Quote Originally Posted by texas grass
for instance in a free republic marijuana cant be illegal because a select few want it illegal, making me wear a seatbelt, not having the right to question the law. our country was not founded so afew or a majority can take away our freedoms because they want to or its their agenda too. it is your right to do things in a free republic. you dont have the rights in a democracy you have to earn privilages like driving and so on, now days its a privilage to drive not our right. yes we have always elected a leader and we set restrictions on them and around 100 yrs ago we started to preach about democracys and started to give our true american government away like the right to print money, stay out of our lives, foreign policy changed ect ect ect
I'm not sure if what you are saying about the governemnt making laws about what you can or cannot do has anything to do with it being a free republic versus a democracy or vice versa. I don't think so.

The powers of the US government are not defined by what it is called (free republic, democracy, federation, bunch 'o crazies, klepotocracy, evil cabal, whatever), they are defined by the US Constitution. The laws restricting your freedoms are allowed by the Constitution. (Of course, someone will now say that they are NOT constittional, but that's a matter for the Supreme Court to decide, according to the Constitution.) The Constitution is what it is, so if you look at that set of laws and decide it's a democracy and not a free republic according to your definition, then that's your business, but it doesn't really change what the Constituion is.