Is the United States of America a republic or a democracy?

Flash said:
No, socialism is government ownership of the means of production and distribution. Individuals are equally greedy whether they work for the government or the private sector.
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Socialism, as you know, is control of society by those who do the work.
 
kudzu said:
Is the United States of America a republic or a democracy?
By Eugene Volokh May 13, 2015

I often hear people argue that the United States is a republic, not a democracy. But that’s a false dichotomy. A common definition of “republic” is, to quote the American Heritage Dictionary, “A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them” — we are that.

A common definition of “democracy” is, “Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives” — we are that, too.

The United States is not a direct democracy, in the sense of a country in which laws (and other government decisions) are made predominantly by majority vote.

Some lawmaking is done this way, on the state and local levels, but it’s only a tiny fraction of all lawmaking. But we are a representative democracy, which is a form of democracy.

And indeed the American form of government has been called a “democracy” by leading American statesmen and legal commentators from the Framing on. It’s true that some Framing-era commentators made arguments that distinguished “democracy” and “republic”; see, for instance, The Federalist (No. 10), though even that first draws the distinction between “pure democracy” and a “republic,” only later just saying “democracy.”

But even in that era, “representative democracy” was understood as a form of democracy, alongside “pure democracy”: John Adams used the term “representative democracy” in 1794; so did Noah Webster in 1785; so did St. George Tucker in his 1803 edition of Blackstone; so did Thomas Jefferson in 1815. Tucker’s Blackstone likewise uses “democracy” to describe a representative democracy, even when the qualifier “representative” is omitted.


Likewise, James Wilson, one of the main drafters of the Constitution and one of the first Supreme Court Justices, defended the Constitution in 1787 by speaking of the three forms of government being the “monarchical, aristocratical, and democratical,” and said that in a democracy the sovereign power is “inherent in the people, and is either exercised by themselves or by their representatives.”


And Chief Justice John Marshall — who helped lead the fight in the 1788 Virginia Convention for ratifying the U.S. Constitution — likewise defended the Constitution in that convention by describing it as implementing “democracy” (as opposed to “despotism”), and without the need to even add the qualifier “representative.”

To be sure, in addition to being a representative democracy, the United States is also a constitutional democracy, in which courts restrain in some measure the democratic will. And the United States is therefore also a constitutional republic. Indeed, the United States might be labeled a constitutional federal representative democracy.

But where one word is used, with all the oversimplification that this necessary entails, “democracy” and “republic” both work. Indeed, since direct democracy — again, a government in which all or most laws are made by direct popular vote — would be impractical given the number and complexity of laws that pretty much any state or national government is expected to enact, it’s unsurprising that the qualifier “representative” would often be omitted.

Practically speaking, representative democracy is the only democracy that’s around at any state or national level.

continued


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...public-or-a-democracy/?utm_term=.c5eccefbbdc6
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Why ask a question that James Madison addressed in clear unambiguous text in the Federalist Papers.......Federalist no. 10? There is no rabbit hole to enter. Federalist No. 10 explains exactly why Article Four, Section Four, Clause One exists in the US CONSTIUTION declaring that Republicanism is guaranteed at all levels of government. Why "feign" ambiguity.....and "pretend" that Federalist No. 10 does not exist in History Actual? We live in a "representative REPUBLIC" governed by the RULE OF LAW.....not a Socialist Republic/democracy that is ruled by mobs...as experienced every day on the left.
 
iolo said:
Do what? Without the thieves we shan't need a State, as you know. Governments are just the thieves' Central Committee, as you know.
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Is the basic premise that without these thieves we wouldn't need government?
 
iolo said:
Obviously the crooks need all the armed men they can get to hold the property they have stolen. Who else needs this crap?
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Pardon my ignorance here, was there a time in history that you would prefer we look like today?
 
cawacko said:
Was there a time in history when we didn't have govt and people didn't act like thieves?
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Yes - but it is like living in caves, something we have to go through: the sub-humans are building up the means to provide for a free humanity to live on their insane scrabbling-up of crap..
 
iolo said:
Socialism, as you know, is control of society by those who do the work.
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Those who do the work do not control any more in a socialist or capitalist society. Socialism is an economic system in which government owns the means of production and distribution (airlines, oil companies, banks, ship building, utilities). The socialist economic system can have varying types of political systems from communism to democracy.

What nation(s) have a socialist economic system in which those who do the work control society?
 
Flash said:
Those who do the work do not control any more in a socialist or capitalist society. Socialism is an economic system in which government owns the means of production and distribution (airlines, oil companies, banks, ship building, utilities). The socialist economic system can have varying types of political systems from communism to democracy.

What nation(s) have a socialist economic system in which those who do the work control society?
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Socialism is the overthrow of capitalism by democracy. No nations have a socialist system, obviously. You got problems with English. What do you think all those armies and police of yours are for? A socialist system means we control the world and stop your masters thieving - simple enough really, if you weren't so brainwashed.
 
iolo said:
Socialism is the overthrow of capitalism by democracy. No nations have a socialist system, obviously. You got problems with English. What do you think all those armies and police of yours are for? A socialist system means we control the world and stop your masters thieving - simple enough really, if you weren't so brainwashed.
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Any countries that are communist are basically socialist since that is an essential element of communism; yet, I don't see much democracy in those nations. You are confusing economic and political systems. It is not about my brainwashing but about your lack of understanding of basic economics and political science.
 
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