The extremely liberal for their time founding fathers of the US were greatly concerned about the tyranny of the majority, which is why people get pedantic when

The extremely liberal for their time founding fathers of the US were greatly concerned about the tyranny of the majority, which is why people get pedantic when talking about the US as a democracy. As has been pointed out elsewhere in this discussion, many states do function as democracies where we can vote directly on amendments to the state constitution (which is how all laws allowing for possession of cannabis have been passed).