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Is America a Democracy
We were founded as a Constitutional republic, the founders feared a democracy.
Today we need to tweak the elctoral college to have every state go to a proporational electoral vote system, where a candidate gets electoral votes based on the number of counties he/she wins
We are a Republic, no Democracy involved. The founders for good reason feared a democracy, that is why the people do not elect the president and are not supposed to elect the Senators
Again, a Republic is a form of Democracy. Additionally, we hold democratic elections (although indirect democratic elections for certain offices). The Founder's, such as Madison, feared a pure-Democracy, not any form of Democracy.
Why do you attack others for redefining terms, when you are the one doing so?
You, time and time again, ignore the fact that a Republic is a Democratic form of government, and attack those who correctly point this out. You seem to think that a "Democracy" must be a "Pure Democracy", which isn't true.
Now go ahead, attack and insult me. Show your colors.
how is mob rules and rules under the law of the constitution the same?here is a explanation of the differences.republic and democracy are opposite there is no way they can be a form of each other.that is propaganda
Ah, yes, of course, because definitions created by the United States army are not propaganda, but definitions from sources such as Stanford are.
This is why it is impossible to talk to you. You declare anything that you disagree with propaganda, then you raise up these obscure sources that lack serious legitimacy as the only legitimate evidence you will accept.
follow California roll model ?is that what your saying?who do you trust more Stanford history rewrites or people that die for you..your supposed freedom that is a lie.thats why it was removed in 1928 to rewrite it open your eyes change is always for the worst!to make powerful more so and slaves obedient for their lousy excuse of freedom
who do you trust more Stanford history rewrites or people that die for you..your supposed freedom that is a lie
In one post you go on about government conspiracies, and then the next post you declare that an almost hundred year old set of definitions by the army are the most reliable.
Like I said, there isn't a way to hold a legitimate conversation with you based on this type of behavior.
We are a Constitutional Republic. We the people and the states have only given the feds 18 enumerated powers. If the power is not enumerated for the Feds, it belongs to the people and the states
We are not a Republic because certain powers were enumerated to the federal government while others were reserved to the states. We are a Republic because we have an electoral college rather than direct, democratic representation.
We are also a republic because we are a nation of dual sovereigns, each with their own sphere of influence. You have the feds with their enumerated powers, and you have the states and the people with all other powers. So the states are sovereigns, just as the fed is.
None of that is inherent in a Republic. In fact, it is unique to this particular republic.
Oh, and we do not have dual sovereigns, as that term does not make sense considering the word sovereign possessing supreme authority. We are closer to a nation with no sovereigns, since no group has ultimate authority.
Actually decentralized powers are what makes a Republic, the American Constitution Republic of having two Sovereigns decentralizes that power even more . You may want to read the Federalist papers
In Federalist No. 45, Madison wrote: “The powers delegated to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce… The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State.”
The concept of granting certain powers to the federal government and leaving all other powers to the states is called “dual sovereignty.” The founders understood that the nation was a collection of sovereign states that agreed to delegate certain powers to the federal government while retaining the rest for themselves.
You do realize that you will have to get educated and informed on these issues if you want to try to get one over on us who are educated and informed. You may be able to BS your liberal lemming pals, but they are not very bright
Actually decentralized powers are what makes a Republic, the American Constitution Republic of having two Sovereigns decentralizes that power even more . You may want to read the Federalist papers
Nonsense. You declare something to be true, and pointing to an American document referring to the American system as evidence that it is indicative of all Republics.
You do realize that you will have to get educated and informed on these issues if you want to try to get one over on us who are educated and informed. You may be able to BS your liberal lemming pals, but they are not very brigt
You really don't realize how ironic your posts are.
It is incontestible that the Constitution established a system of "dual sovereignty." Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U.S. 452, 457 (1991); Tafflin v. Levitt, 493 U.S. 455, 458 (1990). Although the States surrendered many of their powers to the new Federal Government, they retained "a residuary and inviolable sovereignty," The Federalist No. 39, at 245 (J. Madison). This is reflected throughout the Constitution's text, Lane County v. Oregon, 7 Wall. 71, 76 (1869); Texas v. White, 7 Wall. 700, 725 (1869), including (to mention only a few examples) the prohibition on any involuntary reduction or combination of a State's territory, Art. IV, §3; the Judicial Power Clause, Art. III, §2, and the Privileges and Immunities Clause, Art. IV, §2, which speak of the "Citizens" of the States; the amendment provision, Article V, which requires the votes of three fourths of the States to amend the Constitution; and the Guarantee Clause, Art. IV, §4, which "presupposes the continued existence of the states and . . . those means and instrumentalities which are the creation of their sovereign and reserved rights," Helvering v. Gerhardt, 304 U.S. 405, 414-415 (1938). Residual state sovereignty was also implicit, of course, in the Constitution's conferral upon Congress of not all governmental powers, but only discrete, enumerated ones, Art. I, §8, which implication was rendered express by the Tenth Amendment's assertion that "[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Relative decentralization of power has absolutely no bearing upon the differentiation between a democracy and a republic. You also fundamentally misunderstand the meaning of sovereign, as evidenced by your expression of the belief that 51 sovereigns (which are people, not governments by the way) can exist simultaneously within one nation. I recommend you to the dictionary henceforth, as I have little enough interest in correcting elementary semantic misunderstandings.
You liberals are so cute when you post such ignorant drivel. We are not a democracy, we have never been a democracy. People who think we are a democracy are just the ignorant low info voter.
If you do not want to read Federalsit 45, this from Printz v. United States should get you started
It is incontestible that the Constitution established a system of "dual sovereignty." Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U.S. 452, 457 (1991); Tafflin v. Levitt, 493 U.S. 455, 458 (1990). Although the States surrendered many of their powers to the new Federal Government, they retained "a residuary and inviolable sovereignty," The Federalist No. 39, at 245 (J. Madison). This is reflected throughout the Constitution's text, Lane County v. Oregon, 7 Wall. 71, 76 (1869); Texas v. White, 7 Wall. 700, 725 (1869), including (to mention only a few examples) the prohibition on any involuntary reduction or combination of a State's territory, Art. IV, §3; the Judicial Power Clause, Art. III, §2, and the Privileges and Immunities Clause, Art. IV, §2, which speak of the "Citizens" of the States; the amendment provision, Article V, which requires the votes of three fourths of the States to amend the Constitution; and the Guarantee Clause, Art. IV, §4, which "presupposes the continued existence of the states and . . . those means and instrumentalities which are the creation of their sovereign and reserved rights," Helvering v. Gerhardt, 304 U.S. 405, 414-415 (1938). Residual state sovereignty was also implicit, of course, in the Constitution's conferral upon Congress of not all governmental powers, but only discrete, enumerated ones, Art. I, §8, which implication was rendered express by the Tenth Amendment's assertion that "[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
I am not a liberal and I never stated that we are a democracy or ever have been. I have also read my personal copies of both the Federalist Papers and the Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court front to back numerous times. I am well aware of the division of power between federal, state, and local jurisdictions and never remotely disputed that it exists. There is a difference between sovereignty and sovereigns, but your ineptitude at grasping the semantic distinction is neither my problem nor relevant to the larger point at hand.
The main point, which you have tacitly conceded by omission, is that sovereignty and inter-jurisdictional power distribution are irrelevant to the distinction between a democracy and a republic.
You liberals are so cute when you post such ignorant drivel. We are not a democracy, we have never been a democracy. People who think we are a democracy are just the ignorant low info voter.
There is no point for you to be on this website.
You just want to scream at people, and call them names. You do not want to debate.
Can't argue with the statement but I'd point out that we are a "Democratic Republic". What's great about being a republic?? We have the Republic of Cuba; the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: the (aparthied) Republic of S. Africa; the Peoples Republic of China;, etc. Be thankful we are a DEMOCRATIC republic!
At the time the fore fathers wrote the Constitution, a true democracy was totally impractical. No way could the votes of all the people be counted. Today, it IS practical and being a true democracy would take the money, the lobbying, the Gerrymandering, the "favors" out of politics because EVERY vote would count.
It's time we left the flaws of a "republic" behind and gave the power to the PEOPLE again before the "republic" is sold to the highest bidder!
The founding fathers established a republic not on account of the impracticality of direct democracy, but due to a well documented distrust of the general public to make intelligent decisions regarding the governance of the nation. This is also partly why certain groups such as women and non-land-owning men were not permitted to vote even within the republic that was established. It is further worth noting that direct elections might not have been so impractical as you suggest, given both that the population then was appreciably smaller and that a considerable number of those residing in the country were already disenfranchised.
Direct elections would not take money, lobbying, gerrymandering, or bribery out of politics. A well financed campaign would remain the most persuasive means for attracting voters, and if your argument follows that the people would have more power through direct elections then it stands to reason that campaign financing would increase rather than decrease. If ever actually confronted by a legitimate public threat to their power, private interests would similarly be seen to increase their lobbying efforts to protect their interests. Gerrymandering would still be relevant in localized elections, which influence other levels of the power hierarchy. There is simply no reason to think that bribery would end either that I can think of.
Eliminating the electoral college is a relatively superficial alteration to ameliorate an archaic relic. It does very little to disrupt existing power structures, and in some ways could be expected to exacerbate pre-existing problems. Further, you cannot give the power to the people "again" because the people have never really had it.
No, we are not a democratic republic, we are a Constitutional Republic . Your reasoning of why the founders feared a democracy is incorrect, the founders feared a democracy because of tyranny of the Majority . Being a true democracy would be corrupt and fraud ridden, and every vote would not count. Look how the democrat elite threw away the votes from Florida and Michigan during the 2008 primary when Hillary was beating obama . There are no flaws with this republic, where the flaws are is we allowed the feds to grown beyond their enumerated boundaries
There is no such thing as an infallible model of government in theory, let alone in practice. Assuming the blame for centralization actually falls squarely at the feet of the nebulous artifice "the people", then an actually infallible model would have accounted for that eventually and implemented measures to prevent that from occurring.
At worst that is a concession to my point, at best utterly non-responsive. Nevertheless, I do not entirely disagree with that assessment outside of its cumbersome absolutism.
How can you not be embarrassed by what you say on here? You go around attacking people when they provide arguments, then when they turn around and question your behavior, you attack them again and claim they have no argument.
If that it is the case, then it should be easy for you to give an example and explain why my argument shows my ignorance. So far, you have yet to back up this claim with any reasoning.
LOl, You do not get to define terms or definitions. You leftists are such intolerant ignorant little people
I didn't define them. I am asking you to define them. I implied this with my first comment and explicitly asked you to do so in the second. Somehow, you interpreted my statements as a definition for those terms.
Seriously though, you need to practice communication.
He didn't, he provided you with the actual terms in the proper context. You then decided to ignore them and redefine the terms, which, incidentally, is exactly what you are attacking him for doing, which would make you an "intolerant ignorant little" person, by your own "logic".
