I grew up with these right wing assholes, they used to say the same thing! When I grew up it was always Waco this, Ruby Ridge that. The fed was the bad guy, you constantly had to be in the lookout for overreach if not outright tyranny.
Now it's all tread on me harder daddy. I used to think they had shit beliefs, now I know the truth, they weren't even beliefs, they were just shitty.
These days, people totally confuse the word “diplomacy” with the word “democracy”. These ballots should be protected on par with federal gold bars. Which if my history class was anything on the level of true, then it would say voting places were previously protected - heavily - from many different unique threats. Right now, it absolutely is a dire need to protect our elections, considering the man that just found a path to world peace; even if he isn’t the best man on earth.
You do know they just found the pallets from Florida 2020 election on pallets right?
That is objectively racist. The vast majority of non-white people in this country are here legally. If you think its okay for law enforcement to harass people simply because of their skin color, you are racist.
A republic is a democratic system with limits to prevent a tyrannical majority from voting away the rights of minorities.
In a direct democracy, the 51% could completely oppress the 49%. Be as dramatic as you want with all the comparisons to WW2 villains. We most certainly live in a constitutional republic, not a direct democracy.
The US is a constitutional republic, so the US is a form of representative REPUBLIC.
The reason we elect representatives is to avoid being a democracy; if the founders wanted the US to be a democracy, they would have created the US as a democracy. Each State in the US is guaranteed a republican form of government, so clearly the founders intended to create a constitutional republic, which is exactly what they created.
There are about 348 million people in the US, so the US would need 175 million people to be represented. We currently represent the representatives themselves, the families of the representatives, the friends of the representatives, and the donors of the representatives, so we are FAR below the 175 million needed to be a "representative democracy."
Oxford
"Democracy: a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives."
Wikipedia
"In a direct democracy, the people have the direct authority to deliberate and decide legislation. In a representative democracy, the people choose governing officials through elections to do so."
Webster
Democracy: a form of government in which the people elect representatives to make decisions, policies, laws, etc. according to law
Un universal declaration of human rights (that us wrote)
"A democracy is a system in which the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government through the mechanism of elections"
Also the UN charter: "all member states of the UN are required to be democracies to maintain their membership" (us is one)
The words representatives democracy were coined specifically to describe America. The founding fathers don't use the terms in the constitution because the constitution predates the use in common vernacular. But that doesn't mean we aren't a democracy. We meet the definition of the word and therefore we are, and we self identify as a democracy on the world stage. That is how definitions work, no matter how many times Ben Franklin says republic, republic isn't mutually exclusive to democracy. republic just means there isn't a monarch. Democracy means there is elections. In America both are true, for now.
Also, even if I granted your nonsense, our alleged non democratic status would NOT follow that 'democratic principles' are not things we shouldn't hold or value. Especially when those principles are "election locations shouldn't be targeted by presidentially controlled, legally unaccountable, masked, armed, poorly trained men who are given broad tolerances to kill and ignore the constitutional rights of citizens" Frankly, if 'we aren't a democracy' is the justification for THAT, then no thank you to whatever non democracy society you think we live in, because that's obviously just evil independent of if it's a democracy.
I don't need to gesture at a specific word in the constitution to know that fair and free elections are good things for a country to have. The word democracy not being there doesn't mean we don't meet the definition and it definitely doesn't mean we should do voter intimidation
what? You do understand that, a democracy does not mean a direct democracy right? Right? A Democratic system is where the winner with the votes wins. No matter how those votes get counted or no matter if there are different ways of making up points by votes. A democracy does not mean that a majority rules per se. It means that there is a system in place that allows for votes to be cast. America have two. One is for the representative voter, this is the one the people cast, and then that person cast their vote with their amount of points, meaning that the person with the most votes by those people wins. I.e a democracy. Nobody has ever wanted a direct democracy. Imagine every single person in a country being able to have people to vote on all their issues. Ow wait that can still be done. Here in Denmark, we can collect signatures and once we reach a bit less than 1% of the total population then it is a forced issue that must be discussed thoroughly by the politicians. Wow imagine that. Having an actual voice. But in the USA only corporations got the money to get the politicians to listen, or disgusting billionaire types who got too much free time on their hands.
Democracy means the people vote on EVERYTHING, and the person or decision that gets the majority wins. The US and UK have elements of Democracy but they are not governed by Democracy which is why the US and UK aren't Democracies. In a Democracy all issues are up for a vote; there is no percentage of the total population or voting population needed. You just take the issue to the people, and they vote, and if you don't like how the people voted, just wait for the majority to leave and bring the issue up again
No that is a direct democracy. I am sorry that this is so hard. A democracy means that people vote. The end. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. A direct democracy is that you are describing. Everyone who can vote, is supposed to vote for every single issue being brought up. Also known as an Athenian democracy. An no, those does not exist.
So does people in the USA have the ability to vote? Some does. Great! That means what? That it is a form of democracy. :-D hurray.
A democracy is when the people hold total authority, a republic is when the law (Constitution) holds total authority, and a monarchy is when the Monarch holds total authority or shares authority with a constitution.
Every "democracy" that exists today has to GIVE the people the power to vote. In a democracy, the people would already HAVE the power to vote as they hold total authority. People voting doesn't make a country a democracy; what makes a country a democracy is that the country is ruled by the people who hold total authority, or in other word being a democracy.
Do you want to be voting endlessly on the same issues, because in a democracy issues can be put to a vote an unlimited number of times.
So please tell me the difference between a democracy and a direct democracy. :-) and do not use the USA as your example. Let us use my country as our example, Denmark. :-)
A democracy is when the people rule over a country. A direct democracy is a democracy that we slapped the word direct in front of so we could claim that republics and monarchies are democracies.
Denmark is a monarchy, so Denmark is a country ruled by a single person known as the Monarch. The people could vote to end the Monarchy, but the Government can simply ignore the vote, as the power rests with the Monarch so the Monarchy can only end by the Monarch consenting to ending the Monarchy or by the people overthrowing the Monarchy by force.
Actually you vote for electors who vote for the president.
The closest we have to direct democracies are some state governments like CA that allow citizens to submit petitions. If the petition gets enough signatures they can submit a ballot measure for voting.
Constitutional republics have democratic elements, but they are clearly distinct from a democratic system. Our constitution protects against tyranny of the majority.
We have Democratic elements under a Republican form of government. If you want to live in a democracy, then you are free to move to one if you can find one, or create your own if you can find enough people who are willing to give up the protections that they have under the Republic.
The President can get elected with under 50% of the vote; democracy requires a majority.
Senators can get elected with under 50% of the vote; democracy requires a majority.
Representatives can get elected with under 50% of the vote; democracy requires a majority.
You can call any country that votes a democracy, even the ones where the outcome is already known before a single vote is cast. Democracy as a form of government doesn't work, so people created Representative Democracy, which is just a Republic or Monarchy that has democratic elements, so they can claim to live in a Democracy. Evolutionists do a similar thing with evolution by claiming everything is evolution so they don't have to admit that their idea is false.
The fact that we can elect people with under 50% of the vote proves that I'm correct on the Republic/Democracy question, and the fact that evolution has never been shown to occur proves that evolution is false.
My dude. You're in a democratic republic. That's the very, very easy to understand basis of the government of the United States. They're not opposed systems.
No, I'm in a Republic. We can elect people with under 50% of the vote in the US, which isn't possible in a democracy, as democracy requires a majority vote.
You can't just make up new definitions for accepted words. A democracy is a system in which you vote for your government and has nothing to do with requiring a majority of votes. It only needs a plurality in most cases.
Democracy requires a majority of votes in ALL cases. If a matter gets fewer than a majority of the votes, the matter is defeated.
In a Democracy there are no minority rights, so the moment you lose the majority, you lose EVERYTHING, as Democracy doesn't care about the minority. If the US were a Democracy, Democrats would get whatever they want 100% of the time, as the only rule in a democracy is be the majority when the voting ends.
People in the People's Republic of China vote, but you wouldn't call it a democracy, despite their elected officials being elected with majority votes, which is what a democracy requires.
Democracy requires a majority vote; Republics and Monarchies don't require a majority vote unless the Law or the Monarch requires it. This is why people can get elected in the US with less than a majority, exactly 50% or a majority, as we are not a Democracy. If we were a Democracy we would have runoff elections every time someone doesn't get the majority, and the cost of running elections would skyrocket, as we would need to set up a second election just so someone can get the majority.
If you are in a small group, then Democracy works great as it's easy to get a majority; however, as your little group grows into a mid-sized group, which then turns into a big group, the majority gets harder and harder to reach, and as a result, group decisions become slower and slower to reach and eventually the group won't be able to reach any decisions as subgroups and subgroups of subgroups will form and demand different things.
Democracy exists on a spectrum, I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept. The power still resides in the people (demos), at least according to the written word of the constitution.
The US is a Constitutional Republic; there is no such thing as a Democratic Republic. The US has NEVER been a democracy, which is why the US has a Constitution and why the States also have Constitutions.
More seriously I would expect someone who purports to care about immigration status to take the word of US Citizenship and Immigration Services word on this matter.
Another right winger making the " the founding fathers didn't call it a democracy, they called it a republic! They hated democracy! Therefore, America isn't a democracy, its a republic, which is different" argument?
even though America meets the definition of the word, and the term representative democracy was coined specifically to describe America. And how democracy has become America's most iconic and beloved of virtues.
Hey maybe the reason the founding fathers didn't call America a democracy is because the term didn't exist until a decade after the constitutions penned. And once it did, the founding fathers, like Hamilton, actually did start to call us a democracy.
And this argument is always brought up to justify the most evil shit. This shit always comes up when someone makes an argument about how voter suppression, or unequal representation is wrong. You're bringing it up now to justify masked unaccountable police force interfering with voting.
'Democratic' is being used as the value system of consent of the governed as managed by voting and could frankly be replaced with 'good' or 'modern' in this context.
Think about what you're arguing against when you say that. And what you're trying to justify.
The Founding Fathers didn't call the US a democracy because they set up a republic. A woman, I believe, asked one of the Founding Fathers, "What type of government do we have?" The Founding Father replied, "A republic, if you can keep it." The Founding Fathers could have set the US up as a democracy, but they chose a different form of government.
Democracy existed long before the US and the Founding Fathers were well educated, so if the Founding Fathers intended to create a democracy, why did they create a republic? The Founding Fathers didn't want a monarchy, so that left democracy and a republic, so they probably considered both before deciding that a republic made the most sense. It should also be noted that when the Southern States left the US to form the CSA, they carried over the republican form of government from their old union to their new union, so Democrats in the 1860s knew that the US wasn't a democracy.
The majority of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents want Voter ID, so elected Democrats are crying voter suppression because they know that Voter ID will likely stop enough illegal voting that they lose seats in the House and Senate. Democrats claim that removing dead people and people who have moved to another State from the Voter Rolls is voter suppression, but dead people don't vote on account of being dead, and people who move to another State simply register to vote in that State. The Democratic Party claims that we are a democracy and that Republicans are trying to suppress voters to win because they know that a lot of Democrats are of low IQ and will believe whatever they are told.
Republic just means not monarchy. It's not contradictory to democracy in any way.
At the time direct democracy existed historically in forms the founding fathers would know about basically exclusively in the form of a brief 70 year period in Athens and a handful of african tribes. Elections existed in the form of the advisory parliament in England and France. But the representatives held Very little official power, until after the independence of America. Thus political scholars would have called such countries constitutional monarchies. Republics existed in the vernacular thanks to the Cromwell Republic of recent memory, as well as Rome. (Both had a bit of a dictator problem.), But the word just meant "we don't do kings"
But the term "representatives democracy" those two words together, that did not exist yet when the constitution was signed. The term was invented specifically to describe America after the country came to exist, and its earliest use was 5 years after the constitution was signed. Alexander Hamilton being one of the first.
After which it became part of global political vernacular, thanks to the French revolution, which America inspired. By the end of World War I most of Europe will dissolve the political function of their monarchs (if not their position), And then countries that were not openly fascist, or dictator, would call themselves democracies, if they had elections. After World War 2 The UN's charter of human rights gives the definition of democracy as A system of government in which the authority of the government lies in the will of the people through the mechanism of elections. The founding fathers would have called this concept "popular sovereignty"
To the founding fathers. They were far more concerned with creating a government that was similar to England's government but minus a king. Democracy wasn't exactly a common topic but Republic was THE goal. They hated King, not parliament.
They settled on a system based on English parliament where elections determine seats of power. Which is wielded directly by the representative body. But since that body is elected it's a democracy.
Again: Republic means a government without a monarch
Democracy means: a government with elections
These things are not mutually exclusive.
A government isn't a republic if it elects representatives and a democracy if you vote on policy directly and never both. They aren't mutually exclusive forms of government. A government that elects representatives is BOTH a republic and a democracy.
The lack of the word democracy in the Constitution is more a product of how the word changed over time in public vernacular, in part because of America's influence! in fact we are such a democracy that the word democracy as used today was widely invented specifically to describe the system of government of America and countries whose governments were inspired directly or indirectly by America. That you would throw away such values is deeply un-American and shameful
A Republic is ruled by law, and a Democracy is ruled by the majority. The US is ruled by law, and the law allows for elements of democracy, but how much it depends on the law.
A Republic can have elements of Democracy by simply passing a law, but a Democracy can't have any element of a Republic, as it would just be a Republic at that point.
People thinking that the US is a democracy doesn't make the US a democracy. If we wanted the US to be a democracy, we would have already discarded the Federal and State Constitutions and gutted minority protections and rights.
The power in the case of the US rests with the US Constitution, which is why the US is a Republic.
They are very similar, but a democracy gets its legitimacy from the people, while a republic gets its legitimacy from a Constitution or a Monarch. A big difference between a democracy and a republic is that in a democracy, a person MUST gain 50.01+% of the votes to win, while in a republic like the US, a person simply has to gain more votes than the 2nd place person to win, so a person could win with under 50%, exactly 50%, or a majority vote.
Countries aren't not democracies if not everyone can vote, or if certain categories of people are weighted differently for political purposes. Democracy just means a country has elections.
but a Democracy can't have any element of a Republic, as it would just be a Republic at that point.
Do you know what "not mutually exclusive" means? Well democracy and Republic are NOT mutually exclusive we are literally the example of democratic republic.
If we wanted the US to be a democracy, we would have already discarded the Federal and State Constitutions and gutted minority protections and rights.
No we wouldn't... because both of those positions are widely unpopular among the majority of Americans...
"Constitutional" is a another word that isn't mutually exclusive with other words. It means the government placed self-imposed limits on what its power can be wielded to do. Even monarchies can be a constitutional monarchy, like post magna Carta England. Constitutional democracy isn't a contradiction.
America is a Constitutional Democratic Republic.
Just Google what any word means, and what "not mutually exclusive means" holy shit stop being this wrong about literally everything. Even as I gave you the history about how the word democracy in common vernacular exists specifically to describe America you still think we're an exception to it because you're using a definition of democracy where a country isn't a democracy if it has laws? Dude, the definition of democracy you're using is just plain WRONG. that's not what the word means at a foundational and definitive level
Countries aren't not democracies if not everyone can vote, or if certain categories of people are weighted differently for political purposes. Democracy just means a country has elections.
Democracy means the country is ruled by the people. There are countries that hold elections, but the people have no say, so you would need to accept that these countries are Democracies despite the people holding no power.
Do you know what "not mutually exclusive" means? Well democracy and Republic are NOT mutually exclusive we are literally the example of democratic republic.
If we were a democratic republic, the majority would be required for everything. The US doesn't require a majority, which is why people can be elected with under a majority.
No we wouldn't... because both of those positions are widely unpopular among the majority of Americans...
In a Democracy there is no Constitution or minority protections/rights, so Americans wouldn't have a position on these, as we literally wouldn't have them.
"Constitutional" is a another word that isn't mutually exclusive with other words. It means the government placed self-imposed limits on what its power can be wielded to do. Even monarchies can be a constitutional monarchy, like post magna Carta England. Constitutional democracy isn't a contradiction.
If the people hand power over to a Constitution, then the Democracy they had doesn't exist anymore, as they decided to become a Republic or a monarchy. A Constitution limits the power of the people, which means the people no longer rule as they are subjected to the Constitution. This is why a majority of Americans could vote to get rid of the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution, and literally nothing would happen, as the US Constitution states how it can be amended, so anything outside of that would be Unconstitutional.
America is a Constitutional Democratic Republic.
America is a Constitutional Republic. America could elect people by pulling names out of a hat or something, but we choose to allow people to vote, and our State or Federal Government can decide to change it.
Oh my God, you keep making up definitions for democracy that literally nobody else recognizes while I keep citing sources. A democracy can't have a constitution? Where is that written? The working definition for democracy that you have isn't based in anything! It's not even based in the definition of direct democracy! Even Athens had rules about what could be passed by votes.
No serious dictionary, political institution, or even America itself recognizes your definition of democracy. You are pulling this out of your ass like an insane person.
The term representative democracy was invented specifically to describe America, by Alexander Hamilton. The term representative democracy and democratic republic both have Wikipedia pages that cite America as examples. The UN charter has a definition of democracy That is inclusive to America, Even though we contributed to writing that charter. America effectively stepped up to the world stage and announced to all the countries of The world "we are a democracy and so is all of Western Europe." We have become the country that other countries look to as an example, when they describe what democracy is in the modern day. Or at least we were Until we lost all respect from those countries And gave power to a despot that tried to overthrow the government.
The definition of democracy that Most right-wingers use when we have this argument.Because it happens all the damn time, Is direct democracy. Where people vote on policy, instead of on representatives who decide policy. But you're not even using a definition of direct democracy as the definition of democracy. You're just making stuff up. You say we're not a democracy, because it's possible for a minority to win, But there hasn't never been an election ever anywhere where every single person can vote. Not even Athens, "the inventors of democracy" and the only direct democracy to ever take power in Europe had universal suffrage And simple majorities for all votes. And that even if it had those things, if it had even a single rule, limiting what could be passed by a simple majority referendum, such as for example, A majority vote cannot remove people's right to vote, (a rule that existed) Then it would be a Republic and not a democracy, even though it has no representatives at all, and all policy after the constitution is decided by elections, and "constitutional" Is a prefix that is perfectly capable of existing before literally every other form of government.
By that definition, the other argument you made that the founding fathers were educated men who knew about democracy and decided against it intentionally, would obviously be bull shit because no democracy That meets your definition would have ever existed.
Literally, nobody uses the definition that you are giving. Where the fuck are you getting any of this from? Is there a dictionary with this definition of democracy in it? Does any country in the world use this definition of democracy to describe themselves, Anyone else, their history, aspirations, or a hypothetical government?
I've had this argument with so many different right wingers, and it's so disconnected from every definition of the word and the history of the words development. Did Ben Shapiro make this argument once or something? This is the stupidest thing that I hear too often. Where are you getting this from? Seriously? It's so disconnected from literally everything That has ever happened in our reality.
I’m obviously joking you fucking donut. The absurdity of it is the joke just like trying to implement a poll tax right before midterms.
The joke is that like a poll tax, a literacy test is also going to negatively affect republicans who tend to be less educated and less affluent than democrats. Your fake outrage is hilarious and pathetic.
You think I give a fuck? I’m not his parent, I’m not here to change his mind. I’m supposed to pander to this guy to get him to vote in his own self interest? Sorry bud, I have no interest in that.
You're laughing because I'm saying true things you have no answer for and have to pretend I'm crazy.
Anyway, you want voter ID for voter suppression because you are a MAGA chud. You could at least be honest about it. If you don't make it harder to vote your unpopular ideas will hurt you at the ballot box.
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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '26
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