Republic or democracy?

Question

Is the U.S. a republic or a democracy? What's the difference?

Answer 1

We are a Representative Republic!!

In a true Democracy we would have chaos as some 50 states would be trying to keep everything for themselves, and without a central government we do not have a way to regulate our protection or commerce, and many other things!

In a Democracy, Bush would not be President as he lost the majority of the vote.

In a Democracy, a true one, you would vote on every single bill and we would not need a congress! Of course, I don't know how you would get the information.

In a democracy the majority, no matter how small, would rule the minority, exactly what our forefathers did not want!

I guess we are called a democracy because we vote, but we really don't vote in the manner of a democracy. How many bills have you voted on!

And we don't elect our president. An Electoral College, who by law are not required to even consider the popular results though that is what has happened so far!

Answer 2

The U.S. is a Democratic Republic which ironically is not a democracy at all.

The only good, true, right democracy is a PURE democracy. But that's hard to do in a country so big like the U.S. but I think it is possible.

I also like some of Karl Marx views on a Utopian society.


Bush is a good man. He's trying to do the right thing and he's better than anyone else we could have had.

Answer 3

Both.

A democracy is where the people vote to make choices.

A republic is where representatives carry out the actions of the govt.

The US is a democratic republic because we vote for our elected officials, who then run the govt.

But it's possible to have a pure (polyarchal) democracy where all decisions are made directly by the voters.

And it's possible to have a non-democratic republic where the representatives are chose by some other means -- lottery, money, land-owners, appointed by the monarch, etc (not voted on).

Answer 4

We are a constitutional republic. In a Democracy the people vote directly, in a Republic we elect representatives to vote for us.

Congratulations soperson you managed to turn the most innocuous question into a childish rant against Bush. Get a blog

Answer 5

In a democracy everyone gets a vote, in a republic each regain (in our case states) elects one or more representatives and they vote, so technically the US is a republic.

Answer 6

I believe the technical term is a Representative Democracy.

Answer 7

We're a republic. We elect officials to act in our stead

An easy way to remember this is the pledge of allegiance: "And to the republic for which it stands"

Answer 8

The US is a Democratic Republic meaning many ruled by a few. It is a contradiction in my opinion.

Answer 9

childish is what liberals are good at. go figure. soperson shouldnt be allowed out of his parents basement anymore. and i think the one saying we are a constitutional republic is the right answer.

Answer 10

.Democracy:

A government of the masses.

Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of "direct" expression.

Results in mobocracy.

Attitude toward property is comunistic-negating property rights.

Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate. whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.

Results in demagogism license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.

Democracy is the "direct" rule of the people and has been repeatedly tried without success.

A certain Professor Alexander Fraser Tytler, nearly two centuries ago, had this to say about Democracy: " A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of Government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that Democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a Dictatorship."

A democracy is majority rule and is destructive of liberty because there is no law to prevent the majority from trampling on individual rights. Whatever the majority says goes! A lynch mob is an example of pure democracy in action. There is only one dissenting vote, and that is cast by the person at the end of the rope.

Republic:

Authority is derived through the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them.

Attitude toward property is respect for laws and individual rights, and a sensible economic procedure.

Attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences.

A greater number of citizens and extent of territory may be brought within its compass.

Avoids the dangerous extreme of either tyranny or mobocracy. Results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, justice, contentment, and progress.

Is the "standard form" of government throughout the world.

A republic is a form of government under a constitution which provides for the election of:

an executive and

a legislative body, who working together in a representative capacity, have all the power of appointment, all power of legislation all power to raise revenue and appropriate expenditures, and are required to create

a judiciary to pass upon the justice and legality of their governmental acts and to recognize

certain inherent individual rights.

Take away any one or more of those four elements and you are drifting into autocracy. Add one or more to those four elements and you are drifting into democracy.

Our Constitutional fathers, familiar with the strength and weakness of both autocracy and democracy, with fixed principles definitely in mind, defined a representative republican form of government. They "made a very marked distinction between a republic and a democracy and said repeatedly and emphatically that they had founded a republic."

A republic is a government of law under a Constitution. The Constitution holds the government in check and prevents the majority (acting through their government) from violating the rights of the individual. Under this system of government a lynch mob is illegal. The suspected criminal cannot be denied his right to a fair trial even if a majority of the citizenry demands otherwise.


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Difference between Democracy and Republic, in brief:

Democracy:
a: government by the people; especially : rule of the majority.

b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.

Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences
Republic
a: a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government.

b: a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law.




Democracy and Republic are often taken as one of the same thing, but there is a fundamental difference. Whilst in both cases the government is elected by the people, in Democracy the majority rules according to their whims, whilst in the Republic the Government rule according to law. This law is framed in the Constitution to limit the power of Government and ensuring some rights and protection to Minorities and individuals.



The difference between Republic and Righteous Republic is that in the Republic the Government rules according to the law set up by men, in the Righteous Republic the law is the Law of God. Only in the Righteous Republic it can truly be said "One nation under God" for it is governed under commandments of the only One True God and there is no pluralism of religions.