america was founded a free republic not democracy

[pwn3dy0]

great post. I'm sick of americans being misguided by the mainstream media, and state run education system. America is not a democracy. It is supposed to be a constitutional republic.

[Nylo]

I'm sorry, but you're incorrect. The American government is a hybrid-system of both democracy and a Republic. We aren't Rome.
You could argue that we "used" to be a Republic, in that anyone could vote...as long as they were white, male landowners.

America is a Democracy in that all it's citizens are allowed to elect and have a say in the nomination of it's Republic representatives. It's not the same as being Republic citizens and voting, though there are still elements of that; such as in electing Supreme Court Justices.

People like Neil Bortz like to rant and rave (as much as I love his show) about how we aren't a Democracy and how the founding fathers dreaded it. This line of thought isn't so much selective history, as much as it is nostalgically recalling a history that never existed.

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

If America is a Republic, then so is Canada really; but then, so is most of the democratic world. I actually remember learning about the Canadian system in social studies, grade 9, and asked my teacher "so wait, aren't we a republic then?". All he could answer was "No we're not! We're a democracy!" but couldn't explain why I was wrong.



Anyway, a Republic quite simply is a form of democracy. The only difference is that what people here are referring to as "Pure Democracy", is actually called Direct Democracy. A Republic is what most of us use today, which is called a Representative Democracy.


We made the change from Direct Democracy to Representative Democracy because of a booming population that couldn't allow public deliberation on every issue; just too many people to gather on too many issues.
Democracy does not necessarily mandate mob rule though (it does, currently, but it doesn't have to). In the most simple and oft-used first-past-the-post system, 50%+1 gives candidates victory and likewise, 51% of the public can oppress 49% of the population. This is the main problem with classical liberal democracy, it does not ensure the rights of minorities.
Anywho, this can easily be remedied by jumping over to a system of proportional representation, as I described in my post above.


Cheers.:joint1: :S5:

[8182KSKUSH]

I always thought that we were a "Constitutional Republic"?
This was the most confusing damn post I have ever read, you must be on some good shit tex.:jointsmile:

[Aerow]

America was founded on the principal that majority rules as long as they don't infringe upon the minorities rights.

This has not happened, we've seen majority rule, destruction of freedom, marginalization of the freemarket, special interests lobbying for your tax dollars, an oppressive monetary system that favors the wealthy and giant government bureaucracies stealing your money then deciding what's best for you.