Is The United States of America A Democracy?

[MathewSmith]

They say a democracy is a system of the government that involves the whole population. Which means that everyone should be equally heard and their opinion should matter. Lately it has only been those of more importance in the government that matter and everyone else is being exiled. The U.S. Is looking more like a dictatorship than a democracy. For example; gerrymandering is taking tole with the redistricting of the United States which is causing problems for everyone. The government is favoring certain parties and not all of them.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

We are not a democracy and never were. We are a Republic. If we were a democracy, our so-called poor would be working, we wouldn't be 18 trillion into debt, and the Iraq war would have never happened. Also radical groups like Black Lies Matter would be afraid of getting out of hand and chanting the execution of our police officers because most of us would be behind mowing those losers down.

In some ways, not being a real democracy is a protection to us all. In most cases, not being a democracy works against us.

 

[cnm]

Well, Ray from Cleveland, how about giving your definitions of a democracy and a republic.

Nah, scratch that, silly idea, I know how it would go.

This is a very slightly better idea. Here's Collins' definitions of democracy, how does the US not fit any of them, especially the first?

democracy​

1. government by the people or their elected representatives
2. a political or social unit governed ultimately by all its members
3. the practice or spirit of social equality
4. a social condition of classlessness and equality
5. the common people, esp as a political force

 

[midcan5]

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

We are a constitutional democratic republic, a bit of a mix of check and balances on concentrated power. When some claim if only we were ???? then everything would be hunky dory they miss the reality that society is made up of human beings.

"Although we have always benefited from the activities of public-spirited individuals, even men and women of great wealth who recognize that greed as a principle of public conduct often leads to perverse outcomes, the United States Constitution was emphatically not founded on the assumption that either citizens or magistrates could be trusted to act selflessly. If my argument can be taken as a call to republican virtue, it is only SO within the modern realist framework devised by Madison and his colleagues in 1787, according to whom government is a response to humanity's inherent wickedness. Men are not angels. Obama notwithstanding. A properly American call to republican virtue is not a utopian exhortation that our citizens cast aside their private and selfish interests and embark on a course of austere political action, with their eyes fixed on some transcendent public good apart from their own.

"[W]hat is required is that Americans take a stand on behalf of their selfish material interests and against those of the monopolies and transnational corporations that have captured our institutions of government. The paradoxical character of our popular corruption is that the people have become slothfully selfless, too absorbed by their ephemeral entertainments and petty cultural disputes to assert their self-interest against the plunderers who rule them. ¶ Surely, however, the American people have not become so servile that they will forever submit to the rule of 1 percent. Surely we are capable of recognizing that the perverse corporate regime that has arisen in our country is a usurpation of popular government. Our Constitution unquestionably recognizes the right of a people to alter its mode of government: we have done so twenty-seven times. We may do so again. We may throw off these bonds and provide new guards for our future security." Roger D. Hodge http://www.amazon.com/Mendacity-Hope...=books&ie=UTF8&tag=ff0d01-20


"The unity of Government, which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very Liberty, which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee, that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the Palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion, that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts." http://www.quotedb.com/speeches/washington-farewell-address

 

[cnm]

Oops, better cover the bases...

republic​

1. a form of government in which the people or their elected representatives possess the supreme power
2. a political or national unit possessing such a form of government
3. a constitutional form in which the head of state is an elected or nominated president
4. any community or group that resembles a political republic in that its members or elements exhibit a general equality, shared interests, etc

 

[Stephanie]

It's become a country of nasty ass elected governments (State and Federal ) filled with a nasty ass people that YOU GET to pay for who is now being run BY MOB RULES it seems.

 

[cnm]

Do words no longer have meaning?

Sorry, silly question, won't do it again.

 

[Votto]

They say a democracy is a system of the government that involves the whole population. Which means that everyone should be equally heard and their opinion should matter. Lately it has only been those of more importance in the government that matter and everyone else is being exiled. The U.S. Is looking more like a dictatorship than a democracy. For example; gerrymandering is taking tole with the redistricting of the United States which is causing problems for everyone. The government is favoring certain parties and not all of them.

As has been said, the US was set up to be a Republic, not a democracy. I realize most were not taught this in school.

Secondly, the US was set up with Federalism. Essentially states ran their own affairs while the US federal government played referee. However, with the dawn of the Progressive movement, this has all changed. Now the Federal government runs the show as the states tag along or get sued by the Feds.

Now the US has been subverted into a collectivist model. Now the Executive Branch writes laws through edict, starts wars and then says they are not wars, like in Libya, so the President does not have to consult Congress. Now Obama writes treaties by himself with Iran and then says they are not really treaties so he does not have to consult Congress. Of course, Congress is complicit because they have enabled the Executive Branch to write laws through regulations that are made by unelected bureaucrats at a whim.

You are correct in that the more collectivist a regime becomes the more dictatorial it becomes. There is simply no way around that. As for "democracy", Congress has had an approval rating of only around 10% for some time now, yet they all keep getting elected anyway. On top of that, we are not run by sociopaths who can only get elected by lying their arse off with impunity. Now we are to the point that we expect them to lie with impunity, which is another death blow to democracy. After all, what are we voting for other than promises?

How are those increased Obamacare premiums? How about the reduced coverage? How about your former health care plan that was taken away from you?

Really the US is run now by the education system, which indoctrinates kids to be left winged, and the media. After all, most probably have never heard of FDR attempting to abolish the Supreme Court and reappoint the members because they said his New Deal was Unconstitutional. Most probably have never heard that the Supreme Court declared the Federal Income tax Unconstitutional at the turn of the 20th century as well, so they simply added it to the Constitution. And you will never hear those in the media bring up such things either.

We are now run by corporate Progressive executives. Put a fork in it, the US is toast.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

We are a plutocratic corporatocracy.

 

[defcon4]

Do words no longer have meaning?

Sorry, silly question, won't do it again.

It has been a strategical decision to change the meaning of words in order to confuse the educationally dumbed down populace at large. It works well for the powers to be. It is ongoing and it is yet to be discovered what is the purpose behind it globally. One thing is for sure, the USA has to be taken down to achieve that goal. It is happening by dismantling, brick by brick, the fortress of freedom in smaller, tactical victories.

 

[quorthon]

As has been said, the US was set up to be a Republic, not a democracy. I realize most were not taught this in school.

Republic is a democratic form of the government too according to most vocabularies. But in my opinion the US never were democratic, the true meaning of this word had been lost somewhere between the times.

 

[williepete]

You're fooling yourselves. We're living in a dictatorship.
A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes...

 

[Claudette]

They say a democracy is a system of the government that involves the whole population. Which means that everyone should be equally heard and their opinion should matter. Lately it has only been those of more importance in the government that matter and everyone else is being exiled. The U.S. Is looking more like a dictatorship than a democracy. For example; gerrymandering is taking tole with the redistricting of the United States which is causing problems for everyone. The government is favoring certain parties and not all of them.

Nope. The United States of America is a republic.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

Is The United States of America A Democracy?

No...

 

[ThoughtCrimes]

We are not a democracy and never were. We are a Republic. If we were a democracy, our so-called poor would be working, we wouldn't be 18 trillion into debt, and the Iraq war would have never happened. Also radical groups like Black Lies Matter would be afraid of getting out of hand and chanting the execution of our police officers because most of us would be behind mowing those losers down.

In some ways, not being a real democracy is a protection to us all. In most cases, not being a democracy works against us.

I'm afraid you have been taught in error!

The founders established a democratic republic. Not a democracy, where majority rules all (mob rule) or a republic where just about anything can go without the guarantee of democratic principles, but a democratic republic where the People elect representatives to do the People's business (the republic part) and the smallest minority of ONE has the identical rights as the largest group (the democratic part). At least that is what our form is supposed to be.

 

[cnm]

Words no longer have meaning.