MovieChat Forums > Blue State (2008) Discussion > 'It's a democratic election'

'It's a democratic election'

posted 11 years ago by polexia
1 reply | jump to latest

"...and to the Republic for which it stands..."

The truth of the matter is:
(http://www.thisnation.com/question/011.html)

"The United States is, indeed, a republic, not a democracy. Accurately defined, a democracy is a form of government in which the people decide policy matters directly--through town hall meetings or by voting on ballot initiatives and referendums. A republic, on the other hand, is a system in which the people choose representatives who, in turn, make policy decisions on their behalf. The Framers of the Constitution were altogether fearful of pure democracy. Everything they read and studied taught them that pure democracies "have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths" (Federalist No. 10).
...

In the strictest sense of the word, the system of government established by the Constitution was never intended to be a "democracy." This is evident not only in the wording of the Pledge of Allegiance but in the Constitution itself which declares that "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government" (Article IV, Section 4). Moreover, the scheme of representation and the various mechanisms for selecting representatives established by the Constitution were clearly intended to produce a republic, not a democracy."

I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.

[–] bruce-129 8 years ago

Yes and no ... we have democratically elected representatives ... but even that
is an exaggeration. We make a big show of our elections, and our debates,
which have gotten stupider and more dumbed down every cycle.

The expectation though for the populace is that the government should do
what we want, but even that is misguided as most people want the rich to do
more to develop the country, most people do not want constant war, most
people want social security, medicare and the trend in government is to work
towards the destructions of those programs.

We seem to want to import as many immigrants as we can and reduce the US
society to what is common expectations of all the immigrants, and ignore the
American people.

America has always been seen as a work in progress, but the right-wing in
the guise of strict Constitutionalism seems intent on reversing the political
progress that has been made over 200 years, driven and funded by money
that no one knows the origin of of the legitimacy of.