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More than guns (or in addition to guns), it is important that people know how their government works and make their support indispensable if a ruler wants to st

by mcny 8y ago

More than guns (or in addition to guns), it is important that people know how their government works and make their support indispensable if a ruler wants to stay in power. In other words, increase the number of "keys" like this YouTuber explains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs What I struggle with is how does one make the leap from being a democracy to being a democracy which protects the rights of minorities? This doesn't have to be a gender or race thing. For example, here in the US we clearly don't do enough to protect incarcerated people from {sexual, physical, mental} abuse (by staff or by other inmates).

brobdingnagians 8y ago
That was part of the idea of the Constitution; the founding fathers knew that uninhibited democracies were a bad idea (even the Greeks experienced some bad things with mob rule) and specifically tried to create a democratic republic restrained by a written set of rules protecting citizens from arbitrary exercise of power by a majority to avoid some of the worst. They lived through quite a few things we are seeing now, but I think a large part of preventing it depends squarely on culture. Having a culture that fundamentally believes in justice and equality will stave off tyranny and oppression, but it doesn't matter what laws you have in a society that doesn't value those. When I took Chinese philosophy there was a philosopher (can't remember which one) who basically said that it is good men who make the laws, but laws without good men will not be enforced.
- hcg 8y ago
  > specifically tried to create a democratic republic restrained by a written set of rules protecting citizens from arbitrary exercise of power by a majority to avoid some of the worst They tried to create one with no power for anyone but white male landowners and with provisions that made changing that extremely difficult.
geggam 8y ago
The US is a Constitutional Republic... why everyone continues to conflate this with democracy I do not understand. The states election process does not define the Federal govt. 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. ARTICLE IV, SECTION 4
- danharaj 8y ago
  A constitutional republic is a form of representative democracy. You do not understand because you misunderstand.
  - vmh1928 8y ago
    A constitutional republic is where the people delegate certain powers, enumerated in a constitution, to the government. The Constitution of the United States defines three branches of government, the Legislative, Judicial and Executive. Ideally each branch serves to check the unrestrained power of the other branches (or two branches check the unrestrained power of the third.) That's what makes the revelations about mass logging of emails by the NSA, part of the Executive branch, so important.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > A constitutional republic is a form of representative democracy. This is not generally true in the abstract, but the specific form of most Constitutional republics, including the US, is basically representative democracy, though sometimes (as in the US) with skewed voting power, and democratic values (coupled with fear of the volatility and excesses of direct or unconstrained democracy) was fairly central to the founding ideology of the United States.
    - hcg 8y ago
      No part of the US federal government is representative at this point. The Senate isn't by design, the house isn't because it's been capped, the presidency isn't by design.
- geggam 8y ago
  " A constitutional republic is a form of representative democracy. " Read this over and over until you believe you can simply change the meaning of words
  - hansthehorse 8y ago
barrow-rider 8y ago
> What I struggle with is how does one make the leap from being a democracy to being a democracy which protects the rights of minorities? The Federalist Papers deal with both the Tyranny of the Majority, as well as the Tyranny of the Minority. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers

by mcny 8y ago

brobdingnagians 8y ago

That was part of the idea of the Constitution; the founding fathers knew that uninhibited democracies were a bad idea (even the Greeks experienced some bad things with mob rule) and specifically tried to create a democratic republic restrained by a written set of rules protecting citizens from arbitrary exercise of power by a majority to avoid some of the worst. They lived through quite a few things we are seeing now, but I think a large part of preventing it depends squarely on culture. Having a culture that fundamentally believes in justice and equality will stave off tyranny and oppression, but it doesn't matter what laws you have in a society that doesn't value those. When I took Chinese philosophy there was a philosopher (can't remember which one) who basically said that it is good men who make the laws, but laws without good men will not be enforced.

hcg 8y ago
> specifically tried to create a democratic republic restrained by a written set of rules protecting citizens from arbitrary exercise of power by a majority to avoid some of the worst They tried to create one with no power for anyone but white male landowners and with provisions that made changing that extremely difficult.

geggam 8y ago

The US is a Constitutional Republic... why everyone continues to conflate this with democracy I do not understand. The states election process does not define the Federal govt. 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. ARTICLE IV, SECTION 4

danharaj 8y ago
A constitutional republic is a form of representative democracy. You do not understand because you misunderstand.
- vmh1928 8y ago
  A constitutional republic is where the people delegate certain powers, enumerated in a constitution, to the government. The Constitution of the United States defines three branches of government, the Legislative, Judicial and Executive. Ideally each branch serves to check the unrestrained power of the other branches (or two branches check the unrestrained power of the third.) That's what makes the revelations about mass logging of emails by the NSA, part of the Executive branch, so important.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > A constitutional republic is a form of representative democracy. This is not generally true in the abstract, but the specific form of most Constitutional republics, including the US, is basically representative democracy, though sometimes (as in the US) with skewed voting power, and democratic values (coupled with fear of the volatility and excesses of direct or unconstrained democracy) was fairly central to the founding ideology of the United States.
  - hcg 8y ago
    No part of the US federal government is representative at this point. The Senate isn't by design, the house isn't because it's been capped, the presidency isn't by design.
geggam 8y ago
" A constitutional republic is a form of representative democracy. " Read this over and over until you believe you can simply change the meaning of words
- hansthehorse 8y ago

barrow-rider 8y ago

> What I struggle with is how does one make the leap from being a democracy to being a democracy which protects the rights of minorities? The Federalist Papers deal with both the Tyranny of the Majority, as well as the Tyranny of the Minority. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers