# This is a republic, not a democracy!--what's the deal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 21, 2012, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761 "2012-11-21T19:39:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761/41 "2012-11-24T01:40:13Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Tangentially, republic is not a synonym for “representative democracy” as many people on the internets seem to think. It can be. It depends on context. That’s what makes this prime Internet trolling material: **Whatever definition you pick, regardless of how carefully you choose, I can always find a respectable source saying you’re wrong.** That’s it. That’s the whole gag. An _honest_ discussion of what the word means ends with people agreeing it has multiple meanings, all in active use, and then arbitrarily picking one to make the actual debate go more smoothly. A _dishonest_ one involves someone holding firm to a definition that’s less useful in the current context and stating that anyone who wants a reasonable definition is illiterate. The people under discussion, the ones who rant and rave about the difference between a democracy and a republic, are the dishonest ones, or at least idiots who have been duped by the dishonest ones. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761/42 "2012-11-24T02:06:44Z")
Democracy is not about being the best possible government. It’s about having a way to peacefully stop a bad government. It’s all about taking the revolution out of government. That’s the point. Wars are not only economically damaging, but damaging to ones life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. It’s in the best interest of everyone to try and prevent one for as long as possible. Even the economy itself is better if there are no wars, since you aren’t secure in your property when people are trying to kill you. and you can’t sell to dead people. Sure, you can sell war supplies, but that’s going to be someone else, not the people who are currently well off. (and you can still sell that stuff during peace time) And democracy does fight for the minority, oddly enough. First off, democracy gets its legitimacy from those who are governed, and becomes stronger the more equal people are. It’s in the government’s own interest for everyone to be equal. Furthermore, a lot of people, despite being in the majority, are capable of realizing that they could be a minority. And minorities are capable of joining together and punching way above their weight. They can push the threat of a revolution (which weakens democracy) in order to get what they want. This isn’t perfect, of course. Revolutions do still happen. Slavery, for example, was not ended by democracy but by war. But notice that the Confederate government lacked legitimacy since it was founded on people not being equal. When pitted against a more legitimate government, it failed. This is of course, a simplistic overview. It’s a lot more complicated than this. But the idea that the majority will always trump a minority in democracy is an even simpler and less correct view. There is no inherent tyranny of the majority. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761/43 "2012-11-24T03:22:19Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > It’s all about taking the revolution out of government. It’s all about moving the revolutions _into_ government, where they can be fought using ballots instead of bullets. The very existence of a working democratic polity takes the wind out of any would-be revolutionary’s sails because it’s cheaper and easier to petition for change within the system than to try and instigate violent change outside of it. That’s one reason the Civil War happened when it did: In 1860, Abraham Lincoln won the Presidency fair and square (by mid-1800s standards) _without even being on the ballots in nine states_\*, all of which would try to secede and fail. Also, look at the election results: In most of the states that would remain in the Union, the contest was between Lincoln and Douglas; in the soon-to-be Confederate states, it was largely Bell versus Breckinridge. Lincoln still won almost 60% of the electoral votes nationally, a solid majority, and the Slave Power states saw that they no longer had the population to veto a president they found entirely unfit. [And the war came.](http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln%27s_Second_Inaugural_Address) \*(I’d say ten states, but South Carolina didn’t have a popular vote for the President yet so they didn’t have ballots, _per se_. Still: South fucking Carolina. Do you _think_ he’d have been on the ballot?) [UCSB has a good historical elections website](http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/showelection.php?year=1860), and [Wikipedia provides more context.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1860) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761/44 "2012-11-24T05:03:14Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > That’s one definition. It isn’t the only one, and it usually isn’t the most useful. > > Think about this: North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Canada, America. > > Which of those go together? > > Well, obviously, North Korea and America should be classed together, and Canada fits right in with Saudi Arabia. Done and done. > > Oh. Wait. That’s patently idiotic. > > Canada and the US are a lot more alike than not, regardless of whose face is on the money, and while I wouldn’t accuse Saudi Arabia of being fully as bad as the Kim Family’s Gulag, don’t try to be an apostate there. > > So what word should be used to refer to America and Canada? Frankly, ‘democracy’ seems to have won, but ‘republic’ is a good runner-up. Canada doesn’t have an inherited ruler but NK does and so does S.A. So, I think that definition works just fine. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761/45 "2012-11-24T05:10:34Z")
> [@Randvek](#): > > Not at all. As cited above, the UK has a monarch, but is still a Republic. You can argue that she’s just a figurehead, but the UK is still a Republic once you factor in the House of Lords. There are few vestiges of inheritance in the House of Lords, and they will likely be gone in the near future, but they are still there and have always been there, so a monarch/inheritance isn’t a requirement of a Republic. As a British person of fairly advanced age, I do not think I have _ever_ heard the UK described as a republic before reading this thread. We consider it to be a democracy (because the lion’s share of political power resides with the elected House of Commons) but _not_ a republic. In the context of British politics, a republican is someone who wants to abolish the institution of the monarchy and replace it with an elected president as head of state. So no,unlike the united States, Britain is not a republic, and it certainly does not claim to be. Neither, in fact, are many of the countries that score highest on the Democracy Index: not Britain, so much, but Canada and Australia (who share Britain’s Queen), and the scandinavian countries, who have kings of their own. Of course teh role of monarch in all these countries is almost entirely ceremonial, but this is the case too for electe presidents in many democratic republics: Israle for instance, or Ireland. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761/46 "2012-11-24T05:50:12Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Canada doesn’t have an inherited ruler but NK does and so does S.A. So, I think that definition works just fine. Ha. OK, how about Belarus instead of North Korea? Does that make a better match for us? ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761/47 "2012-11-24T10:09:44Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Canada doesn’t have an inherited ruler… I think you’ll find it does. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761/48 "2012-11-24T18:35:13Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > The people under discussion, the ones who rant and rave about the difference between a democracy and a republic, are the dishonest ones, or at least idiots who have been duped by the dishonest ones. And IME some of the same people are likely to call liberals “useful idiots” of the Marxists or whoever (and to misattribute the phrase [“useful idiot”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot) to Lenin). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761/49 "2012-11-24T18:43:38Z")
> [@WotNot](#): > > I think you’ll find it does. Well, more of an absentee landlord. ---
**Author:** ![Gukumatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/74df32/32.png) [@Gukumatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gukumatz)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761/50 "2012-11-25T03:56:30Z")
ETA: Wrong thread. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761/51 "2012-11-25T04:32:29Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Ha. OK, how about Belarus instead of North Korea? Does that make a better match for us? No, because it is still a useless comparison. Just because you can correlate two qualitatively different things because of single point of comparison doesn’t mean squat. Yes, the US and Saudi Arabia are similar in one respect. That doesn’t mean we have to redefine terms so the US is more like countries we like and less like ones we don’t. There are elections in lots of dictatorships. That doesn’t mean that a bogus election in, say, Cuba, somehow negates the fact that we have elections that are better than theirs. Count me in with those who say that republic can mean a few different things based on context, but because those definitions are not prescriptive. It isn’t like anything actually changes in the US if some call it a republic and others call it a democracy, no more than my golf handicap were to go down if I started calling it a game rather than a sport. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761/52 "2012-11-25T05:32:09Z")
**Ravenman** : You completely missed my point and ended up agreeing with me fully. I didn’t know that was actually possible. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761/53 "2012-11-25T05:50:22Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Yes, the US and Saudi Arabia are similar in one respect. We don’t know what to do with our immigrants but we value their labor too much to get rid of them? ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761/54 "2012-11-25T15:13:34Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > **Ravenman** : You completely missed my point and ended up agreeing with me fully. I didn’t know that was actually possible. Oh, yeah, you’re right. That’s because you and I are both geniuses but I don’t listen to others vey well. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761/55 "2012-11-25T15:49:35Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Slavery, for example, was not ended by democracy but by war. This is an extremely US-centric view. Slavery was ended throughout the British Empire by a combination of court cases, local legislation (eg - Upper Canada’s abolition of slavery in 1791) and a series of measures passed by the British Parliament for the Empire as a whole. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761/56 "2012-11-25T16:02:29Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > I know what the definition of the US type of government is. I’m asking solely about this new focus. And it came before the election, by the way. I actually started noticing it during the 2000 presidential election. When some people started arguing that our efforts ought to be focused on ensuring that everyone who cast a vote actually got their votes counted, one of the retorts was “This is a republic, not a democracy!” I don’t really understand the logical connection, but it seems to imply something to the effect of — “Only in a democracy do we care whether _everyone’s_ vote counts, because in a republic, policy is set by elected representatives of the people, so it doesn’t matter what each individual citizen wants.” Frankly, the entire thing is baffling to me. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761/57 "2012-11-25T16:14:37Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > We discussed this not that long ago. [Here’s](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=660024) one of those recent eruptions of stupidity. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761/58 "2012-11-25T19:14:36Z")
Could you be more specific as to where the stupidity is in that thread? The first half-page or so that I read seems to be a reasonable discussion. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761/59 "2012-11-25T19:52:34Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > This is an extremely US-centric view. Slavery was ended throughout the British Empire by a combination of court cases, local legislation (eg - Upper Canada’s abolition of slavery in 1791) and a series of measures passed by the British Parliament for the Empire as a whole. Shut up! It’s an empire, not a democracy! ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761/60 "2012-11-25T21:50:01Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I actually started noticing it during the 2000 presidential election. When some people started arguing that our efforts ought to be focused on ensuring that everyone who cast a vote actually got their votes counted, one of the retorts was “This is a republic, not a democracy!” > > I don’t really understand the logical connection, but it seems to imply something to the effect of — “Only in a democracy do we care whether _everyone’s_ vote counts, because in a republic, policy is set by elected representatives of the people, so it doesn’t matter what each individual citizen wants.” > > Frankly, the entire thing is baffling to me. It’s baffling because having our form of republican government really and truly _isn’t_ an excuse for electoral fraud. (I say ‘our form’ as opposed to a Dictatorial Republic, like North Korea or Belarus. If you’re willing to call the UK a crowned republic, then _that_ form of republic isn’t an excuse for fraud, either.) It was gloating based on completely misunderstanding a particularly idiotic semantic game. There’s multiple layers of stupidity there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy-whats-the-deal/641761.md?page=4)