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The United States is NOT a democracy and never was

Lol weirdo
It has been called a democracy a million times over the years and according to you, For today at least, the United States is a republic.
Therefore calling the United states a democracy has had no effect on anything since it is still a republic right?
In other words, mountain out of a molehill. SOP
 
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OP shoulda just posted the **official** Constitutional Republic video

Not as popular as how a bill becomes a law but it's right there.

 
Is there a reason to not merge this thread in with Stupid Pet Peeves? Because I don't see any real-world implications here.
Merging this with SPP would needlessly clutter up an otherwise entertaining thread.

It should be merged with the Useless Link thread. Is that still around?
 
As a compromise of sorts, we can at least give this thread to the "Longest Thread Ever" library.

However, I think this topic is remedial reading for wannabe global masters or global managers or simple-minded sincere global dreamers. The bit above about Freudian analysis may apply, if simple approximations to globes can be imagined in ever smaller proportions. Such primal inner impulses as sucking still nurture global politics in general. In fact, under Freudian analysis, all politicians can be aligned in neat rows as piglets at sow spigots of public funds. That is perhaps the best analysis of the whole of Globalist Ideals, including socialism for the masses. Make humans all dependent on the Grand Sow of public dispensations.

While perhaps the first primal principles of the American Experiment might have been just to prevent Kings from sucking funds from the populace, with no reference to providing anything at all to the taxpayers, it all began to unravel with the circus masters' exploitation of even a system designed to limit a federal government to being merely a servant of smaller disparate states. In earlier times, in our "Republic", the States had their ring in the circus, called the Senate, which was supposed to protect the sovereinty of the States and limit the Federal accumulation of States' Rights.

Enter the media, first as an ostensible department essential to the Government, professing to be a watchdog but employing mesmerizing tactics on the lowly public which needed to be made a tool for the interests, rather than a watchdog to prevent government from running amok.

Historians generally make the same mistake most people do, in reverfencing print or media of any kind as something tangibly credible, like material somehow in the materialists' dreamworld, capable of making dreams real, though still without substance.

The founding design of the American Constitution was to limit the accretion of power to interested, that is influencer, parties, in hopes that an intelligent and self-interested public would want to prevent such incursions into their lives, and remain relatively free to pursue their own lives, liberties, and happinesses.

A people who must be propagandized, indoctrinated in government camps even ostensibly "schools" or "colleges" funded by the governmnet, is a people that is controlled, managed, enslaved.

People who don't see that truth are sincere slaves.

Whether we are a "democracy" or a constitutional republic just doesn't matter if we are slaves. People who sign on to grand public causes like "socialism" or environmentalism even with valid hopes like "saving the planet", as activists for the cause, who can't see the puppeteer's hands pulling the strings of their hearts and minds are worse than slaves. A slave may be compelled to work the will of the masters, but activists and crusaders have lost their own souls to the mesmerizing prattle of the media masters. A slave can still think, at least, for himself, or herself.

However, the originating idea behind our government's constitution at the outset was to empower people to run their government. the machine is still there, the idea is still there for people to retake their own lives, liberties, and become genuinely happy in the pursuit of their own real welfare or interests.

And that is why this discussion is the one essential discussion for mankind.
 

Beau is a moron. I do not understand why so many worship his content. Direct Democracy is mob rule and Representative Democracy is mob rule. Among the few things Beau gets right is when he says @4:38 “Democracies of all kinds are [mob rule]”, and it is why democracies are incompatible with individual rights.

When Beau says “There is nothing saying a Direct Democracy can’t require 80% of people to vote for something for a law to pass”, he is 100% wrong. Such a thing is possible IN A REPUBLIC because whatever structure containing the 80% threshold rule, be it a written constitution or monarch, must supersede the will of the people making that government by definition a republic.

He also mangles the concept of natural rights versus government granted rights and his assertion of the US being a democracy rather than a republic because people are bad Facebook feeds has nothing to do with anything. He is quite literally criticizing the thing he is.
 
The U.S. government operates under a form of democracy. Just as he said in the video, claiming we're not a democracy is like the guy who when asked what kind of vehicle he drives says "I don't drive a vehicle, I drive a Jeep!" The guy in that example is being an obtuse jackass.

When people talk about American democratic principles they are talking about our specific form of democracy that includes our constitutional republic institutions. To correct them and tell them that we are not a democracy is asinine.
 
The U.S. government operates under a form of democracy. Just as he said in the video, claiming we're not a democracy is like the guy who when asked what kind of vehicle he drives says "I don't drive a vehicle, I drive a Jeep!" The guy in that example is being an obtuse jackass.
Not at all. That Beau thinks a Jeep is to a vehicle what a republic is to a democracy is what I'm talking about when I say he is a moron. Jeeps are a type of vehicle. A republic is not a type of democracy. For example, North Korea is a republic. There is not a lot of democracy going on in North Korea. North Korea is an autocratic dictatorship and a republic. Our particular republic has some democratic features but that is not the same thing as being a democracy. To claim the United States is a democracy requires a total lack of knowledge on what makes a government a republic.
 
Our Republic is ABSOLUTELY a type of democracy.

Roman republic was not. Their senators were appointed by a consuls and later by censors.

We vote our representatives into office, so we employ a democratic process to select them.

How ****ing dense are you going to insist on being about this? It is seriously dumb.
 
We vote our representatives into office, so we employ a democratic process to select them.
We employ a democratic process to vote our Congressmen into office. We do not vote our Supreme Court into office. We do not vote our President into office. We do not vote the cabinet into office. We do not vote in the heads of nearly every department of the government. Democratically electing the chief members of one branch of government does not make our government a democracy. The United States is a republic that democratically elects the legislative branch. We are a republic with democratic features. We are not a democracy. That said, I do give you credit for saying the Roman republic was not a democracy. You have more brains than Beau with his Jeeps and vehicles stupidity.
 
When Beau says “There is nothing saying a Direct Democracy can’t require 80% of people to vote for something for a law to pass”, he is 100% wrong. Such a thing is possible IN A REPUBLIC because whatever structure containing the 80% threshold rule, be it a written constitution or monarch, must supersede the will of the people making that government by definition a republic.
Could you point out your source for that definition? All the sources I've seen mention actual people, not documents.


Basically, your saying there can not be a constitutional direct democracy. Is this another of your circular logic definitions?

He also mangles the concept of natural rights versus government granted rights
In what way?

and his assertion of the US being a democracy rather than a republic because people are bad Facebook feeds
Not what he said.
 
Basically, your saying there can not be a constitutional direct democracy.
It is possible to have a constitution in a pure democracy but that constitution could not supersede the will of the people. In a pure democracy, the will of the people has ultimate authority. If that hypothetical pure democracy uses elected representatives to voice the will of the people, that isn't enough to solve the fundamental problems caused by the will of the people having ultimate authority. The only way to solve the problems of mob rule, which even Beau admits all democracies are, is to put something in the hierarchy of power above the will of the people but if you do that then you no longer have a pure democracy because the "demos" don't "kratos" if you do that.

In the United States, the "demos" don't "kratos". If the democratically elected legislature makes a law that has more then 51% popular support but runs afoul of the Constitution, the law will be struck down because in the hierarchy of power in our government the US Constitution "kratos". We are a constitutional republic with some features of democracy.
 
It is possible to have a constitution in a pure democracy but that constitution could not supersede the will of the people.
Now you're introducing the term "pure democracy". I'm not familiar with with this term. Do you have a reference for it?

In any case, my question was whether there can be a constitutional direct democracy, and you offer any answer to say there can't be.

In the United States, the "demos" don't "kratos". If the democratically elected legislature makes a law that has more then 51% popular support but runs afoul of the Constitution, the law will be struck down because in the hierarchy of power in our government the US Constitution "kratos". We are a constitutional republic with some features of democracy.
Right, we're a constitutional, democratic republic (or if you prefer, constitutional, republican democracy).

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I don't see anything in that definition that forbids a constitutional pure democracy.
 
Right, we're a constitutional, democratic republic (or if you prefer, constitutional, republican democracy).
Yes on the first one and no on the second. It is fair to call our system of government a constitutional democratic republic. We are not a constitutional republican democracy. The order of the words is important. We run into the same issue a lot when people mix social democrat with democratic socialism.
 
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With enough popular support we can do whatever we want to our Constitution. We can strike the First Amendment if we want. We can change the commerce clause if we want. All it takes is enough support from our legislative branch and then being ratified by enough states, who do so by popular vote.

It's also been pointed out that our Constitution has failed many times to protect the rights that it says we have (not to be confused with it granting us those rights). So this Constitutional Republic thing does not do what you claim it does. Basically the end of the story on that one. I'm 100% done with this.
 
It's also been pointed out that our Constitution has failed many times to protect the rights that it says we have
On this I completely agree. The Constitution has not been iron clad. As pointed out so eloquently by Frederick Douglass in 1852, the United States failed to live up to the promise set forth in the Declaration of Independence. I never said any of it was perfect, but our type of republic is far better at protecting individual rights than any other type of government ever tried.

Mob rule has a terrible track record of protecting individual rights. Popular opinion is too easily swayed. I understand the appeal of democracy but I trust the written constitution not to be swayed by demagogues, panic, and greed more than I trust majority opinion to be swayed by those things. I don't even like the reinterpreting of the Constitution with a modern eye and instead favor originalist judges because I don't trust the human part of that. I've seen what humans do to each other when they get power.

If you like the way our government is structured then I don't care what you call it. If you are unhappy with it and want to make changes to it then I'll listen but will want to define the terms you are using so I can understand what you are saying. If the change you want to make is to increase the amount of say the popular majority gets then I'm not onboard with it. History shows where that goes.
 
Mob rule has a terrible track record of protecting individual rights.
Is there some large group advocating for mob rule that I'm not aware of?

If you are unhappy with it and want to make changes to it then I'll listen but will want to define the terms you are using so I can understand what you are saying.
Is there some large group suggesting significant changes?

Maybe you didn't pick up on this, so I'll clarify it for you. When you start talking about how we're not a democracy, etc., and there is no context of changing things in our country, it reads a great deal as if you trying to propagandize a reduction in the level of democratic norms in this country, such as when legislatures give themselves the power to overturn elections. Can you provide a context aside from a push like this?

More generally, how do you feel about bills like Fillmore's of Arizona, which would allow legislatures to reject election results (yes, I know it doesn't have any chance of passing)?
 
Funniest thread going on jazzfanz right now
Well done Al
 
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