[Reocourgigiot]

Webster Definition:

1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority

b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.

We always talk of democracy, and its benefits, and promoting democracy throughout the world. But are we truly a democracy? We elect our officials, yes, but when they finally make it to Washington or our state, county, or local seats do they preform the tasks and implement the policies that we care about. Most times I feel like we live in an oligarchy.

Mistakenly posted this in Breaking news. If moderator comes across this can you move it for me? Thank you.

[bixlewlyimila]

Webster Definition:

1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority

b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.

We always talk of democracy, and its benefits, and promoting democracy throughout the world. But are we truly a democracy? We elect our officials, yes, but when they finally make it to Washington or our state, county, or local seats do they preform the tasks and implement the policies that we care about. Most times I feel like we live in an oligarchy.

The problem with reading a dictionary for definitions is this: Not only should it include the actual meaning of a word, it usually includes meanings that come from common misuses of the word as well. Take for example the word "bad." We all know what the word means, but in the last generation, it has also come to be used to mean extremely good. As people misuse words, the new definitions show up in our dictionaries. Such appears to be the case for Democracy. People have mistakenly called our American Republic a democracy for so long, it seems that Webster's has blended the definition of republic and democracy.
In a democracy, simple majority rules all the time. Our Founding Fathers saw that simple majority rule in all issues was a recipe for disaster, so they formed a republic.

"Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulance 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." James Madison

"Remember, a democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." John Adams

"A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way. The known propensity of a democracy is licentiousness which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be liberty." Fisher Ames

"The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived." John Quincy Adams

"Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state; it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage." John Witherspoon

"It may generally be remarked that the more a government resembles a pure democracy the more they abound with disorder and confusion." Zephaniah Swift

"A pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical government on earth." Noah Webster

It is interesting to note that Webster's only example of a democracy offered in his 1828 dictionary was that of Athens. Had America been formed as a democracy a mere 40 or so years earlier, he surely would have seen fit to cite it as well.

Probably the most convincing argument that our government was formed as a republic and not a democracy is our Constitution itself. In a democracy, a popular vote (of the populace) would be needed to pass new laws, make treaties, declare war, etc. But our Constitution says all our laws come from our representatives in Congress. That alone tells you we aren't a democracy. Heck, even Article IV, section 4 of our US Constitution says:

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government....

As for your feeling that you live in an oligarchy, join the club! Our Founding Fathers warned of an over-reaching Judiciary that, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, would "place us under the despotism of an oligarchy." For years, we've seen the beautiful republic our Constitution created, being decimated by activist judges who subsitute their preferences for the will of the people as enacted through their legal representatives. From abortion to gay "marriage", these judges have usurped the constitutional lawmaking role of Congress and have instead issued decrees under which the American people have been forced to live. Our Founding Fathers didn't intend for America to be a democracy, and they most certainly did not intend for our laws to be made by a 5 to 4 vote in a Supreme Court! Our courts today represent a textbook example of the despotism of an oligarchy our Founders feared would emerge if the people became lazy and uninformed.

[spacecrafty]

Ok the correction is noted. But you look to the republic as a good thing. Representative govt. is still not representing. The founding fathers created this system because they thought the populace to be ignorant. For the most part we must be for not holding our political leaders feet to the fire or not improving on a failing system.

How did you turn this into a bash the courts thing?

[TeksPaisimi]

The US is not an oligarchy because all the people vote for their representatives. If only 10% of the population was allowed to vote, then you might say it was an oligarchy.

[Maypeevophy]

The founding fathers created this system because they thought the populace to be ignorant. And you think this has changed?

[ErnestTU]

The US is not an oligarchy because all the people vote for their representatives. If only 10% of the population was allowed to vote, then you might say it was an oligarchy. No, that is not exactly true. It doesn't matter how many people vote but who is kept in power and who's excluded from getting there.
An Oligarchy is the self-perpetuating rule of a certain comparatively small group that is inpenetrable to the general public and has a mechanism distribute power among itself and keep it there. Sounds familiar, eh?

[DoctorWeryDolt]

An American democracy is a representative government where the elected officials are directly responsible to the people, and an American republic is a representative government where the elected officials are responsible for only their own ideals. The traditional "Democratic vs. Republican" conflict was over this very issue, and like most issues the best compromise is somewhere in the middle.

A more democratic America would be one where the president had to follow the polls of the American people, and would be subject to a recall or change of office if his approval ratings ever slipped too low (or even below the majority). A more "democratic" democracy would be one where there are no set term lengths, representatives could be recalled at any time, and they would essentially be at the mercy of the people.

A more republican America would be where the president has nothing to fear from the people once he's in office; a government built on republican principles believes that since the people elect the man who they believe to be the best leader, once that man is in office he has the right to lead as he sees fit. If this seems familiar, it's because the Founding Fathers were predominately republicans, or at least those with the republican ideals (mostly Federalists) held a greater sway during the formation of the government.

The primary advantage of a republican democracy is that it can't change as fast as the public will can; it was designed so that an overnight change of public sentiment wouldn't result in unsavory results. The majority of the Founding Fathers were afraid of the mob, and as a result they created a government that was slow to change and was therefore more stable. It was in the quest for stability that they gave the Judicial branch life-long terms and that they removed the presidency from the reach of a popular vote.

The disadvantage of a republican democracy is that it can't change as fast as the public will can, and a lethargic or detatched government might result in unsavory results.

Overall, I would attribute the stability of the Founding Fathers' republicanism as a major factor in the stability of our Constitution over the past 200 some years; a more Democratic construction would have opened up the realms for greater political profit a few times in our history, but it would have opened up realms for greater failures as well.


For an example of the stability that was built into the Constitution we can look to what could have easily been the American-French war of 1800. During Adam's term of president, from 1797 to 1801, the Frenchies started harassing our merchant ships. Judging from the primary source documents from the era a complete war fever spread across the country. Adams was accused of abdication for not going to war with France, and lost his second term because of it. (And ironically, his successor was the uber-democratic yet pro-French Thomas Jefferson.) Now it cannot be said whether or not war with France would have been a good thing; in all probablity a war would have gained us a British alliance and thrown the US down a path highly different that what actually occured. However, Adams' resistence to the cries for war against France are a prime example of why the Fathers pursued a republican rather than a democratic representative government.

[MormefWrarebe]

Webster Definition:

1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority

b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.

We always talk of democracy, and its benefits, and promoting democracy throughout the world. But are we truly a democracy? We elect our officials, yes, but when they finally make it to Washington or our state, county, or local seats do they preform the tasks and implement the policies that we care about. Most times I feel like we live in an oligarchy.

Mistakenly posted this in Breaking news. If moderator comes across this can you move it for me? Thank you.

Pure democracy is not necessarily desirable, and certainly isn't practical. First of all, a government based solely on the "will of the people" couldn't have anything resembling a Bill of Rights or a Constitution that says much more than "everyone can vote." If there were strict, supreme constitutional protections of individual rights apart from voting, it would be a limitation on the "will of the people" and an obstruction of democracy. In short, the concept of individual, non-political rights is (the horror!) undemocratic.

Second, the sheer amount of resources that must be expended in order to have everything run by the voters would be quite wasteful. In order for the people to vote on everything, which is what direct democracy requires, there will have to be an awful lot of elections. That will cost a lot, and the people will eventually get sick of it. What's worse, requiring collective approval for everything would have severe economic consequences.