If this country is NOT a Democracy, then why are we trying to "spread Democracy" in the mideast?

Question

Many people argue that American society is NOT a Democracy, but a Republic. But our government leaders are using the term "spreading Democracy," as a justification for the GWT. Huh? Which is it?

Answer 1

to fu..ck up there heads

Answer 2

Democracy is a theory. So was Communism, even though it didn't work. So was Facsism, even though that didn't work. So are dictatorships which don't work very long. You will never see pure, unaltered democracy working in the USA. We make efforts to try, but when we get close it blows up in our face, like the Supreme Court appointing Bush president, or the fact that 70% of the people in the USA do not support the Iraq crap, but we are still there. The will of the people is exercised only when it suits the power brokers. But when the will of the people gets educated about the government not doing what the people want, well, guess what, the power brokers still make decisions contrary to what YOU want, and it stops being a democracy.

Answer 3

In political theory and political science, the term "republic" is generally applied to a state where the government's political power depends solely on the consent, however nominal, of the people governed. This usage leads to two sets of problematic classification. The first are states which are oligarchical in nature, but are not nominally hereditary, such as many dictatorships, the second are states where all, or almost all, real political power is held by democratic institutions, but which have a monarch as nominal head of state, generally known as constitutional monarchies. The first case causes many outside the state to deny that the state should, in fact, be seen as a Republic. In many states of the second kind there are active "republican" movements that promote the ending of even the nominal monarchy, and the semantic problem is often resolved by calling the state a Democracy.

Generally, political scientists try to analyse underlying realities, not the names by which they go: whether a political leader calls himself "king" or "president", and the state he governs a "monarchy" or a "republic" is not the essential characteristic, whether he exerces power as an autocrat is. In this sense political analysts may say that the First World War was, in many respects, the death knell for monarchy, and the establishment of republicanism, whether de facto and/or de jure, as being essential for a modern state. The Austro-Hungarian Empire and the German Empire were both abolished by the terms of the peace treaty after the war, the Russian Empire overthrown by the Russian Revolution of 1917. Even within the victorious states, monarchs were gradually being stripped of their powers and prerogatives, and more and more the government was in the hands of elected bodies whose majority party headed the executive. Nonetheless post-WWI Germany, a de jure republic, would develop into a de facto autocracy by the mid 1930s: the new peace treaty, after the Second World War, took more precaution in making the terms thus that also de facto (the Western part of) Germany would remain a republic.

Answer 4

We are not a true democracy. We are a representative democracy. Yes we are also a republic but you can be both a representative democracy and a republic.

The current administration is taking an extreme view of the “Democratic peace theory” By which Democracies do not go to war with each other and are more likely to not go to war in general.

Answer 5

it's a democracy. It's not a true democracy. A true democracy is a government ruled completely by the people. We are more of a republic, which is when the public appoints leaders to run the government for them. but with gerrimandering and tainted balloting, we are straying away from that too.

Answer 6

Democracy is hidden in a Republic that informs other countries that democracy is good because people has freedom. That is what the US is using as a strategy to adopt their system of government.

Answer 7

The US Government is set up as a Democracy (the masses rule for all). However, the foundling fathers set up the US as a Republic (I can do my thing as long as it does not interfere with your thing). (Simplified)

Most forms of governments today are either a Plutocracy (the rich rule for all or the money rule) or a Kleptocary (the thieves rule for what they can get) not what they say they are.

I think TPB (The Powers that Be) are using Democracy to establish one of the other two.

Answer 8

Follow the link and enlighten yourself.

Democracy (literally "rule by the people", from the Greek δῆμος demos, "people," and κράτος kratos, "rule")

Direct democracy is a political system where the citizens vote on all major policy decisions

Representative democracy is so named because the people select representatives to a governing body

Answer 9

I think they're saying that to get the communist and socialist to go along with the idea. Problem is, they have created a democracy just like the French revolution. That's why the Iraqis are killing each other.

More Iraqis have been killed by Iraqis than by Americans.

Answer 10

USA is a democartic republic, but the reason why we are "spreading democracy" in Middle East is oil and private grudge.

Answer 11

We use a hybrid system. It's not a complete republic, but it's more like a republic than a democracy.