Ron Paul hates Democracy

[torchbearer]

http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/2012/11/29/ron-paul-hates-democracy/ Ron Paul’s Farewell Speech in Congress Lays Bare His Hatred for “Pure Democracy,” and Love of Oligarchy (http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/ron-pauls-farewell-speech-congress-lays-bare-his-hatred-pure-democracy-and-love?akid=9733.1089674.SmQRpU&rd=1&src=newsletter752025&t=7)
Paul believes in liberty… for businessmen.
November 28, 2012 |
By Robert Parry
http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/ronpaul.jpg (http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/ronpaul.jpg)Rep. Ron Paul, an icon to the libertarian Right and to some on the anti-war Left, gave a farewell address to Congress that expressed his neo-Confederate interpretation of the Constitution and his anti-historical view of the supposedly good old days of laissez-faire capitalism.
In a near-hour-long rambling speech (http://www.campaignforliberty.org/national-blog/transcript-of-farewell-address/)on Nov. 14, Paul also revealed himself to be an opponent of “pure democracy” because government by the people and for the people tends to infringe on the “liberty” of businessmen who, in Paul’s ideal world, should be allowed to do pretty much whatever they want to the less privileged.
In Paul’s version of history, the United States lost its way at the advent of the Progressive Era about a century ago. “The majority of Americans and many government officials agreed that sacrificing some liberty was necessary to carry out what some claimed to be ‘progressive’ ideas,” said the 77-year-old Texas Republican. “Pure democracy became acceptable.”
Before then, everything was working just fine, in Paul’s view. But the reality was anything but wonderful for the vast majority of Americans. A century ago, women were denied the vote by law and many non-white males were denied the vote in practice. Uppity blacks were frequently lynched.
The surviving Native Americans were confined to oppressive reservations at the end of a long process of genocide. Conditions weren’t much better for the white working class. Many factory workers toiled 12-hour days and six-day weeks in very dangerous conditions, and union organizers were targeted for reprisals and sometimes death.
For small businessmen, life was treacherous, too … READ MORE (http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/ron-pauls-farewell-speech-congress-lays-bare-his-hatred-pure-democracy-and-love?akid=9733.1089674.SmQRpU&rd=1&src=newsletter752025&t=7)
this guy needs correction.

[sailingaway]

He's demented. I wouldn't even raise his article in google search.

[Occam's Banana]

Rep. Ron Paul [...] gave a farewell address to Congress that expressed his neo-Confederate interpretation of the Constitution [...]

ZOMBIE!!! Protect your brains!! ZOMBIE!!!

http://i1.cpcache.com/product/515825291/zombie_mousepad.jpg


READ MORE

Good Lord Almighty! Why?

[FrankRep]

http://static01.mediaite.com/med/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Picture-140.png


Democracy Is Not Freedom (http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul233.html)


Rep. Ron Paul, MD
February 7, 2005



“…man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.”

~ Ronald Reagan


We've all heard the words democracy and freedom used countless times, especially in the context of our invasion of Iraq. They are used interchangeably in modern political discourse, yet their true meanings are very different.

George Orwell wrote about “meaningless words” that are endlessly repeated in the political arena.* (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0156186004?ie=UTF8&tag=libert0f-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0156186004) Words like “freedom,” “democracy,” and “justice,” Orwell explained, have been abused so long that their original meanings have been eviscerated. In Orwell's view, political words were “Often used in a consciously dishonest way.” Without precise meanings behind words, politicians and elites can obscure reality and condition people to reflexively associate certain words with positive or negative perceptions. In other words, unpleasant facts can be hidden behind purposely meaningless language. As a result, Americans have been conditioned to accept the word “democracy” as a synonym for freedom, and thus to believe that democracy is unquestionably good.

The problem is that democracy is not freedom. Democracy is simply majoritarianism, which is inherently incompatible with real freedom. Our founding fathers clearly understood this, as evidenced not only by our republican constitutional system, but also by their writings in the Federalist Papers (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0451528816?ie=UTF8&tag=libert0f-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0451528816) and elsewhere. James Madison cautioned that under a democratic government, “There is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual.” John Adams argued that democracies merely grant revocable rights to citizens depending on the whims of the masses, while a republic exists to secure and protect pre-existing rights. Yet how many Americans know that the word “democracy” is found neither in the Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence, our very founding documents?

A truly democratic election in Iraq, without U.S. interference and U.S. puppet candidates, almost certainly would result in the creation of a Shiite theocracy. Shiite majority rule in Iraq might well mean the complete political, economic, and social subjugation of the minority Kurd and Sunni Arab populations. Such an outcome would be democratic, but would it be free? Would the Kurds and Sunnis consider themselves free? The administration talks about democracy in Iraq, but is it prepared to accept a democratically-elected Iraqi government no matter what its attitude toward the U.S. occupation? Hardly. For all our talk about freedom and democracy, the truth is we have no idea whether Iraqis will be free in the future. They're certainly not free while a foreign army occupies their country. The real test is not whether Iraq adopts a democratic, pro-western government, but rather whether ordinary Iraqis can lead their personal, religious, social, and business lives without interference from government.

Simply put, freedom is the absence of government coercion. Our Founding Fathers understood this, and created the least coercive government in the history of the world. The Constitution established a very limited, decentralized government to provide national defense and little else. States, not the federal government, were charged with protecting individuals against criminal force and fraud. For the first time, a government was created solely to protect the rights, liberties, and property of its citizens. Any government coercion beyond that necessary to secure those rights was forbidden, both through the Bill of Rights and the doctrine of strictly enumerated powers. This reflected the founders' belief that democratic government could be as tyrannical as any King.

Few Americans understand that all government action is inherently coercive. If nothing else, government action requires taxes. If taxes were freely paid, they wouldn't be called taxes, they'd be called donations. If we intend to use the word freedom in an honest way, we should have the simple integrity to give it real meaning: Freedom is living without government coercion. So when a politician talks about freedom for this group or that, ask yourself whether he is advocating more government action or less.

The political left equates freedom with liberation from material wants, always via a large and benevolent government that exists to create equality on earth. To modern liberals, men are free only when the laws of economics and scarcity are suspended, the landlord is rebuffed, the doctor presents no bill, and groceries are given away. But philosopher Ayn Rand (and many others before her) demolished this argument by explaining how such “freedom” for some is possible only when government takes freedoms away from others. In other words, government claims on the lives and property of those who are expected to provide housing, medical care, food, etc. for others are coercive — and thus incompatible with freedom. “Liberalism,” which once stood for civil, political, and economic liberties, has become a synonym for omnipotent coercive government.

The political right equates freedom with national greatness brought about through military strength. Like the left, modern conservatives favor an all-powerful central state — but for militarism, corporatism, and faith-based welfarism. Unlike the Taft-Goldwater conservatives of yesteryear, today's Republicans are eager to expand government spending, increase the federal police apparatus, and intervene militarily around the world. The last tenuous links between conservatives and support for smaller government have been severed. “Conservatism,” which once meant respect for tradition and distrust of active government, has transformed into big-government utopian grandiosity.

he fog and attach concrete meanings to the words politicians use to deceive us. We must reassert that America is a republic, not a democracy, and remind ourselves that the Constitution places limits on government that no majority can overrule. We must resist any use of the word “freedom” to describe state action. We must reject the current meaningless designations of “liberals” and “conservatives,” in favor of an accurate term for both: statists.

Every politician on earth claims to support freedom. The problem is so few of them understand the simple meaning of the word.


United States: Democracy or Republic? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G81wUdBZHrA)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G81wUdBZHrA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G81wUdBZHrA


Dr. Ron Paul: A Republic, Not a Democracy
http://www.free-press.biz/usa/A-republic.htm

Dr. Ron Paul: A Republic, If You Can Keep It
http://www.ronpaulforcongress.com/html/republic.html

[AuH20]

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/ron-pauls-farewell-speech-congress-lays-bare-his-hatred-pure-democracy-and-love?akid=9733.1089674.SmQRpU&rd=1&src=newsletter752025&t=7

where do we start with this?? This is progressive porn with a revisionist flair.




For small businessmen, life was treacherous, too, with the big monopolistic trusts overcharging for key services and with periodic panics on Wall Street rippling out across the country in bank failures, bankruptcies and foreclosures.

Meanwhile, obscenely rich Robber Barons, like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan, personally controlled much of the nation’s economy and manipulated the political process through bribery. They were the ones who owned the real “liberty.”

It took the Great Depression and its mass suffering to finally convince most Americans “that sacrificing some liberty was necessary,” in Paul’s curious phrasing, for them to gain a living wage, a measure of security and a little respect.

So, under President Franklin Roosevelt, laws were changed to shield working Americans from the worst predations of the super-rich. Labor standards were enacted; unions were protected; regulations were imposed on Wall Street; and the nation’s banks were made more secure to protect the savings of depositors.

Ron Paul is against monopolies, most notably the Federal Reserve.

FDR protected hard-working americans??? Is this some sick practical joke???? He set up price controls and unleashed the interstate commerce demon on them.


Remaking Madison

The Right’s “scholars” also make much of a few quotes from Madison’s Federalist Paper No. 45, in which he sought to play down how radical a transformation, from state to federal power, he had engineered in the Constitution. Rather than view this essay in context, the Right seizes on Madison’s rhetorical attempts to deflect the alarmist Anti-Federalist attacks by claiming that some of the Constitution’s federal powers were already in the Articles of Confederation, albeit in a far weaker form.

In Federalist Paper No. 45, entitled “The Alleged Danger From the Powers of the Union to the State Governments Considered,” Madison wrote: “If the new Constitution be examined with accuracy, it will be found that the change which it proposes consists much less in the addition of NEW POWERS to the Union, than in the invigoration of its ORIGINAL POWERS.” Today’s Right also trumpets Madison’s summation, that “the powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”

But it should be obvious that Madison is finessing his opposition. Whether or not some shadow of these federal powers existed in the Articles of Confederation, they were dramatically enhanced by the Constitution. In No. 45, Madison even plays down his prized Commerce Clause, acknowledging that “The regulation of commerce, it is true, is a new power; but that seems to be an addition which few oppose, and from which no apprehensions are entertained.”

However, in Federalist Paper No. 14, Madison made clear how useful the Commerce Clause could be as he envisioned national construction projects.

“[T]he union will be daily facilitated by new improvements,” Madison wrote. “Roads will everywhere be shortened, and kept in better order; accommodations for travelers will be multiplied and meliorated; an interior navigation on our eastern side will be opened throughout, or nearly throughout the whole extent of the Thirteen States.

“The communication between the western and Atlantic districts, and between different parts of each, will be rendered more and more easy by those numerous canals with which the beneficence of nature has intersected our country, and which art finds it so little difficult to connect and complete.”

[AuH20]

the same article but on author Robert Parry's site:

http://consortiumnews.com/2012/11/27/ron-pauls-appalling-world-view/

[AuH20]

BTW I can't wait until Thomas Woods sets his eyes on this piece. Oh boy!

[Kodaddy]

...who doesn't?...

[AuH20]

Their 'hero' can rot in hell for all I care:

http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=258


http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=355


Professor Clyde Wilson made a good point recently: The same intellectuals who condemn the Confederates who fought for states' rights- a recognizable American principle with a venerable lineage in the nation's history- also praise unreserved connivers like FDR, whose innovations had no roots in anything historically American and who willfully undermined the Constitution, the rule of law, and every major principle for which our ancestors stood.

At the end of my lecture on FDR, one of my students raised her hand and said, "Im confused. Are we supposed to like this guy? I' d always been told he was great."

How I love my job.

[James Madison]

I can't wait for the author to experience 'Pure Democracy' in action when the economy crashes. Survival of the fittest, mob rule--all that fun stuff. And judging from this man's intelligence, he wouldn't last long. Then again, maybe he'll get a job as a professional lemming; that should buy him some time.

[John F Kennedy III]

BTW I can't wait until Thomas Woods sets his eyes on this piece. Oh boy!

Email it?

My friend had me read this earlier. The author may be correct when he said the *Founders wrote the Constitution to install a powerful central government. But that's about it.

Also, I'm glad Ron Paul hates democracy. I do too. It is tyranny. Plain and simple.

*I'm only counting the Federalists in my agreement with that

[Anti Federalist]

This guy has the exact same amount of control over a government that has now asserted the authority to regulate and control everything I do.

Yeah, I hate demo-crazy too.

[itshappening]

Neeeeeeo-Confederate!

[torchbearer]

Neeeeeeo-Confederate!lulz

[green73]

Democracy is the greatest boon ever for the oligarchs.

[green73]

On LRC today...

Majority Rule (http://lewrockwell.com/rep3/tyranny-of-the-majority.html)
Is it the worst form of tyranny?

[green73]

Neeeeeeo-Confederate!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrcM5exDxcc

[Henry Rogue]

Our Founding Fathers rejected pure democracy too, instead choosing a representative republic with checks and balances and a Constitution limiting the powers of the government and reiterating the Natural Rights of the People. Of cource that hasn't lasted. As Benjamin Franklin stated "We have given you a Republic, if you can keep it." A pure democracy is nothing more than the slavery and oppression of the minority by the majority. What does it matter to the slave if his master is, but one or many. A gang rape is a pure democracy, the rapist having the majority vote.

[donnay]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DokFwjeleUU

[Philhelm]

I can't wait for the author to experience 'Pure Democracy' in action when the economy crashes. Survival of the fittest, mob rule--all that fun stuff. And judging from this man's intelligence, he wouldn't last long. Then again, maybe he'll get a job as a professional lemming; that should buy him some time.

If it all comes tumbling down I know whose women I'll hear lamenting as I pillage with reckless abandon.

[PaulConventionWV]

It takes a special kind of stupid to be a liberal. I really hate that I am related to some. Don't get me wrong, I love my family, and I would never say that to their faces, but inside I know I despise the way they think.

[juleswin]

Again, a republic and a democratic way of electing a leader are not mutually exclusive. This country is a democratic republic and if Ron Paul believes in state and sure hes not an anarchist, then he has to believe in a democratic voting system of some sort which is what we have now. Protection of individual right and democratic election of leader who will oversee the system.

[John F Kennedy III]

Our Founding Fathers rejected pure democracy too, instead choosing a representative republic with checks and balances and a Constitution limiting the powers of the government and reiterating the Natural Rights of the People. Of cource that hasn't lasted. As Benjamin Franklin stated "We have given you a Republic, if you can keep it." A pure democracy is nothing more than the slavery and oppression of the minority by the majority. What does it matter to the slave if his master is, but one or many. A gang rape is a pure democracy, the rapist having the majority vote.

That should be a bumper sticker.

"A gang rape is a democracy."


It takes a special kind of stupid to be a liberal. I really hate that I am related to some. Don't get me wrong, I love my family, and I would never say that to their faces, but inside I know I despise the way they think.

Another bumper sticker:

"It takes a special kind of stupid to be a liberal."

[John F Kennedy III]

Again, a republic and a democratic way of electing a leader are not mutually exclusive. This country is a democratic republic and if Ron Paul believes in state and sure hes not an anarchist, then he has to believe in a democratic voting system of some sort which is what we have now. Protection of individual right and democratic election of leader who will oversee the system.

Calling America a democratic-republic is the same as calling a dog a cat-dog.

[Pericles]

If it all comes tumbling down I know whose women I'll hear lamenting as I pillage with reckless abandon.

Visualize Carthage after the Third Punic War.

[Pericles]

That should be a bumper sticker.

"A gang rape is a democracy in action."



Another bumper sticker:

"It takes a special kind of stupid to be a liberal."

Fixed

[juleswin]

Calling America a democratic-republic is the same as calling a dog a cat-dog.

I am sure you have never heard about a hybrid or something being a little bit of something and a little bit of something else. I ask this question everytime people bring up this topic and almost nobody dares answer my question and the question is this.

How do we elect the people that make up the electoral college? or how do we elect the people that select the member for the electoral college?

If the answer is through a democratic process, then we have at least a representative democracy, where the people elected through a democratic process make the decision (like nominate people for the electoral college). So please stop using the "we have an electoral college system therefore we are not a democracy" cop out. Electoral college is not what makes this country a republic.

And for those that truly hate the sound of democracy, you better start working on ending the state cos as long as we have a state, we will always have some version of democracy.

US is(I think it still is) and has always been a democratic republic.

[John F Kennedy III]

Visualize Carthage after the Third Punic War.

I'm visualizing Westeros. Is it weird that I would love to live in Westeros?

[Philhelm]

I'm visualizing Westeros. Is it weird that I would love to live in Westeros?

I'm voting for Stannis.

[John F Kennedy III]

Fixed

Thank you :) I'm serious about this. At least I'm going to start using it :D

[John F Kennedy III]

I am sure you have never heard about a hybrid or something being a little bit of something and a little bit of something else. I ask this question everytime people bring up this topic and almost nobody dares answer my question and the question is this.

How do we elect the people that make up the electoral college? or how do we elect the people that select the member for the electoral college?

If the answer is through a democratic process, then we have at least a representative democracy, where the people elected through a democratic process make the decision (like nominate people for the electoral college). So please stop using the "we have an electoral college system therefore we are not a democracy" cop out. Electoral college is not what makes this country a republic.

And for those that truly hate the sound of democracy, you better start working on ending the state cos as long as we have a state, we will always have some version of democracy.

US is(I think it still is) and has always been a democratic republic.

The U.S. is, as it was founded, a constitutional REPUBLIC, until they do away with the Constitution. Which, by the way, you should read.

A GANG RAPE IS DEMOCRACY IN ACTION

[juleswin]

The U.S. is, as it was founded, a constitutional REPUBLIC, until they do away with the Constitution. Which, by the way, you should read.

A GANG RAPE IS DEMOCRACY IN ACTION

Still not ready to answer my question. You are wrong but you are way bit to stubborn to admit it. But I see you have changed your argument a bit, its no longer the electoral college but now it is the constitution make the US a republic. Mind you virtually every country in this world has a constitution. You see people out and about on election day voting and you still argue that this country doesn't use a democratic method to elect its leader (voting for representatives who appoint said leaders is still a democracy- representative democracy)

[Ender]

Still not ready to answer my question. You are wrong but you are way bit to stubborn to admit it. But I see you have changed your argument a bit, its no longer the electoral college but now it is the constitution make the US a republic. Mind you virtually every country in this world has a constitution. You see people out and about on election day voting and you still argue that this country doesn't use a democratic method to elect its leader (voting for representatives who appoint said leaders is still a democracy- representative democracy)

This country was formed as a Constitutional Republic. It was NEVER a democracy and it is NOT a representative democracy.

Democracy is mob rule=

Two wolves and one lamb deciding what's for dinner.

Better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and be proven one.

[juleswin]

This country was formed as a Constitutional Republic. It was NEVER a democracy and it is NOT a representative democracy.

Democracy is mob rule=

Two wolves and one lamb deciding what's for dinner.

Better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and be proven one.

I will agree with almost all of what you said but it is a constitutional republic and representative democracy all in one big bundle. If I am wrong then tell me why we select our representatives based on the choice of the majority aka democratic vote? The problem is when people confuse direct democracy for every decision made in a country with a system where a constitution protects the individual right of the citizens but a democratic process is used to select those leaders tasked to run the system.


I will pretend I didn't see that last line :)

[John F Kennedy III]

I'm voting for Stannis.

To become King? I'm currently rooting for Jon Snow (or is he a Targaryen?) or Aegon VI (or is he a Blackfyre? ;) )

My picks used to be Stannis (his may be the only legit claim) and Daenerys (I used to think her claim was legit)

Or are you voting for Stannis to win the battle? ;)

I assure you that I did not spoil anything if you haven't read all the books.

[John F Kennedy III]

Still not ready to answer my question. You are wrong but you are way bit to stubborn to admit it. But I see you have changed your argument a bit, its no longer the electoral college but now it is the constitution make the US a republic. Mind you virtually every country in this world has a constitution. You see people out and about on election day voting and you still argue that this country doesn't use a democratic method to elect its leader (voting for representatives who appoint said leaders is still a democracy- representative democracy)

I never said anything about the electoral college.

[Keith and stuff]

The problem is that democracy is not freedom. Democracy is simply majoritarianism, which is inherently incompatible with real freedom.

It's true. All forms of government are inherently incompatible with real freedom. Democracy is no different.

[mad cow]

I am sure you have never heard about a hybrid or something being a little bit of something and a little bit of something else. I ask this question everytime people bring up this topic and almost nobody dares answer my question and the question is this.

How do we elect the people that make up the electoral college? or how do we elect the people that select the member for the electoral college?

If the answer is through a democratic process, then we have at least a representative democracy, where the people elected through a democratic process make the decision (like nominate people for the electoral college). So please stop using the "we have an electoral college system therefore we are not a democracy" cop out. Electoral college is not what makes this country a republic.

And for those that truly hate the sound of democracy, you better start working on ending the state cos as long as we have a state, we will always have some version of democracy.

US is(I think it still is) and has always been a democratic republic.

Each State shall appoint,in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Prof- it under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

Article two,Section one,of the Constitution.
It says nothing about 'Democratic Process'.The way I read it,the founders are saying that State Legislatures can appoint Electors by mud wrestling contests if they so direct.

[Occam's Banana]

BTW I can't wait until Thomas Woods sets his eyes on this piece. Oh boy!

Looks like he knows about it:



Left-Wing AlterNet Didn’t Like Ron Paul’s Farewell Speech (http://www.tomwoods.com/blog/left-wing-alternet-didnt-like-ron-pauls-farewell-speech/)

It didn’t sound like their eighth-grade textbooks (http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/ron-pauls-farewell-speech-congress-lays-bare-his-hatred-pure-democracy-and-love). (Thanks to Travis Holte.)

(Incidentally, for defenses of Ron Paul’s positions in a whole host of areas, particularly ones that would shock respectable opinion, see my video defenses (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC91A1121092701C7&feature=plcp) of Dr. Paul.)


Not much meat there, unfortunately.

He does, however, have a very nice takedown of some anti-nullification blather: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?397225-Tom-Woods-takedown-of-quot-conservative-quot-anti-nullification-screed

[PaulConventionWV]

Visualize Carthage after the Third Punic War.

Oh, you were there?

[PaulConventionWV]

I am sure you have never heard about a hybrid or something being a little bit of something and a little bit of something else. I ask this question everytime people bring up this topic and almost nobody dares answer my question and the question is this.

How do we elect the people that make up the electoral college? or how do we elect the people that select the member for the electoral college?

If the answer is through a democratic process, then we have at least a representative democracy, where the people elected through a democratic process make the decision (like nominate people for the electoral college). So please stop using the "we have an electoral college system therefore we are not a democracy" cop out. Electoral college is not what makes this country a republic.

And for those that truly hate the sound of democracy, you better start working on ending the state cos as long as we have a state, we will always have some version of democracy.

US is(I think it still is) and has always been a democratic republic.

America has never been a democratic republic. Even if you could call it that, is that really what it should be called? Even if democracy and republicanism can be put together, that still doesn't mean they're compatible in any way. They're about as far apart on the political spectrum as two ideologies can be. Can you have a mixture of oil and water? Sure, but only if you keep stirring the pot. Even then, it will be splotchy and extremely unproductive.

[awake]

What an absolute well written (like a 7th grader book report) article....But, Democracy is still the driving force of current de-civilization. That's the down side of trash reporting like this, it scores points for democracy.

Voting youreslf some one elses stuff, and having a 3rd party goon get it for you, is a criminal act.

[PaulConventionWV]

I will agree with almost all of what you said but it is a constitutional republic and representative democracy all in one big bundle. If I am wrong then tell me why we select our representatives based on the choice of the majority aka democratic vote? The problem is when people confuse direct democracy for every decision made in a country with a system where a constitution protects the individual right of the citizens but a democratic process is used to select those leaders tasked to run the system.


I will pretend I didn't see that last line :)

We don't have a direct democracy. We have states voting via the collective individual total of votes. That collective gets translated into a certain number of allotted votes in the electoral college, so the states are really the voters, not the people directly. You may think this is a miniscule difference, but it is actually quite large, in principle if not in practice. Regardless, however, even if we do have some sort of amalgam of two opposing ideologies, that doesn't mean they are compatible or even viable when mixed. See my last post.

Democracy is more akin to proportional representation based on popular vote, such as in some European countries. Sure, it's hard to ignore the aspects that look like democracy, but they're not compatible with a republic.