The Downfall of a Destructive Democracy
If someone was to ask you today, what form of government the United States is, most would respond with a democracy. People don't realize that this has changed, the United States was not always a democracy. The United States was founded as a constitutional republic with democratic principles. That is why when The Pledge of Allegiance is recited, it includes the words, "to The Republic for which it stands". You may ask well what does it matter? It matters because there is a big difference between a republic and a democracy. People will argue that the founding fathers were against democracies.
“We are a Republic. Real Liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy.”
Alexander Hamilton
Unbalanced
Limits
The difference between a republic and a democracy lies in the limitations placed on the government by law. Both forms of government have a tendency to use a representational system, citizens vote to elect politicians to represent their interests.
Rule of Law
In a republic, a charter of rights protects specific inalienable rights that the authorities cannot take away, even if they are elected into power. In the United States, we have The Bill of Rights. These were amendments to The Constitution that granted citizens rights that could not be taken away. Although, now we have transformed into a democracy, these rights have been slowly taken away without people realizing this important fact.
Majority Rule
In a democracy, the majority of citizens are able to dictate the rules of the minority. The problem with this flawed system is that it completely contradicts The Bill of Rights. In a democracy, your rights can be taken away if the people or elected officials pass laws that go against your inalienable rights. Some clear examples of this today are the attacks on free speech, gun ownership, search and seizure protection, the right to remain silent and many others. It is a sad day because people look at The Constitution as old fashioned. It wasn't a perfect document, but it restrained the power of the government by setting clear rules to follow and gave people rights to protect themselves from the majority.
Majority
Abuse of Power
The definition of the Republic is a constitutionally limited government, created by a written Constitution, embraced by the individuals and changeable by them only by its modification, with its powers split between three different Divisions, Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. Today this system is dwindling fast. Presidents have taken more power than they should and congress is relinquishing their responsibilities. It seems presidents have been attacking The Bill of Rights through unconstitutional executive orders. That is why I really liked Ron Paul's approach when he was running for president back in 2012. He stated, that he didn't want more power if he was elected. In fact, he said he would have written an executive order to repeal all unconstitutional executive orders prior.
Rights
In a republic, 99% of the people cannot take away the rights of 1% of the people. The government's job is to protect these rights. We see quite the opposite with bills proposed and passed like The Patriot Act. Which was anything but patriotic because it gave the government the right to illegally spy on its own citizens.
Pursuit of Happiness
Representatives
The United States is not a direct democracy, it is an indirect democracy because the people are not voting for laws. The citizens elect officials who are supposed to represent their votes. Unfortunately, the media sways the opinion of the masses with meaningless polls and putting people into groups. For example, the media provides statements like Hispanics think this way, Blacks want this, White people do that. This is just separating us. No group deserves privileges over another. We are all equal, with equal rights. This is why everyone is fighting each other, we should all agree on one thing, freedom. No one should receive benefits from the government, but we should all have an equal opportunity to pursue our dreams.
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Sincerely Yours,
@johnnyyash
Ever notice how much "democracy" sounds like "dem all crazy"?
Article is informative
Article is factually incorrect and very misleading. Do you know the difference between a republic and a democracy? In a democracy you have a vote on every issue, in a republic you choose some moron to vote for you.
Both systems can either be constitutional, or not. The real reason the US is a republic is that in the time of its founding, the technology to easily run a successful democracy did not exist.
The United States considers itself a democracy today and we do elect morons to vote for us. So it is the same in both.
All the democracies of the past have failed and so will all the ones in the future. It is mob rule and more than half the people can take the rights away from the other half of the people. In a republic, everyone has the same rights and their rights are protected. In a republic you won't get benefits from the government, because the government won't have much power.
I posted a great video on this exact subject. Watch The Five Basic Forms Of Government Explained I think you will like it.
If people's votes were weighted against their tax bills, democracy would work. Especially if everyone could vote on new bills, most would get shot down within minutes of being put up for vote. These giant pieces of toilet paper they call 'bills' would be flagged as plagiarism, scams and the whales would make their rewards to zero so fast it would make you dizzy.
But because the democracy is not based on stake in the economy of a country, the poor, with their smaller share of the tax contribution, and the super rich, with their elaborate accounting schemes and lobbied tax exemptions, both get disproportionate power to affect the way decisions are made. The people who actually produce the most value, the middle class, have all their voting power stolen from them by these two groups, and the aristocracy also spends a lot of money to make sure these in real life worthless votes of the uneducated, often benefit-paid poor, vote for the politicians who continue this process of consolidation of power into the plutocracy riding on the back of ignorant, brainwashed fools who have no experience in trying to run a business within the regulatory environment legislated through this corrupt process.