when did "conservatives " begin to distinguish between a "democracy" and a "republic?"

and damn near all of the founders and framers.

 

The difference being pointed out by making the distinction is one where The People's vote is constrained by a code of laws vs one where they can vote to do anything. For an extreme example, we may not vote peoples into slavery, whereas a true democracy may. For a more realistic example, we cannot legitimately vote to infringe upon peoples right to bear arms without first amending our constitution. We have been doing precisely that, quite illegitimately. Pointing out the distinction between the 'republic' within which we are codified to act and the 'democracy' within which we have been acting is one attempt to point out this democratic illegitimacy.

 

That would be us. We send elected officials to comprise the government. What they do is a reflection on us. Our level of participation, how informed we are, how willing we are to do the hard work of self governance.

 

Nope.

 

Yup.

 

Of course there is. The English or parliamentary system makes it far easier for even a bare majority to run rough shod over the minority.

 

Okay first the United States of America is supposed to be a federation of states more in line with the system employed by the Swiss cantons 300 or so years ago than anything else in Europe. Daily governance was in the main supposed to be done by the states and cities with the federal governments job being in the main to deal with foreign governments and mediate disputes between the states. The Senate was to represent state governments concerns before the national government and the house that of the citizens of the states.

 

We are a democracy.

 

Nope...

We are not classical Athens though apparently many on the left would like us to be.

 

We vote for POTUS and congress, that's called DEMOCRACY.

 

Nope that's what you've been fed for years. This form of government is a corporatocracy (disguised as a democratic republic), which is a fascist form of government.

They also "vote" in Russia and North Korea.

 

· When did "conservatives " begin to distinguish between a "democracy" and a "republic?"

~ I believe this began when Democrats started distinguishing "socialism" from communism.

 

To be more accurate we are a democratic republic.

 

No. It's called a representative democracy. And we vote for representatives by states to vote for president. We call those special representative electors.

 

Hey look DEMOCRACY

 

I prefer Athenian democracy to that presently used, entirely because it was a small city state on a level recognisable by its citizens.

Democracy is an evil when extended over too large a populace. The individual has no control.

 

That's it's last name not it's whole name...

 

There are very few liberals left in the democrat party. The 2 real liberals who ran for president(Gabbard, Yang) hardly got any votes and Gabbard was slandered and smeared by the party elite.

 

There is democracy and then again there is democracy. The word is like the word "weather."

 

In many senses we use Republic and Democracy interchangeably, but, there are some special aspects about our blend. In a pure democracy, majority rules, and until we more perfectly secured personal liberties after the civil war, we had States that enslaved their majorities. In our system, we also defend the minority against violation by the majority, whether that majority is Federal/State or Local.

And rather than pointing fingers at the shortcomings of our Founders and Framers, I think our attention is better directed toward those with rights we could more perfectly secure, right now, today. Two groups that quickly come to mind are folks in our inner cities that live lives that no American should be living in the 21st century, and our prison population where rape is occurring on a daily basis.

Another area, where Americans are less directly affected, but, there is certainly a moral stain, is we have products on our markets today, that are produced by Slave Labor. Given our commitment to personal freedom, I think we should give careful thought to removing all Slave produced goods from US markets.

We always have the Left/Right division, but, there are likely areas where we have large agreement, where we should be able to make progress on perfectly securing each others rights, in the near term.

 

The primary difference between the American system and the English (and countless others) system is that ours has at its linchpin the separation of independent powers -- legislative, executive, and judicial -- to have a power checks and balances. Parliamentary systems do not. Their legislative, executive, and judiciary (at least at the highest level) are all rolled into one parliament.

Elections and voting for congress and parliament is about the same except for England's upper house, the House of Lords, where they are not elected.

 

It wasn't very good in athens where as sometimes happened inconvenient people could be forced to kill themselves by a vote of the people.

 

And, how do you support said goverment? Government needs funds. If you say, 'by the sales of services and donations', that would mean whose who do not subscribe and/or contribute are leaching off those who do given the simply fact that everyone, to a greater or lesser degree, receives benefits from the government.

So, what is your answer?

I'll be waiting.

 

Hmm.. lets see. How about at the moment the founders created a republic because they understood the tyranny of a pure democracy. Yeah.. let's go with that.

 

Though it's better than the same sans a lamb's vote.

A 'constitution' guarantees nothing. 'Guarantee' comes only from the strength 'we the people' who continue to abide by and uphold it.

America is, and always has been, a democratic republic of a certain type, a representative democracy held together with an abided by and highly valued constitution organized in a federalist government presiding over a union of states.