Apparently, the term "democracy" isn't in the Constitution

[McKenzie]

or the Declaration of Independence.

I'm a non-Amurican so I'm not sure of my ground here and I ain't a crypto-fascist btw. Info' and comments would be appreciated.

[Eric J in MN]

1. The words "We, the People" start the Constitution and

"All men are created equal" is the Declaration of Independence.

The concept of democracy is more important than the word itself.

[psholtz]

4. Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson

"all men are created equal", but not all men are equal..

The proper interpretation of the phrase that "all men are created equal" (put in the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson) is based on an extremely extremely deep religious/theological convinction which those two men held, but which is difficult to explain to the masses in any way simpler than how they phrased it..

[imenja]

17. it's an Enlightenment notion, not a religious conviction

It conveys the idea of natural rights. "All men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights." Despite the use of the word creator, the idea is a secular one. It emerged from Enlightenment political thinkers who saw government as a compact between men and their rulers. Human beings were part of a natural, scientific world, rather than as children of God, as pre-Enlightenment thought imagined. Men acquired knowledge through reason and the most efficient forms of government and economic systems employed that reason.

The Enlightenment was a secular movement that signaled the relegation of the Church to increasingly ecclesiastical functions rather than political ones. Monarchs ruled through divine right; their birth to a royal family signaled they were chosen by God. Republics were governments ruled and chosen by men, who used their powers of reason to select good governors. Despite what the Christian Right asserts, our Founding Fathers worked assiduously to create a secular society based on ideas of reason and equality (limited as they were) rather than religion.

The gendered language above is deliberate.

[psholtz]

29. Creator kinda makes is religious..

It's an notion that was popular during the Enlightenment, certainly, but the origins of this philosophy stem from a very very deep religious source, to which Jefferson and Paine adhered to.

I would have to take issue w/ your characterization that "even though they use the word Creator, it's non-religious"... Orwellian Double-Think at its best! ;-)

Quite obviously, imho, if it has the word "Creator" in it, then its motivated by some type of religious philosophy..

[misanthrope]

38. Not necessarily...

...Is the word "creator" capitalized? If not, then it could just as well be referring to a process as anything else.

[psholtz]

39. it is capitalized

Yes, it is capitalized (as "Creator") and yes it is religious in nature.

(Last word in the third sentence):

[Art_from_Ark]

95. Capitalization is used rather haphazardly in the document

If you take a closer look at it, you will see that a lot of common nouns are capitalized, some aren't. Even some common verbs and adjectives are capitalized. It has no specifically religious meaning in this sense.

[Igel]

59. It's possible to believe in a creator and not be a theist.

Of course, that's what everybody's saying. Natural rights derive not from nature, but from Nature.

Moreover, you can't argue from orthographic rules unless you know what they were back then.

(The Capitalization of Creator is not a very useful Thing, in many respects.)

[imenja]

45. again, you need to understand it in context

the context of the ideological influences underlying the phrase. This expresses the idea of natural rights, which is an Enlightenment principle. The Enlightenment was a secular movement that fundamentally challenged and limited the power of the Church and the influence of religious thought.

[psholtz]

49. Jefferson and Paine in context

True, but but Jefferson and Paine didn't reject the notion of God outright.. this would be tantamount to (Communist-style) aethism, which is something Jefferson and Paine would have abhorred..

Government exists so as to broker justice.. add religion into the mix, and chances are that justice will become very skewed.. but at the same time, these men weren't aethiests and they were motivated by religious principles.

[imenja]

50. they were deists

not atheists. No one has said they were atheists. Their philosophical influences were the Enlightenment. Thomas Paine published a work called _The Age of Reason_ that popularized deism in America. To imagine the concept of natural rights was fundamentally religious is mistaken. It is a product of the rise of secular thought and an emphasis on reason. That is not to say it was an atheistic idea. Rather that was a product of an increasingly secular world where ideas of reason and science were in ascendance.

Marx did not write until the nineteenth-century, so communism as we understand it today did not exist at the time of the American revolution. There were socialists or communists during that period, but they devout Christians who faithfully followed the teachings of the New Testament. Theirs was not the Marxist-Leninist philosophy we associate with communism today.

Deism and Jefferson: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism

[psholtz]

52. age of reason

Yes I'm quite aware that Jefferson and Paine were what you would call "Diests"..

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..... are we just violently agreeing or something? All I'm saying is that their philosophy, their sense of religion (<- termed "Deism" to posterity) is what motivated them to write documents like the Declaration of Independence, Common Sense, Age of Reason, etc.. and that therefore these documents are therefore motivated by a religious conviction ..

Jefferson and Paine were highly religious, pious men, and their writings were inspired by their sense of religious convinction.. that's all I'm saying..

[IrateCitizen]

58. You obviously know little about Jefferson or Paine

Jefferson and Paine were highly religious, pious men, and their writings were inspired by their sense of religious convinction..

Nothing could be further from the truth. Both Jefferson and Paine rejected much of the conventions and dogma of religion in their day. Jefferson, at best, could be considered SPIRITUAL, but he was not religious, and certainly not pious. As pointed out below, it is suspected that Paine might have actually been an atheist, or at least an agnostic.

You seem to be very misinformed as to the principles of the Enlightenment that influenced men like Jefferson, Paine, Washington, Franklin, Adams, etc. The Enlightenment was founded on the idea that observation was the key to understanding truth. This led to an outright rejection of religious dogma, because it only served to cloud truth through observation. Although the Christian Right likes to claim otherwise, our country was NOT founded on religious principles. It was founded on the Enlightenment idea of reason. Jefferson, Washington, and Adams paid lip service to Christianity, and even attended church services while in office, out of simple respect for the fact that it still was the religion practiced by most Americans. But they were certainly NOT religious, and often said things about religion that would immediately disqualify them for higher office in this day and age.

The reference to the term "Creator" is a deist one, not a Christian one. Your belief that these men were pious and religious is not in the least grounded in fact, as any detailed investigation of the history of the times will clearly reveal. These men all said things CRITICAL of religion in their time, and nothing at all overly supportive of it.

[E_Smith]

66. good post and right on.

Jefferson edited the bible to form "The Jefferson Bible". That hardly sounds like the actions of a "pious" man. He rejected all of Jesus's miracles and the resurrection, and simply thought of Jesus as a great philosopher--I think he called Jesus's philosophy the "most pure philosophy" or something to that effect.

Also, Jefferson's considered one of his greatest accomplishments (top three) the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which made it very clear that the State had no business dealing in religion... he despised the Christian fundamentalists of his day.

[Blue Wally]

75. Not the fundamentalists

Also, Jefferson's considered one of his greatest accomplishments (top three) the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which made it very clear that the State had no business dealing in religion... he despised the Christian fundamentalists of his day.

Prior to the Revolution, there was a significant divide between the followers of the state Church of England (supported by taxes/mandatory tithes on all) and the Scots-Irish Presbyterian and Baptists of western Virginia. CofE was an institution of the eastern "planter class" while the fundamentalist churches were at the heart of the communities of rural "yeomen" which Jefferson thought were the bedrock of America (though he patronized them pretty badly). Most of the thrust of the Religious Freedom movement was to eliminate forced state tithing to support an established church and to legalize marriages perfomred by non-CofE clergy.

[psholtz]

79. So what you're saying is that Jefferson was highly religious

OK.........................

The fact that he created a new version of the Bible to suit his interpretation of God sounds like he's a pretty pious man. Jesus did something pretty similar, if memory serves me correctly.

Like I'm saying, but the logic you people keep trying to use, Jesus would have been an athiest also.. Just b/c you reject the prevailing religious dogmas of the day doesn't mean that you're not spiritual/religious/etc. If anything, rejecting religious dogma brings you closer to God, since I don't believe God is limited by dogma..

I believe is separation of church and state. Like I've said before, the government exists only to broker justice, and mixing the church into that equation is a recipe for disaster. I agree w/ Jefferson that this is one of his biggest accomplishments.

[psholtz]

76. You obviously know little about the English language

Of course Jefferson and Paine rejected the religious dogma of their day.. (heck, Jesus rejected the religious dogma of his day also, right?).. go read Paine's "Age of Reason" if you need further clarification on this subject. But at the same time, they were deeply religious men in the truest sense of the word (OK.. go ahead and use the word "spiritual" if that makes you feel better!)

Christian, Diest, whatever.. I don't care.. the point is that it's a spiritual/religious term ("Creator" in the Declaration) and that it's motivated by a spiritual/religious conviction (whatever you want to call it)..

By your logic, Jesus wasn't a religious man either (if rejecting the prevailing religious dogmas is the sole qualification for "not being religious")..

Or.. similiarly, by your logic, Jefferson and Paine were aethists, which again isn't the case..

You were educated in the public school system, I'm assuming!? :P

[imenja]

94. history

If you insist on viewing history from only your own, presentist point of view rather than seeking to understand the context in which the historical actors lived, you will never be able to understand the past.

[psholtz]

53. Communism in French Revolution

I have a clue-brick for you: Marx didn't invent Communism..

He plagarized large tracts of Communist Manifesto from an earlier work by Clinton Roosevelt (<- an ancestor of FDR, interestingly enough), and frankly the initial stirrings of Communism can be seen at least as early as the French Revolution, possibly earlier, so yes Communism has existed on roughly the same time scale as the United States has..

[imenja]

69. did you even read my post?

It appears that you did not.

[newyawker99]

54. Hi psholtz!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[BBradley]

57. I don't know what your read, or where you get your information

but Paine is suspected by many scholars to have been an atheist. Saying that he would reject communist style atheism is just conjecture at best.

[psholtz]

77. Paine was religious (or "spiritual")

Have ever read anything by Paine? His writings are saturated w/ phrases like "God", "Creator", "Divine", etc, etc, etc.. he also quotes verses from the Bible liberally, indicating he was quite familiar w/ that work ...

Now, Paine believed in the "Age of Reason" (so to speak), no pun intended, and so he taught people that it's silly to believe that the world is only 6,000 years old, or that the Red Sea was "really" parted, etc, etc. Things that most "reasonable" people would accept today.. (i.e., he taught that the Bible shouldn't be interpreted "literally", but rather literally)..

But he was definately a religious man..

I know that most "scholars" say he was an aethist.. most scholars also have their heads up their ass... (pardon the French)..

[ghostsofgiants]

98. Not to nitpick, but it's "atheist"

Quite simple really. It's the word "theist", which of course means one who believes in "the existence of a god or gods", with the prefix a-, which means "not".

Not one who believes in the existence of a god or gods.

You're welcome.

[DebJ]

33. great answer

[BBradley]

56. I'm sorry but as Paine is suspected to be an atheist, I fail to see how

this can possibly be true. This was an enlightenment idea, most certainly not a religious one.

[psholtz]

81. Trying reading Paine firsthand..

Paine was "suspected" to be an athiest..

OK......... "suspected" by who? What do we have guilty before proven innocent? Salem witch trials all over? Where do you people get your information, honestly? (public school system, perhaps?)

Try reading something (anything) Paine ever wrote.. it's saturated w/ references to God and the Creator..

[tabasco]

64. Thomas Paine had deep religious convictions??

That's news to me.

I think it would be news to Paine as well.

Jefferson was not huge on religion, either.

I would check your sources, Sir or Madam.

Welcome to DU :hi:

[psholtz]

80. Read Paine's work firsthand..

Thanks for the welcome to DU! :P

I did check my sources.. it's called reading what Jefferson and Paine wrote firsthand (rather than what historians say about them).

True, Jefferson and Paine strongly rejected the prevailing religious orthodoxy of the day... that seems to be the point that everyone seems to be getting hung up on.. but if you read anything they ever wrote, it's hard to not see that they were motivated by the deepest of "spiritual" convictions..

[tabasco]

84. Thanks for the advice. You're not the only one who has ...

read Paine's work. You are, however, in the minority of those who argue that Paine had "deeply religious" beliefs, as you stated in your earlier post.

Paine refers to "Nature" as the creator of man in "Rights of Man." If this reveals any religious belief, what must it be?

Tell me what you gather from reading Paine's works. What religion was Paine? What kind of god did Paine believe in?

I have recently finished "Rights of Man" for the second time. I distinctly recall him referring to "Nature" only as a creator. What does this tell you about Paine's spirituality?

It seems there are a lot of people that attempt to ascribe religious and spiritual beliefs to Paine, Jefferson, et al, to further other agendas.

I do not have a problem with religious or spiritual people, but I do have a problem with re-writing history to further agendas.

[tom_paine]

83. Dude, you must not know ANYTHING about Tom Paine and Jefferson

is based on an extremely extremely deep religious/theological convinction which those two men held

Amazing and backwards, considering the actual views these men held.

Start here:

http://www.americanwriters.org/writers/paine.asp

http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/thomas_paine/index.shtml

http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/thomas_paine/age_of_reason/part1.html

http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/thomas_paine/age_of_reason/part2.html

You've got some reading to do.

On the off chance that you are a Bushevik Troll (I am not saying you are, but if...) then by the time you will finish you will loathe Mr. Paine as only a Bushevik can loathe a Free Thinker and True American Patriot.

I only speculate that because the breadth of ingorance (no offense, but that's what it is) indicated by your post is somewhat similar to the Orwellian netherworld of Lies the Busheviks reside in, where Tom Paine was not only a True American patriot, but a Christian religious zealot.

Naturally, as with most beliefs of people held in the sway of a Totalitarian Propaganda Machine, the exact oppsite is true.
Of course, if you are NOT a Bushevik Troll, then please go out and inform yourself on what the Founding Fathers ACTUALLY BELIEVED, no better way than to read their OWN WORDS, not selected quotes or other second-hand interpretations.

That way, when a Bushevik lies to you and tells you the Founding Fathers were Uber-Christians, you will have the facts to give them.

Not that it would help. Giving facts about Liberals (which is what the Founding Dads were) to a Bushevik is IDENTICAL to giving facts about Jews to Nazis.

Identical. They bounce right off. Try it. Only PARTY APPROVED facts are accepotable to Totalitarians like the Busheviks...

[imenja]

2. no, but it is nonetheless a text that creates democracy

government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." It created popular rule, but as a product of an age when monarchy prevailed and the idea of a republic was profoundly radical, it limited the people's ability to influence power. Some of those limitations include the electoral college and the fact that state legislatures elected senators. The vote was also restricted to male property holders. All of those limitations, except for the electoral college, the electoral college, have been taken down over the years.
The Constitution itself is a great document. It's the modern day corruption of politics through wealth that is the problem.

[psholtz]

6. Tytler on democracy

It's not a document that creates a democracy.. it's a document that abolishes democracy to the best of its ability. Rather, it's a document that creates a Republic..

Remember what Alex Tytler said about democracy:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
-- Alex Tytler

Sound familiar? Sound like a path the U.S. is wandering down??

[imenja]

8. abolishes democracy?

Compared to which texts of it's era? To view the Constitution from a 21st century framework ignores it's importance in the historical context. What it replaced was a colonialist monarchy. It also influenced independence movements throughout the Americas.
Certainly a text in itself cannot establish democracy, but it reflected the goal of the founding fathers. Their ideas were quite narrowly conceived, but the ideas of equality that the foundational texts gave rise to were of profound importance. The idea that "all men are created equal" spawned a "contagion of liberty," as the historian Bernard Baylin notes, that was far more radical and important than the framers ever imagined.
As the Bush administration seeks to restrict our rights to due process and unlawful arrest, it is only our Constitution that restrains them. Little by little, the Supreme Court has made clear that their tyranny is not permitted under American law. Without that text you claim abolishes democracy, we would be subjected to full authoritarianism. It is only the Constitution protects us from the excesses of executive power, since the American people today have neither the will or inclination to insist on those limits.

[psholtz]

12. Congress is the safety valve

Realistically, I think the only reason the U.S. isn't a dictatorship right now is b/c of Congress.. the tyrants in the White House still have to be accountable (somewhat) to Congress (viz Congressional hearings and probes), and by extension, to the people..

We've had rule-by-dictator-tyrant in this country ever since Teddy Roosevelt, who issued over 1,000 EOs (Executive Orders) in this 8 years in office. EOs carry the force of law, are "as good" as laws passed by Congress, but are randomly made up by presidential decree.. Strictly spekaing they should be unconstitutional, but noone seems to pay attention to that.

The Supreme Court is an abomination to liberty and freedom, and has been ever since before John Jay took his seat on that court. The whole structure of the U.S. judicial system is extremely unjust, and that's by design (in the Constitution). The structure of Congress was the massive "advancement" (in terms of freedom and liberty) that the Constitution.. but the tyrants who attended the Constitutional Convention (in 1787) just hid their tyranny (very very carefully) in the judiciary and Supreme Court.

The other big flaw in the Constitution is that it doesn't prohibit central banking... Jefferson wanted to add this in as an amendment once he realized the threat, but didn't have enough power to do so..

[imenja]

18. I suggest you do some reading in history

to learn something about the context in which our nation was born. To describe these men as tyrants is frankly uninformed. I challenge you to name one eighteenth-century government that preceded our own that was less tyrannical.


Recent Supreme Court decisions have limited the Bush administration's ability to hold Americans without legal council or refuse to produce writs of habeas corpus. They have told the Bush administration that they cannot conduct trials at Gitmo without regard to Constitutional protections. Despite the clearly conservative nature of this court, they have, and I believe will continue to, restrict some of the Bush administration's key abuses. The process takes time, since cases have to make their way up the appellate ladder, but the Court has consistently chastised this administration on it's disrespect of Constitutional protections.

[psholtz]

23. Conflict at the Convention

Some of the Founders were motivated by genuine love of country and love of their countrymen. Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin are in this camp. So do (imho) George Washington and James Madison..

Other "founders" were little more than British agents sent to the Constitutional Convention to derail the whole process. Hamilton, of all the "Founders", is the leader of the category, although there were many others, including John Jay and Roger Morris (and many many others).

The Constitutional Convention, like all events in history, was a single "homogenous" event.. there where fights and battles between competing interests there, much like anywhere else..

[imenja]

26. there were many conflicts at the convention

and many contradictions evident, such as the fundamental one between slavery and liberty. But to call them tyrants, you must have a point of comparison. Yours is a 21st century perspective. You judge them as though they were operating in today's political climate. I again challenge you to find a form of eighteenth-century government that proceeded the Constitutional convention and was less tyrannical than our own.

[psholtz]

31. fight for freedom is never over..

I'm currently in the process of scanning and posting on my Web site the text from an old book by Gustavus Myers called "History of the U.S. Supreme Court".. I'm not done yet (so I can't point you to it), and there aren't really references elsewhere on the Web, but in it you'll find some pretty draconian laws from the colonial period and even from the immediate post-Revolutionary period..

Laws like "if a slave tries to escape, it's OK to gouge out one of his eyes".. of course, in the name of pretending to maintain an illusion of justice, these laws had clauses thrown in like "If the master both gouges out an eye and cuts a slave's hand off, then the master may be fined up to (and not in excess of) 10 pounds"... etc.. really horrifying laws like this..

And these are laws that were passed by people like the Morris family and the Livingston family, etc, people who were delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

Tyranical imho, but fortunate for us that common sense (<- in the Thomas Paine sense of the word) prevailed. I don't think the fight for freedom is over, either.. it never is..

[imenja]

32. I agree entirely

what I contest is your notion that there was something especially tyrannical about our constitution and founding fathers. Slavery was a terrible blight on our society and influenced the formation of laws. That influence is still evident today through the racist nature of our justice system and the death penalty in particular.

In the eighteenth-century, however, our constitution represented a profound leap forward in ideas of liberty, equality, and representative government. It certainly was not perfect, but in comparison to prevailing governments of the time, if offered something quite new and improved. It's significance lay not so much in what the Founding Fathers intended, but in the importance of the words of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution themselves. These are elastic and growing documents whose meaning have been expanded over the years. The idea that "all men are created equal," though limited in its intended application, was a profoundly radical and important concept. It spawned groups of slaves (who, in the 1790s, demanded their freedom to the New Hampshire legislature) and women (at the 1848 Seneca Falls convention) to insist that they too should be included within that framework. As Bernard Baylin notes, the "contagion of liberty" would ultimately prove impossible to contain.

[psholtz]

36. just a few bad apples..

I agree w/ everything your saying.. the Constitution was a great leap forward in 1789.. and many of the Founding Fathers were great men motivated by magnamious convictions.. Those who I feel fall into that bucket I've already cited..

I'm just saying, not all the founding "fathers" were quite so good-hearted, and not a few of them were downright evil.. (Livingston in particular, Penn delegate to the Constitutional Convention, if memory serves me right, was quite evil)..

I think we would also do well to try to keep our current government shackled down to the chains of the Constitution (<- to paraphrase Jefferson), which currently we're not doing a very good job of..

[Igel]

60. While I find my self agreeing with most of your posts,

no.

If the founders believed the government was the people, and democracy was good, why then does the founding document go so far to protect the people from the government?

Because democracies are brutal and repressive, each and every one, in the long term. If 51% of the population can strip all the rights and goods from the other 49%--and that's what can happen in a democracy--I don't want it.

On the other hand, a modified democracy, in which the government is of the people but can't easily express the majoritarian view of the people, that can be a good thing. As long as people don't tinker with the restrictions.

(And I agree: I don't want to live in this country--but would probably continue to--when >50% of the voters no longer pay any taxes. At that point I'd start chanting "No representation without taxation".)

(out, out, foul typo)

[imenja]

70. the issue is relative

The founders certainly took measures to distance government from the people, but they were also operating in a world where monarchy was the prevalent form of government and the notion of a republic was in itself radical. It comparison to others of their time, they sought to promote rule by the people, but how that rule was carried out was carefully controlled: Indirect rather than direct elections; only male property holders could vote, etc...
The debate reflected in your post centers around what constitutes democracy. I would argue that they did seek to create democracy, though their conception of the polity was far more limited than ours is today. Regardless of whether one calls it a democratic republic, democracy, or simply a republic, it provided for a level of self-rule unknown in Western society at that time.

[Igel]

74. I'd go for representative democracy, but I'm

not able to argue even some of the grosser points of what makes up a republic.

I don't think the founding fathers trusted the population very much. But they certainly distrusted the idea of monarchy.

Sigh, what can you do with liberal elites? :hi:

[Inland]

35. Democracy isn't the problem. But it'll be blamed by our new tyrants.

With all due respect to Alex Tytler, who I am sure is a professor of something or other, our democracy has outlasted every government worth a dime. Even if one were to quibble about the US being a republic, we're breaking the barrier.

Clearly, the threat to the fiscal solvency of the US isn't coming from too much input from the people. There wasn't a demand for huge bank-breaking tax cuts coming from the grass roots. We needed a huge, well funded campaign by the elites in business and politics to lie to the people, who needed to be convinced that the tax cuts wouldn't cause deficits. Nor was there a demand for a huge drain of a war in Iraq, a missile defense system, rebuilding Iraq, privatizing social security, and the list goes on and on. The public, in its wisdom, is and was skeptical of these ventures dooming us to insolvency, and the elites have to engage in huge, deceptive and pretty much continuous campaigns to drum up support for them.

Of course, we know that democracy will be blamed for the breakdown of our country. That's what tyrants do when they grab power. And I am sure that Bush is preparing to do just that. They always insist that centralizing power is how to make the trains run on time.

But as an older Italian immigrant told me, Mussolini didn't make the trains run on time. The trains were worse than ever. But he made people afraid to complain about them. That's where we are heading. Things are worse, but complaints are shouted down now. Soon, the tyrants will announce they are saving us from the excesses of democracy and the complaints will end, not because things are better, but because complaints are banned.

[coda]

67. Yeah that does sound familiar.

I think I received the e-mail a dozen times or so.
No word yet on who actually wrote it (that I've seen).

http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp


Sounds a lot like Hayek though, i.e. a country can't be just a little bit socialist.

[psholtz]

3. Two wolves and sheep deciding on dinner..

The word democracy does not appear in the Constitution, and with good reason: it's a terrible form of government. Read Federalist #10 by James Madison for more information...

The U.S. was organized as a Republic, which is to say, a system of Law in which each man has the right to exercise his Free Will, so long as it does his actions do not impinge on the Free Will of another citizen..

The Founders knew that democracy in its purest expression, is nothing more than mob rule, and ultimately results in tyranny..

As Ben Franklin (Founding Father) said, democracy is nothing more than two wolves and sheep deciding on what to have for dinner..

[imenja]

11. all of this discussion speaks to the issue of what democracy is

Its definition is not self-evident, as American presidents have typically assumed. I would argue that democracy is not mob rule. It is government by the people, but it must be a government that respects the rights of the minority.

[psholtz]

15. it's all about Self Government..

America was concieved as a nation wherein "Self government" would rule.. which is to say, it was a nation wherein each man would be able to govern himself to the greatest extent possible and therefore, to the greatest extent possible, not require an "external" government.

"Government of the people", i.e., democratic mob rule, has time and again been mistaken for and confused with the philosophy of "self government" that originally motivated Jefferson and Paine..

[imenja]

19. it certainly is not each man governing himself

site a constitutional passage that demonstrates that. It was conceived as "government of the people." Each man ruling himself is not a government at all.

Classical liberalism, as the political corollary of capitalism, exalts the rights of the individual and of property. Our Constitution reflects those values. But that is not the same as imagining each man ruling himself. Government by its very nature must involve some cooperation. The Bill of Rights protects the rights of individuals, but it similarly restricts some from abusing the rights of others. Government by nature must limit individual rights. The failure to do so is sheer anarchy.

[psholtz]

25. rights of individual and property

I agree w/ what you're saying here...

I'm just saying the phrase "government of the people" has been used by socialists for purposes unrelated to its original intention. Classical liberalism is the way to go (and, so to, is the general maxim that less government is better, esp in this day in age).

Rights of the individual and property are paramount, I agree, and that's reflected -- to a decent extent -- in the Constitution.

[ISUGRADIA]

46. Yeah, democracy also threatens the elite in power

by keeping the franchise low at the founding of the country, those in power were able to prevent social reform. This cry against "democracy" I heard it on the right wing radio stations I used to monitor. Seems if the people are given too much power over their own lives and wise up to what's going on the 1% at the top who control things might be in trouble. Policy might be made more for the people's benefit than the elite's benefit.

[Baconfoot]

5. I have not posted anything in this thread n/t

[McKenzie]

7. there is an important issue here people

does democratic decison-making mean the optimium choice? I'm on thin ice here but before going to bed I'll leave you with Tocqueville's famous quote:

"Beware the tryanny of the majority".

"The Sun" is the most popular Brit newspaper but it's a sexist rag. Its sales outstrip its nearest broadsheet competitors by a factor of 4-5 at least. Assuming numbers carry the day, The Sun is what the majority want. I wouldn't use it except to wrap my fish and chips (fries) in. Do numbers mean "right"?

[psholtz]

9. goes back to Plato

The tyranny of the majority (i.e., democracy) is the first step towards dictatorship.. Plato noted this as early as 2500 years ago.. (as have many thinkers since, including Tocqueville)

[ISUGRADIA]

47. Plato also looked down on the masses as dirt too

just like the other elites of his day. When anyone started to fight for the masses they were decried as "demagouges"

[Igel]

62. And let's remember where the glorious dictatorship of the

proletariat got us.

Dictatorship by the many is no less reprehensible than dictatorship by the few.

[ISUGRADIA]

72. Communism as practiced has ended up as one man rule or an oligarchy

at best. We're talking about democracy here, political institutions that reflect the needs of the masses, not that of the top 1% of taxpayers.

[Igel]

78. I don't think the masses ungoverned would set up a government

that would be respectful of the non-mass part of the masses.

The ideal system should be set up for the common good. That is not identical with the "masses" usually perceive as in their interests.

The first few years of the Soviet system, civil war aside, showed what the Russian masses were capable of. I wouldn't want to see that repeated. Anywhere. Ever.

[Mairead]

97. Read Zinn's 'History'

On the occasions when the usual government was absent, people acted very well and soberly. Every time.

[Igel]

100. I suspect that he was rather selective.

It may be well be true if you choose your definitions right.

Of course, there are lots of instances where the "government" was present, but completely ignored, or acquiesced the killing, pogroms, and lynching that the kind-hearted masses wanted.

Which raises the interesting question: Is a government with no governed still a government?

[imenja]

101. I find that argument highly questionable

Many societies where violence is pervasive are characterized by a breakdown of the state. Colombia is one such example. A significant part of the country lies outside of government control, yet these are war zones. Inability to contain that violence has led to an increasingly weakened state.

I question whether the statement you attribute to Zinn is not historically verifiable. If one is considering parts of the world with no government whatsoever, there are no written documents that can tell us the level of violence that existed. Without a state, there are no police or court records, the sources historians draw upon to examine crime and punishment. Moreover, I know of no society that exists without a government of some kind. Even societies without the written word have their own governments. Even if it takes the form of a tribal council rather than a rational bureaucracy, it is nonetheless government. I would appreciate knowing which places Zinn points to as examples and the evidence he provides to support his claims. The point you raise reminds me of Edward's Said's caution about how we in the West interpret other societies. We project onto the other assumptions that reflect mirror opposites of our own society rather than engaging in thoughtful or realistic interpretation of the foreign culture itself.

[imenja]

10. the tyranny of the majority is a very important concern

as Alexander de tocqueville wisely acknowledged. Democracy, in fact, can not survive such tyranny. The Consitution wisely puts limits on the majority.

[charlyvi]

14. Yes.

It's called the Bill of Rights.....no matter how many people disagree, there are certain rights outside the purview of "the majority."

[Mairead]

89. Untrue

Note that the protection of our enumerated rights is empty. There is no penalty for infringement. The very most that can happen is that SCOTUS will strike down an infringing law. But there's no requirement that they do so.

Which is why an innocent person can have her property confiscated and sold by the cops, violating the Fourth Amendment; and we can be arrested for exercising our First Amendment right to peaceful assembly and speech, and confined to pens; and why even actual innocence of a crime isn't enough to save one from execution; and why our right to own and carry weapons for self-defence is grossly restricted even tho the police have no legal obligation to protect us; and....

[latteromden]

13. Doesn't surprise me. The US isn't a democracy, but a

democratic republic. Although, I guess, if you think about it, there's democracy and then there's a democracy... okay, I'm going to shut up before I stop making sense. :P

[Igel]

63. Too late. n/t

[McKenzie]

16. this is very interesting people

I'm a dyed in the wool liberal but I hae ma' doots about the wisdom of universal democracy on every subject. The corollary to universal suffrage on every issue is that unless all understand the issues under debate, democracy is not a wise political model. People tend to vote along self-interest lines, particularly if they don't understand the ramifications of any given choice, whether it be social or economic.

I trust my doctor because she knows about matters that are Swahili to me. I could tell her how to construct her house; I wouldn't presume to tell her how to treat cancer and she wouldn't presume to tell me about bending moments. So allowing anyone to vote on any given issue runs the risk that the choice might be popular but imperfect.

"Liberal" means tolerance to my way of thinking. Allowing majority rule on EVERY issue is tyranny by mob rule.

[Guaranteed]

20. Right, but majority rule on every issue isn't what our Constitution

has given us.

We have RIGHTS. The Constitution goes out of its way to protect minorities. It's truly genius.

[McKenzie]

21. but but...

minorities are marginalised under the current system. Gay people get a raw deal, for example, because they are a minority.

Democracy only works if everyone votes for the common good and they don't. They vote out of self interest in the main.

[Guaranteed]

22. Well, it's a slow progress. But gays, too, will have their day. nt

[imenja]

24. legally they are somewhat protected, culturally they are persecuted

Equal protection, under the 14th amendment, is meant to protect us all from legal discrimination. As you may well imagine, being gay was not a political idea in eighteenth-century America. Many in this country would like to restrict legally the rights of gays, but the Constitution prevents them from formalizing those restrictions. The Supreme Court has ruled that sodomy laws directed at gays particularly are unconstitutional. These constitutional protections are why the right have argued for a constitutional amendment. They will not win. So you are right that our society exercises discrimination against gays, but it is limited in it's ability to make that discrimination fully legal by the Constitution. Part of this lies in how equal rights are interpreted. The notion of equal protection has expanded over the centuries. I believe that in coming years, though not in the immediate future, discrimination against gays will formally be ruled as a violation of our constitutional protections.

The Constitution guarantees only legal and political equality. It does not establish economic or social equality. It is a liberal document, and as such exalts the rights of property. It is a political text linked to the development of capitalism. Its notions of equality are therefore limited to politics and the law.

[Guaranteed]

27. Great, great post. nt

[McKenzie]

28. thnx...good comments

my aim was to get feedback and it has been damned fine feedback too.

thnx and have a good one...I'm aff to shoot the craw. (sleep)

[Guaranteed]

30. BTW, I think it's a good thing that you brought up that point,

because our culture is slowing seeping into that pure "majority rule" ideal- people are forgetting that we do have rights.

[Mairead]

87. A jalous that ye dinnae weel wit whit ye're sayin

Compare the record of the choices made by minority rule ('elected representatives') with fully-democratic choices in the venues where both have been available (several states for a hundred years or more, plus many local jurisdictions, plus Switzerland for 150 years).

Straight democracy fares extremely well by comparison.

Consider the current record: how many of our elite 'representatives' have done their jobs in the past 20 years? Gey few. If they're not doing their jobs, then in what respect are they a better choice?

[chlamor]

34. U.S.A. Inc.

The USA, I submit has at its core the notion of corporation. I don't believe this to be only a recent phenomenona, perhaps just more pronounced and evident at present. Then again perhaps it was more evident for the slaves and indentured servants during the "early days", I use that loaded phrase purposely. Here are a few snippets from an article by Jeremy Hammond that address Democracy vs. Republic-Rights vs. Priviliges and the 14th amendment:
http://207.44.245.159/article8101.htm
"Like any corporation, the United States chooses profit over humanity. But the United States is unique in that it operates less like Unocal or Halliburton and more like the mafia, complete with “hits” upon any competitors which might threaten the existing order (“nothing personal, just business”). But even the most violently diabolical members of organized crime can only drool with envy at the military might the U.S.A., Inc. has at its disposal to enforce its will upon the world."
<snip>

For all the talk these days about “democracy”, one might never guess that the founding fathers despised that form of government. A democracy, they recognized, is mob rule. It’s two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner, to borrow the analogy. In a republic, on the other hand, one man and the law is a sovereign in an impenetrable fortress. A democracy grants privileges, a republic recognizes rights. There is, in short, all the difference in the world between a republic and a democracy. 
<snip>
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” 

[psholtz]

37. Act of 1871

The U.S. has been a "corporation" (legally speaking) since (about) 1871 when the U.S. Code was adopted and the entire nation was reorganized (basically) into a federal corporation..

Some purists define this as the end of the Republic as founded by Jefferson, et. al.. Ever since 1871, it's been a downhill slide towards corporatism, imho..

[chlamor]

40. A footnote to history

The case which gave the Corp. the same rights as people, though some would say it reduced the rights of people, was some case in Vermont related to the railroad industry, I believe. Technically the case was not ruled for the Corp. but a headnote put in by some affiliate with the RR co. gave them the rights we now regard as the corporate charter. I've heard Thom Hartmann talk about the details of the case but don't recall them precisely.

[psholtz]

42. santa clara

Yes, I believe you're speaking of the Santa Clara decision in 1886. You'll find more info here:

http://www.iiipublishing.com/afd/santaclara.html

[LilBitRad]

41. According to Article IV section 4

It is not a democracy, but a republic

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence."

[ulTRAX]

44. red herring alert!!!

This is one of the red herrings in American culture that prevents us from ever critiquing the Constitution. Democratic concepts are at the heart of a republic at least in theory.

[LilBitRad]

73. Didn't think I was throwing out a red herring

The OP stated he was Non American and was looking for the word Democracy in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. I tried to help him out.

I got in a rush because I was posting on my lunch hour and didn't get it right either.

Someone upthread pointed out, correctly, it is a democratic republic.

It's a mixture of the two systems, described to me as republican under common law, and democratic under statutory law.

As far as your statement "Democratic concepts are at the heart of a republic at least in theory." can't disagree one bit, and I'd have a hard time explaining it to the OP; yours does fine by me.

[ulTRAX]

91. Sorry, I jumped to a conclusion

You were making a linguistic point. I was jumping to the gun thinking that you were raising the old "we're a republic not a democracy" line which is used as an excuse not to critique the Constitution.

[LilBitRad]

92. No big, wasn't offended n/t

[Mairead]

88. Being a republic only means it's not a monarchy! (nt)

[LilBitRad]

93. I've always been under the impression

that was the specific intent of the authors, given the attitudes toward the monarchy that ruled the colonies.

To me, republic means an elected head of state and elected officials representing the people, as opposed to a democracy wherein the majority rules.

[Mairead]

96. It's an impression that's fostered by certain people

for their own ends, but it's not really true, if you accept that specialised words mean what experts in the applicable field (political science, in this case) say they mean, rather than what non-experts might say they mean. If you don't accept that principle, of course, then all bets are off.

The former colonists were a mix of monarchists and republicans. Monarchies were in the majority in Europe--the only republics were the minor states like San Marino. The important states--France, Britain, and to a lesser degree Spain (because of its New-World colonies) and Russia (because of its looming bulk) --were monarchies. The fragments that in the 19th c. became Italy and Germany were monarchies. The monarchists in the ex-colonies wanted Washington to take the title 'king', but he said no.

A monarchy can be an elected one or a hereditary one...but so can a presidency. There are conventions (most monarchs are hereditary, most presidencies elected), but they don't even rise to the status of guidelines--they're merely observations. Is someone who holds the title 'President-for-life' a real president, or a near-monarch? If someone has the title Predsedatel, is that an elected or appointed or hereditary one? There's no way to know from just looking at the title.

The ultimate power in any state always rests with its people. They can, if they work hard enough and are willing to sacrifice themselves, toss any monarch, dictator, president, or grand high poobah out on his arse or string him up to a lamppost, and change the system. So in some sense every state is a democracy.

But we actually call it a democracy only when the people have the power to take the big decisions. Decisions like whether to have universal healthcare, or whether to go to war, or how much to pay government functionaries, or whether to sack the president before his time. On some level, whether we cast the ballots ourselves or send a delegate to cast them for us doesn't matter. If the decision is ours then we have a democracy, and if the decision is not ours then we do not have a democracy.

Over 70% of us have wanted universal healthcare for decades...but we still don't have it, and it's not even on the horizon. That should tell us that we do not have a democracy.

[LilBitRad]

99. And that's why it can be confusing to old farts like me

"Over 70% of us have wanted universal healthcare for decades...but we still don't have it, and it's not even on the horizon. That should tell us that we do not have a democracy."

You're right. Since the majority wants it, and we're not getting it, it can't be a democracy. Our elected reps aren't doing what we want, so how can it be a republic or a democratic republic for that matter?

Off topic but a sore point with me. Though I am a small L guy, this is one area where I think the government needs to do more.

I've never understood the reluctance of our elected officials to look seriously at the universal health care issue. Periodically they'll mutter about it, say we can't afford it and move on.

Medicare/Medicaid was a bone tossed to us and not nearly enough.

[ulTRAX]

43. the Constitution is an anti-democratic document

Leaving aside the matter of depriving all by white men with property of the vote... US Federalism is nothing but a system of vote weighing schemes that are illegal on all other levels of government.

[ISUGRADIA]

48. You hit the nail on the head

At the time of ratification only the US House was voted on by the people. The people being a small number of white, land owning males. It was designed to keep an elite in power. Only through struggle has the franchise been expanded.

[ulTRAX]

61. the Senate is one of the most anti-democratic institutions in the world

It doesn't matter if the Senate is now elected by direct vote. It's a vote weighing scheme in which 15% of the US population gets 50% of the seats. Soon that will be 10%. A citizen's vote in Wyoming weighs 38X that of a citizen in California.

[Igel]

65. Yes, you're right.

But keeping in mind that pure democracies are just tyrannies to be, having any minority put the breaks on majoritarianism is a good thing.

The goal is not to make a government that can act quickly to implement changes; the goal is to have a government that cannot.

IMHO, the way things were originally set up turned out to be fairly subversive. Imposing the views of a minority on the entirety of the population would have been tyranny; but the document contained mechanisms for long-term changes in the views of the majority to be reflected.

[ulTRAX]

90. there are PLENTY of other groups that can slow down the majority

Or perhaps I should say "A" majority.

Why is state residence the only worthy criteria? And why do you believe that this can only be done in an anti-democratic manner?

Why not have the Senate as a national parliament based on national party elections? Instead of have two houses represent geographical interests... only one would while the other would represent ideological interests.

[lovuian]

51. America is a Republic not a democracy

the electoral college tells us that!!!

[Hugin]

55. Strangely enough... Republic isn't in there either.

It talks about "representatives".

[El Fuego]

82. America is technically a "democratic republic"

Because we do not have true majority rule. And we wouldn't want it.

[Mairead]

86. This is a very common error!

'Republic' and 'democracy' are orthogonal. That a nation is a 'republic' simply means the head of state is not a monarch. Whether or not it's also a democracy is a completely separate issue.

[Goldmund]

68. Actually, I've been hearing rumblings of that rhetoric

That just may be the next big GOP talking point. They're testing it out right now with Weiner and Annthrax, then they're going to move to El Rushbo and Hannity, and if they get a good response it'll become a part of their platform.

[Vladimir]

71. There are many kinds of 'democracy'

one of the biggest myths (borne out of our own arrogance) of our times is that liberal (in the European sense) democracy is the only model out there...

[Mairead]

85. The Constitution is an anti-democratic document

It's not hard to see that. Note that, per the original document, the only federal office for which 'the people' were permitted to vote was for their 'representative' in the House. We did not even get the right to vote for Senator til the 20th c.: 1913. We still do not have the right to vote for any of the hundreds of other offices that control our lives.

Now, the reason I put 'the people' in sneer quotes is that, at the time, the voting population included only a quite small minority: White male property owners. White males not owning property, or people who were not White or not male had no right to vote for anyone.

And the reason I put 'representative' in quotes is that the anti-federalists at the time strongly and openly ridiculed the idea that one person could in any meaningful way represent up to 30K people (the limit set in the Constitution). (Note that that one person now allegedly 'represents' over a half-million!)

The word 'States' in 'United States' was (and still is) a synonym for 'nation'. After the revolution, the 13 former colonies became not a single nation, but 13 independent nations, very loosely 'united' in a confederation in much the same way that people are 'united' by a business agreement. There was in fact not much unity, since the states were very differently situated in regard to seacoast, harbors, cities, fertile land, etc. And the Industrial Revolution had started with a bang by Whitney's ideas for automated cotton ginning and for interchangeable machine parts. It was clear to people like Jefferson and Franklin at least that the balance of power was going to shift away from the southern, slave-dependent, agricultural nations. And in fact there were already beginning to be problems that were difficult to solve under the Articles of Confederation.

James Madison is generally called the 'father' of the Constitution. He, to a lesser extent Alexander Hamilton, and to a much lesser extent John Jay who became the first Chief Justice of SCOTUS, were the authors of what came to be known as the Federalist Papers. Those were essays arguing for the states abandoning their independence and accepting the status of what we call 'protectorates' today: countries that are largely independent internally, but that have a powerful wrapper that has powers the protectorates can't easily take away again. If you read the Federalist Papers, you see that the arguments boil down to 'it will be good for business'. (where have we heard that before?).

Jay was an out-and-out plutocrat ('those that own the country should rule it'). Hamilton was a monarchist and unabashed aristo. All wanted to be sure there was as little democracy as possible.

Madison was in favor of 'refining the popular appointments by successive filtrations'. But he recognised that diluting democracy that way 'might be pushed too far'. If the people had no vote at all at the federal level, which is what Madison would really have preferred, then 'the necessary sympathy between them and their rulers and officers, (would be) too little felt' and that could cause another revolution!

So, we have a Constitution that, in its original form, provides neither for democratic elections nor safeguards from government abuse. And even in the Bill Of Rights --added mostly because of the anti-federalist, democratic threats not to ratify the Constitution-- our rights have no real protection at all. The BOR declares that government cannot infringe on the rights it enumerates...but there is no penalty at all if Congress decides to infringe on them anyway! Not even a wrist-slap.

Which is why we're in the fix we're in. We need real democracy, not this faux rubbish we've got now.