NationStates Jolt Archive

Just FYI to those of you who dont know (and its a shame that most of those who dont know are americans):

The United States of America is a Republic, not a Democracy

That is absolutely true....we are a Representative Republic.

Now....try to find ANYWHERE that says we have a RIGHT to vote....an absolute right to vote.

Just FYI to those of you who dont know (and its a shame that most of those who dont know are americans):

The United States of America is a Republic, not a Democracy


Are you related to my ancient history teacher. If there is one thing she makes sure you know it is that. (To bad Democracies won't work on large populations :( )

Just FYI to those of you who dont know (and its a shame that most of those who dont know are americans):

The United States of America is a Republic, not a Democracy

Actually, it's a little of both. Consider the fact that neither the state or federal goverment has complete control over the other.

Are you related to my ancient history teacher. If there is one thing she makes sure you know it is that. (To bad Democracies won't work on large populations :( )
It works in Canada!!!

To bad Democracies won't work on large populations
How do you know? its never been tried, and now with high-speed internet communication , its actually possible that it could work, distributed government! YAY!

Okay, Im gonna ask the dumbass question because someone will eventually have to. What's the difference between the two?

It works in Canada!!!

Canada has a....

Federal Parliamentary Democracy and Constitutional Monarchy. Canada is a federation, which means powers are shared between federal and provincial governments.

NOT really a democracy.

Well, democracy is the power of majority; the power of the people, being able to have abundant political and civil freedoms. Someone else will have to field what a republic is.

Canada has a....

Federal Parliamentary Democracy and Constitutional Monarchy. Canada is a federation, which means powers are shared between federal and provincial governments.

NOT really a democracy.
It's more of a democracy that the US. And a constitutional monarchy only means the royal family is symbolically represented and they have no power whatsoever.

Republics suck. What we need is a major overhaul of the constitution to put more power in the hands of the people and less in that of politicians. We also need to get rid of the electoral college. That thing is just silly.

If I can remeber correctly the only true succeful democracy was in ancient Athens which is considerably smaller than most if not all nations today.

Republics suck. What we need is a major overhaul of the constitution to put more power in the hands of the people and less in that of politicians. We also need to get rid of the electoral college. That thing is just silly.

Eww that is just as bad. As ol' Winston once said: "The surest cure to Democracy is a 5 minute discussion with the average voter."

Sometimes the masses have to be reigned in.

Is it a Democratic Republic?

Well, democracy is the power of majority; the power of the people, being able to have abundant political and civil freedoms. Someone else will have to field what a republic is.

According to dictionary.com a republic is

A political order whose head of state is not a monarch and in modern times is usually a president.
A nation that has such a political order.

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.
A nation that has such a political order.

If I can remeber correctly the only true succeful democracy was in ancient Athens which is considerably smaller than most if not all nations today.
Was it true? was it successful?

If I can remeber correctly the only true succeful democracy was in ancient Athens which is considerably smaller than most if not all nations today.

Actually, democracy in Athens did not work. There had to be a 100% vote on anything. Things got so bad that Athens was about to fall to their enemies, so they elected a Tyrant. Tyrant being a position of leadership with ABSOLUTE power. They elected a man named Draco, who ruled with an iron fist and turned things around. His name is the origin for the word Draconian. Look it up....

Pretty much a Democracy is a government in which all the decisions are made by the people. This litterally means everybody votes on everything. The only major successful Democrasy I can think of is Ancient Athens. A republic is a government in which there are elected representives chosen to made the descions. The classic example of this form is Ancient Rome (after the monarchy, before the empire).

Several Points:

Democracy in Athens? yep, participatory democracy (apart from various periods where they put that aside for wars or the like) but of course, as any first year politics student will tell you, this participation didnt extend to women, forieners, slaves.... people without property... basically you had the elite of society ('the citizens')making the decisions for the rest of it in a democratic manner. This elite wasnt even chosen in a representative manner. It was based on property qualifications (if you could afford the slaves to keep working the land you owned so that you didnt have to, you could go and play politics). How much of a 'direct democracy' this adds up to is up for discussion.


as to reigning in the uneducated masses - theres a school of thinking that you get the masses you deserve... The average voter/citizen/subject/consumer doesnt know much about much, because he or she doesnt have to. They have representatives who make all the decisions for them. The idea here is that if you had a much more participatory democracy, where people had to make decisions for themselves, then this would 'train' people to think more responsibly, learn about issues etc, even if this was just through social costs for not knowing about stuff

("Gosh, you mean you dont know anything about X? but we have to vote on that tomorow!")

Interesting book out at the moment called 'the wisdom of crowds' I forget the name of the author... its about how groups of people are more intelligent acting together than we thought they might be.

example is you have a jar full of sweets. Get a group of 30 odd people to guess how many sweets in the jar. Chances are the average (arithmetical mean) of these guesses will be closer to the number of sweets than any given individual guess (barring sweet-estimating experts)

as far as I can remember there are a number of conditions though. For example, I think the guesses have to be made independently of each other (to prevent 'groupthink' from setting in) and there needs to be some fair and impartial way of aggregating the decisions/guesses into a final result..

those are the clear challenges for deliberative/direct democracy. A good place to start is the whole body of literature on deliberative democracy by people like Habermas. A lot of this revolves around the 'ideal speech act' a form of talking under conditions that mitigate a lot of the effects of power... It's problematic, but it's interesting, and its very very far away from what we've got anywhere at the moment.

The republican system it employs is democratic, you're getting bogged down in semantic nonsense, the world is not nearly as clear cut as applying labels like "Democracy" or "Republic" to states.

Actually, democracy in Athens did not work. There had to be a 100% vote on anything. Things got so bad that Athens was about to fall to their enemies, so they elected a Tyrant. Tyrant being a position of leadership with ABSOLUTE power. They elected a man named Draco, who ruled with an iron fist and turned things around. His name is the origin for the word Draconian. Look it up....

Yeah I know about Draco. But you can't say Athens fell because of it being a democracy look at who they were against. The Spartans were bred for war.

(oh was it a site you found out about Draco i was looking through ancient history notes but can't find the part about him i just wanted to review)

Eww that is just as bad. As ol' Winston once said: "The surest cure to Democracy is a 5 minute discussion with the average voter."

Sometimes the masses have to be reigned in.


With high speed communication, this may not be necessary. If the average person were not poor and uneducated, perhaps things would be different.

Pretty much a Democracy is a government in which all the decisions are made by the people. This litterally means everybody votes on everything. The only major successful Democrasy I can think of is Ancient Athens. A republic is a government in which there are elected representives chosen to made the descions. The classic example of this form is Ancient Rome (after the monarchy, before the empire).

Oh speaking of Ancient Rome isn't Star Wars up to the fall the the emperor basicly a shortened, hitech, jedi filled version of Rome?

Yeah I know about Draco. But you can't say Athens fell because of it being a democracy look at who they were against. The Spartans were bred for war.

(oh was it a site you found out about Draco i was looking through ancient history notes but can't find the part about him i just wanted to review)

Had they NOT elected him...Athens would have fallen.

No, I was a History major in college and studied the period for a class in Western Civ. Google is your friend.

Had they NOT elected him...Athens would have fallen.

No, I was a History major in college and studied the period for a class in Western Civ. Google is your friend.

If I remeber right Athens fell anyways. :) Refresh my memory Athens exilied all the generals who lost a battle than was betrayed by one when they took them back right?

Oh speaking of Ancient Rome isn't Star Wars up to the fall the the emperor basicly a shortened, hitech, jedi filled version of Rome?

I suppose there's an arguement that could be made for that...though to be fair the cirumstance in the Star Wars universe and of Rome at the fall of the republic were quite different. An interesting interpretation though.

The republican system it employs is democratic, you're getting bogged down in semantic nonsense, the world is not nearly as clear cut as applying labels like "Democracy" or "Republic" to states.
I was going to say it.
No the USA is neither a democracy nor a republic, it is a ... COUNTRY.
And someone else will come and say no, the USA in a ... FEDERATION.
No, it is a piece of land...
It's both. The USA has several attributes. Having an attribute does not exclude all the other ones.

I suppose there's an arguement that could be made for that...though to be fair the cirumstance in the Star Wars universe and of Rome at the fall of the republic were quite different. An interesting interpretation though.

Well they were not too far different corruption in the senate for one. (course im skipping the whole cesear triumviate thing) Then Augustus had war with Antony which is similar to the confederacy. In fear of more internal wars they keep the leader. Then at the fall of the western Roman empire came from barbarians which are like the rebels.

oh and i almost forgot i skipped the whole relying on slaves for labor deal

Well they were not too far different corruption in the senate for one. (course im skipping the whole cesear triumviate thing) Then Augustus had war with Antony which is similar to the confederacy. In fear of more internal wars they keep the leader. Then at the fall of the western Roman empire came from barbarians which are like the rebels.

Well yeah I can see the corruption in the senate in comparison, and the election of Palapatine and Ceaser as being in common. But there's more to it though. I mean there's no assassination of Ceaser in Star Wars that would leave the power void that existed in Rome. And that power void led to the raise of Augustus and Antony, and I don't really see that comparison is Star Wars. And also Augustus is the Emperor that "found rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble." He was a good emperor and his legacy was near a century of peace. I don't see that happening in star wars...wouldn't be very entertaining. And then the Comparison of the barbarians to the rebels I feel is unfair because the barbarians were an external infulence, while the Rebel Alliance is an internal force trying to bring back the old ways.

Democracy: "Government by the people." This can take any variety of forms, including a "direct democracy" in which all public decisions are made by a vote of all citizens. In principle, however, there can be a "representative democracy," which is distinguishable from a representative republic, as described below. In representative democracy, officials are selected to perform certain public functions, which may or may not include legislation and/or execution of law. To avoid class distinctions, some representative democracies may choose representatives by lottery, so that any citizen may be called to serve. Representatives are usually directly answerable to the people.

Most democracies, as implemented or proposed, would be a mix of these systems.

Republic: A government in which officials or representatives are not chosen based on descent or class membership. In principle, a republic does not require election of officials, as career politicians may attain the highest positions through bureaucratic decision, as in a corporation. In theory and practice, however, we see mostly "democratic" or "representative" republics. In a democratic republic, the electorate chooses a government, or representatives in a government. Offices may be for any term, although in practice a limited term is expected to ensure that representatives are answerable to their electorate. They are not, however, held directly answerable.

So basically, the difference between representative democracy and a democratic republic is that in a democratic republic citizens choose a government which will have watch over them for a given term, while in a representative democracy the people choose officials (or they are chosen by lot) to make daily decisions (rather than having everyone meet every day), but these officials are directly answerable to the people -- i.e. at any time a general meeting could be called, in principal by anyone, to reprimand or remove an officer.

If I remeber right Athens fell anyways. :) Refresh my memory Athens exilied all the generals who lost a battle than was betrayed by one when they took them back right?

Close....it was a King who they deposed. His name escapes me, but he went to Darius, the ruler of the Persians and agreed to help him take Athens for his thrown back. So Darius sent his army in, but was defeated at the battle of Marathon. You might want to look into that as well. Athens did eventually fall, but not due to that.

With high speed communication, this may not be necessary. If the average person were not poor and uneducated, perhaps things would be different.

I think you are overestimating the power of high speed communication and underestimating the "average person." The poor and uneducated, at least in the United States, is a small minority and far below the educational level of the "average person." Just how effective do you think high speed communication will be at educating them? Sad, but true, some are just not intelligent enough to learn, and more are simply unwilling.