This question is for Conservatives and Liberals.
What kind of government would you like to have?
By adopting the Constitution of 1787, the sovereign states (each a republic itself) created the government for a new nation as a republic: the United States of America. Future states were required to be constitutional republics themselves; therefore, the United States was intended to be a Republic of Republics.
The democracy thing of one person one vote had no part in any of this - ZERO.
That was because the Founding Fathers unanimously agreed that the right to vote, the right to sit on a jury and the right to hold public office were all accepted and established local and/or state rights of citizenship. In order to acquire these "higher" rights, you had to own property or another legal form of "freehold" in the community of your residence.
There was no United States citizenship - no one needed it. Any state of the union accepted your citizenship from another or previous state.
The Fourteenth Amendment destroyed all of this by nationalizing voting rights and virtually all other rights. Before the Fourteenth Amendment you were a free citizen as established by the Declaration of 1776 and the Bill of Rights. Afterward, who knows?
For example, I doubt the average citizen before the Fourteenth Amendment knew or cared who was on the Supreme Court. Now, its a huge deal because your individual rights can be auctioned at any time before the high court. Federal judges, whom John C. Calhoun styled as black-frocked dictators, may at any time decided to curtailwhy is a republic important your rights in favor of others so-called rights.
I have no idea what liberals believe in, but conservatives believe in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Just think of how much freedom could be instantly restored if all amendments after the 10th or 12th could be jettisoned!
I am a liberal and I want a liberal government. I am perfectly aware that other people's opinions are just as valid as my own so I won't go attacking politicians just because I disagree with their views.
A republic is any type of government in which the people deiced who the rulers are a democracy is when the government has a type has checks and balances and all people decided the ruler on a majority basis , see more at
Many people believe we in America are a democracy. In a true democracy, all the people vote on all the issues. Some small towns in New England, I've heard, actually meet in a town meeting and discuss every issue and vote on them for their town. We have a representative democracy, in which we vote for someone to represent us while they vote on each issue. Of course, they usually don't care what the majority of their voters care about and only vote the way the person with the most money given to their campaign wants them to vote. I wonder what that would be called? Oligarchy?
Well, we live in a Republic with a democratic type federal system (sort of). It's important to know this because we should know full well that our votes don't count as much as we think they do.
A Republic has decisions made by elected officials. A Democracy has decisions made by vote. The US is a Demowhy is a republic importantcratic Republic because we do both.
A republic involves individual citizens voting for persons to represent them in the passing of laws and other government functions. A democracy involves those same citizens voting on the issues themselves. Democracy is an extremely unstable form of government, simply because it is prone to be abused by the majority in a democracy,especially in stressful times. In a republic the representatives voted in are expected to rise above any mass panic and vote as they see fit. Both systems usually have some form of checks and balance set in, but more especially republics.
This is important in this day and age because for the first time in history, we have the technological means to establish a true democracy in our country. If we fail to recognize both the advantaged and flaws of such a move, we may end up shifting our government into a form that will bring about its collapse.
Some conservatives declare that we should be a republic rather than a democracy, mainly because their goal is to restrict the rights of citizenship in some way, such as for only white males or only property owners. The ideal of a democracy is that the vote of any citizen living in Pigs Knuckle, Kentucky, counts the same as the vote of any citizen in NYC.
It comes down to the old question, do you want everyone to be free or everyone to be equal? A middle position is best, as complete equality is impossible as we are physically, mentally, and financially different, while under complete freedom the strong oppress the weak.
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