc), but is not hereditary.

The United States is both a republic and a representative democracy.


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Re: What does this mean: "America is a republic not a democracy"? [Re: Seuss]
    #14768593 - 07/14/11 04:33 PM (12 years, 7 months ago)

IN this internet age theoretically everyone could vote on every issue easily, the only problem would be setting up a system that would ensure voting fraud didn't happen.


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OfflineSeussA
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Re: What does this mean: "America is a republic not a democracy"? [Re: lines]
    #14768628 - 07/14/11 04:44 PM (12 years, 7 months ago)

> IN this internet age theoretically everyone could vote on every issue easily, the only problem would be setting up a system that would ensure voting fraud didn't happen.

Except for the 20% of US citizens without internet access.


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Re: What does this mean: "America is a republic not a democracy"? [Re: Seuss]
    #14769055 - 07/14/11 06:21 PM (12 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Seuss said:
> IN this internet age theoretically everyone could vote on every issue easily, the only problem would be setting up a system that would ensure voting fraud didn't happen.

Except for the 20% of US citizens without internet access.




People can go to the library to use the internet if they don't have it at home.


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OfflineChuangTzu
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Re: What does this mean: "America is a republic not a democracy"? [Re: lines]
    #14769081 - 07/14/11 06:25 PM (12 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

lines said:
Quote:

Seuss said:
> IN this internet age theoretically everyone could vote on every issue easily, the only problem would be setting up a system that would ensure voting fraud didn't happen.

Except for the 20% of US citizens without internet access.




People can go to the library to use the internet if they don't have it at home.




They're going to go to the library to vote on every single thing that gets voted on?  I agree that there should be a lot less shit being voted on, but how could you effectively limit the number of proposed bills to a reasonable amount that everyone could participate in?  Could anyone propose bills?  If so, nobody would be able to read even a tiny percent of proposed bills...


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Re: What does this mean: "America is a republic not a democracy"? [Re: ChuangTzu]
    #14769205 - 07/14/11 06:56 PM (12 years, 7 months ago)

Well it's likely not everyone would vote on everything all the time but everyone would have the option of voting on every bill. And that would effectively give power to the people, again the only problem I see is hackers causing voter fraud. I'm not sure if that is avoidable but I would say it's worth the risk.


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Re: What does this mean: "America is a republic not a democracy"? [Re: lines]
    #14769221 - 07/14/11 06:58 PM (12 years, 7 months ago)



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OnlineSirTripAlot
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Re: What does this mean: "America is a republic not a democracy"? [Re: lines]
    #14769636 - 07/14/11 08:38 PM (12 years, 7 months ago)

.....also known as mob rule


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Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
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Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”


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OfflineSeussA
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Re: What does this mean: "America is a republic not a democracy"? [Re: lines]
    #14771008 - 07/15/11 04:21 AM (12 years, 7 months ago)

> People can go to the library to use the internet if they don't have it at home.

A lot of those people without internet are in rural areas... you know, the farmers that produce the food you eat... and can't easily ignore their job to drive 50 miles to the nearest library to vote a few times a week.  Beyond the access rules, given the :tinfoil: horrors associated with electronic voting machines, do you really think people are going to trust internet voting?  Even if the internet voting machines are safe, I can see a huge market for malware that alters outgoing votes being sent from people's computers back to the server.

> .....also known as mob rule

Which is what I said in my first post.  Pure democracies suck because the voice of the minority is insignificant.


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InvisibleAdden
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Re: What does this mean: "America is a republic not a democracy"? [Re: Seuss]
    #14772414 - 07/15/11 12:14 PM (12 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Seuss said:
The problem with "democracy" is the word has several flavors depending upon context.  A pure democracy is one where every citizen participates in the government and votes on every issue.  There are a lot of problems with pure democracies.  The biggest problem is that the voice of minorities are insignificant and will never be heard.

There are also representative democracies.  In this system, the citizens vote on a small group of people to represent the population.  The small group of elected officials then run the government.

The primary other types of democracies include consensus democracy and deliberative democracy.

A republic is simply a government that has a head of state (president, king, etc), but is not hereditary.

The United States is both a republic and a representative democracy.





No one believes me when I say this.

:facepalm:


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InvisibleAnnapurna1
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Re: What does this mean: "America is a republic not a democracy"? [Re: Adden]
    #14773146 - 07/15/11 02:21 PM (12 years, 7 months ago)

it means "america is a plutocracy not a democracy"...


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Offlinetripstr
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Re: What does this mean: "America is a republic not a democracy"? [Re: SirTripAlot]
    #14774572 - 07/15/11 07:46 PM (12 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

SirTripAlot said:
.....also known as mob rule





I was about to bring this up, a democracy is pretty much a mob rule, in that the majority always wins. The United States is a constitutional Republic, although the government doesn't care to follow the constitution anymore we are turning into a socialistic corporate elitist imperial dictatorship?


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Offlinecommuneart
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Re: What does this mean: "America is a republic not a democracy"? [Re: tripstr]
    #14778510 - 07/16/11 06:00 PM (12 years, 7 months ago)

There is a few difference, from the little i know is that as a concept, the republic is little bit more authoritarian than a democracy. in a republic, the president is elected and is thus his will is respected. in a democracy, there tends to be more respect to the will of the people. For example, in quebec a few years ago there was a condo project around a protected natural site, it was overturned because of public opposition. In both a republic and a democracy it is possible that popular will prevail over that of the leader , since they both are supposed to be the expression of that popular will anyway. but a democracy is considered more instable as those overturn happen more often. People over here seem to live in a republic, as they believe in a democracy people vote on everything, but we often see people protesting in our democracies, in a democracy the popular will is supposed to prevail, even if it doesn't.

From this book i have, there is apparently 2 side in the progressive camp, the first being rousseau that defends equality and fraternity by redistributing wealth and achieving social peace by that manner.And voltaire's side defending the liberty of action, defending Economic freedom and the right to exploit, without moral barrier from the old aristocratic order, wary of unlimited credit. Perhaps the concept of democracy and republic may be related to this

BUT ANYWAY America, Being responsible for next to all of the world's ill and being the shittiest country ever is actually an aristocratic republic in the sense that so few oligarchial families ever have a chance to get elected as presidents, a republic with total freedom of religion for sects reserved to the oligarchy as well. who favor each other discretly in whatever organisation they work in and give themselves lame ass handshake behind the scenes.


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