One topic that I see cropping up on this board fairly regularly is the assertion that “the United States are not a democracy but a republic” (the most recent thread is here).
This thread is not about whether that assertion is true or not (that is amply discussed in the linked thread and previous threads).
What I wonder, as an interested onlooker (rubbernecker ) from across the Atlantic: what’s the significance of this statement? Its proponents seem to feel much more strongly about the question than one normally would feel about a point of political science terminological trivia. It seems that they regard calling the US a democracy not merely incorrect but harmful.
In other words: postulating that the statement “the US is a republic, not a democracy” is true and the statement “the US is a republic and a democracy” is false, what would be the corollaries for the actual running of the country?
Historically, the phrase “a republic, not a democracy” has been invoked by anyone dedicated to “states’ rights” and suspicious of the expansion of the power and reach of the federal government. This included, but was not limited to, defenders of the Jim Crow system in the South (when the Southern states were “republican” in form but blacks could not vote there).
To me, the thought of a relatively pure democracy is a scary thing. Half the people have at or below median intelligence, those of any intelligence may be poorly educated, and groups have been shown through history history to do things with nothing but their own shortsighted interest in mind even at the great expense of others and maybe their own long-term future.
We don’t have a true democracy and I would not ever want one. A constitutional republic can protect individual rights even when the majority is opposed to them. A constitutional republic forms a structure that harnesses democracy as a subset of its philosophy and structure. A true democracy can be an unbridled and unpredictable beast.
So I would assume the two main issues that anyone advocating this position today would regard as being hindered by “democracy” are abortion (prevention of) and gay marriage (prevention of)? Or is this an over-simplification?
At least for me the idea is that the United States isn’t ruled by the whim of the majority alone. There are people who will argue that something is ok because that’s what the majority want and that’s what it means to live in a democratic government.
The quote is usually attributed to a Scottish phiospoher named Alexander Tyler, but Snopes says the quote is probably fictitous nad that the name was actually “Tytler,” which is both unfortunate and hilarious.
Very different from the UL version. Also wrong. Tytler should have known that many states of classical Greece were real democracies – governed by what amounted to an elite citizen caste, perhaps, but generally not by a “single will.”
Assuming anyone still does advocate this position today. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard the “a republic, not a democracy” argument seriously invoked anywhere but on this board. Even persons who want to roll back federal power rarely couch it in those terms. The idea might have had some currency in 2000 when the result of the EC vote for president did not match the popular vote, but I don’t recall an instance.
) from across the Atlantic: what’s the significance of this statement? Its proponents seem to feel much more strongly about the question than one normally would feel about a point of political science terminological trivia. It seems that they regard calling the US a democracy not merely incorrect but harmful.