U.S. isn't a democracy, as some have noted. We're a republic. A democracy would be better, but the politicians would never give up their current power.

what's the difference, isn't all republics democratic.

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Starter of Controversy.

Yeah there's a difference, I thought we were generalizing power to the people

Explanation on Democracy vs Republic

You should all just do what I tell you to do...

Last edited by bedob at 11:58 am, Oct 5 2010

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If the sea were made of Whiskey and I was a duck
I'd swim to the bottom and never come up

it's more of a representative democracy. Direct democracy is possible, but our forefathers knew how stupid 99% of Americans are so they made something called representative democracy. Basically the people votes representative and the representative votes higher place representative, and these people decides on important issues. The only problem is that this was suppose to be a temporary solution. Thomas Jefferson made public education mandatory in hope that one day, all Americans will be educated enough to decide for themselves better policies instead of relying on politicians. HOWEVER, for the last 250 years, that has yet to happen. People are still relatively ignorant. Most votes votes not because they have their own opinion, but because they were influenced by politicians and "brainwashed", they no longer have true free will, but the will of the elite [politicians].

How much did you knew about Obama, Mccain, Palin, Hilliary, Biden when you voted? Probably just stuff from the Media and new reports and political editorials.

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Gay book discussion thread

Proper democracy means that every person gets to vote on every issue. This, rather than electing officials who lie about what they actually represent to get elected, who then vote on issues in entirely different ways.

If we had a proper democracy, I suspect voting lines would be a lot more moderate, rather than skewed to the left and right as they are.

Republics are lazy Democracy. They're set up to support a system of upper-class bureaucracy while blaming logistical implausibility.

The big difference is that republics have this thing called a charter that restricts even what the majority is capable of.

All in all, a republic is a lot shall we say...safer.

If the United States (or whatever other country) decided to be a true democracy, people could vote to make broccoli illegal because 51% of people in the country didn't like it. Or on a more serious note, they could vote against freedom of speech or religion and so on.

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"It is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."

The downside (as with what happened in Athens) is that people would eventually stop caring about educating themselves on issues, and listen to figureheads from each line of though, forming parties anyway.

Also: it's possible to have a judicial system and supreme court in a true democracy you know...

Yes, but at any time the majority can vote to make changes to any of those systems, which could leave them judicially unsound.


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"It is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."

It is a good dream, and the concept of government "by the people for the people" has probably always been on peoples' minds since governments starting forming, sadly though "democracy" as we often see it is usually merely an illusion.

Our politicians are so detached from society sometimes that I wonder if they can even hear our voices anymore. Politics in general has even sort of formed a negative connotation in mine in many other peoples eyes with the constant verbal bashing and negative campaigning you see on television. Add to that all the corruption and fraud that keeps popping up on the news, and I am starting to become a bit disillusioned with our government.

Don't get me wrong though, I do think democracy is far better than a monarchy, communism, socialism, fascism, or any other form of government that is based on a religious entity or few individuals controlling all the power. Government needs to be spread amongst as many individuals as possible as absolute power almost always corrupts absolutely.

isn't bureaucracy not elected, I remember back in high school my teacher said elected officials only make suggestions and speeches, the real work is done by the bureaucracy, who are not elected.

If this is true then how does Democracy spread around the power?

Also isn't the supreme court justices can't be forced to retire? OR is there a really old age limit now?

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Starter of Controversy.

democracy is overrated. In a true democracy, you would need to know everything about every single issue to be voted on such that you'd be spending your whole life like a politician (and they probably don't do a good job at it either), cept everyone would have to do it. I mean do you care about what the legal limit the distance from a car to the curb should be or what the tarrif of the spotted dodo meat should be if it's imported from antartica versus iceland?

President, Vice President, Secretary of State, various cabinet members and advisers

House - 435 members, Senate - 100 members

The Supreme Court and Lower courts

All those members as well as the lower forms of local and state governments make for a pretty diverse spread of power. By "bureaucracy" I'm assuming you mean political parties, and although you may feel now that they don't represent your best interests be patient, VOTE, and give them time. Democracy usually has a way of aligning itself with the majority's best interests in the long run.

Our system isn't perfect, and neither is any other form of government, but try to realize that it is continuously striving to improve itself and adapting to the people governed by it. Perhaps far off into the future a true idealized form of democracy will be realized, only time will tell.

Last edited by vanpaia at 3:31 pm, Oct 5 2010

There are ~32 Million people in Canada and ~22 Million of those live in Ontario and Quebec. Of course Ontario and Quebec are going to dominate the political landscape of the country. If all provinces are treated equally it is no different than disenfranchising voters in those two big provinces. Your idea of representation by area seems odd too. Considering that the three territories in the North are almost the size of the entire continent of South America you would be granting exceptional power to the 200,000 people that live up there. If you choose not to include the territories in the discussion then Ontario and Quebec would still dominate Canadian Politics. Those two are by far the largest provinces in Canada. Either province is almost the size of Europe (Russia excluded).

All this debate may be pointless though, because I think Representation by Population was actually codified in the British North America Act that formed Canada. To try and change it would mean modifying the Constitution and the last time a government tried to modify the constitution the Meech Lake Accords almost lead to the dissolution of the country of Canada as we know it. That's why not even Stephen Harper and the the most ardent bible-thumpers of the Conservative Party had the balls to even consider using the Notwithstanding Clause to try and overturn the court decisions to legalize Gay Marriage.

Democracy is lame and... wait... did you say Canada was bigger than South America?

Ok here is a question about geography:

With is Bigger the African continent or the America continent?


Anyway, we are being slaved by the upper class with crap like jobs while we must be humiliated doing them service (customer service)

This is so fucking wrong and so tied controlled by the bastards that any attempt of change is nullified.

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