Some things really irritate the daylights out of me. One of those is referring to our national form of government as a democracy. The United States is not a democracy. We do not have a democratic form of government, thank God, although we sometimes act like it.
The United States is a republic and has a republican form of government. A republic and a democracy are not the same. One is infinitely superior to the other. A democracy is just one step shy of anarchy.
So what is the difference? In a democracy every voter has an equal vote. Laws are made based on what the majority wants. If the majority wants to make it illegal to do something upright it can do it. If it wants to make something immoral legal, like assisted suicide, for instance, it can vote to do that.
A republican form of government elects representatives to make our laws, representatives who (in a perfect world) should do what is right regardless of what the majority wants.
I often hear our politicians, including our President, refer to the United States of America as a democracy. That thinking is pernicious and indicative of either abject ignorance or a subtle undermining of the basic principles of our governance.
Democracies only work in small venues like some New England town governments and clubs or social organizations and in which those who vote and make rules and laws are themselves both educated and God-fearing. Because few these days are educated and fewer can think logically and even fewer are God-fearing, a democracy can only result in ridiculous self-serving legislation.
The United States needs to revert to its republican roots but it probably cannot do so because our legislators are more concerned with collecting from their own golden-egg laying geese than they are in ruling righteously. The same is also true of those in the Exuctive Branch. Thus, our nation is doomed as we, the people, allow and encourage our rulers to legislate based on which way the wind is blowing — or what the (supposed) majority wants.
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