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> Remember that America is a republic, not a democracy Republic. Aka, Res Publica. "Thing of the people". A form of government where all political power origin
by kuschku 9y ago
> Remember that America is a republic, not a democracy
Republic. Aka, Res Publica. "Thing of the people". A form of government where all political power originates with the people, directly or indirectly.
Democracy. Demos Kratia. "Rule by the people". A form of government where all political power originates with the people, directly or indirectly.
These two terms are not about how decisions are made. They do not discuss who elects whom, and how, or if everything is directly chosen. They exist to differentiate the systems from previous feudalistic rule, where the power came from the fact that the leader had the power to protect you from other leaders (the power was justified through the strength), and from monarchies (including both earlier ones, e.g. the ancient egyptian dynasties, and later ones, e.g. french absolutism – both justifying their power as being chosen by a god, or descended from one).
Now, the US itself has a governmental form called "Representative democracy", meaning that all choices are made by representatives, chosen by the population, and whose power comes from the people, who have to respond to the people, and who have to represent the will of the people.
Also, what you’re thinking of is the question between direct nation-wide rule, or a federal rule.
Germany is a federal republic, and also representative democracy. Yet it manages to solve this exact issue – by electing the first chamber of parliament, the Bundestag, entirely with MMP, meaning it is chosen independent of states, and the second chamber of parliament, the Bundesrat, represents each state.
This guarantees that all decisions have to be backed by > 50% of states, and > 50% of population. This guarantees both the democratic principle, that power has to come from all the people, and also the federal principle, ensuring that states also have power.
TL;DR: You’ve misrepresented everything you’ve said, and your argument isn’t even conclusive. You can have a more representative system without losing the power granted to the states, e.g. the German system.
- checkyoursudo 9y agoThis. Being a republic does not preclude also being a representative democracy (or even a direct democracy at some level for that matter).
- hueving 9y agoPerhaps you should spend a little of time reading about the US form of government because what you described is very similar to the purpose of the House and the Senate. Barring gerrymandering issues, the house members are populous elected representatives with each state given weight based on its population. Then each state gets 2 senate seats which are elected within the states by popularity as well. Tldr; you've essentially described how the law making arm of the US is already elected and have pretended it's something new.
- kuschku 9y agoI’ve described what the US model would be ideally. But that’s not what it is today. The German system was designed after the US system (due to WWII, and everything after), but improved. Gerrymandering is a real issue (the German model doesn’t have that), the house seats are effectively arbitrarily distributed, etc.
- dang 9y ago> Perhaps you should spend a little of time reading Please don't take swipes like that in HN comments.
- hueving 9y agoI replied to a comment that said this: >You’ve misrepresented everything you’ve said, and your argument isn’t even conclusive Why the double standard?
- kuschku 9y agoBy the way, I (the user you had replied to) fully support your phrasing, and even your comment — my original comment was a bit unstructured, so your question was valid, as it was easy to miss if someone doesn't know the German system. So I am especially disappointed by the downvotes and the unasked for moderator action your comment got — it asked a valid question.
- dang 9y agoThere's no double standard, just randomness. We don't come close to seeing everything. When a bad post hasn't been moderated, the likeliest explanation is simply that we haven't seen it yet. We've scolded kuschku plenty of times for breaking the guidelines in the past, and you're quite right that he did so there with that uncharitable swipe.
- arca_vorago 9y agoI just want to correct this now and say the United States of America is a constitutional democratic republic form of government. This distinction matters.