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02199: Re: [WDDM] Democracy rating

From: Joshua N Pritikin <jpritikin(at)pobox.com>
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 15:52:21 -0700
Subject: Re: [WDDM] Democracy rating

On Thu, Jun 04, 2009 at 05:19:35PM -0500, Bruce Eggum wrote:
USA like some other country's on the list is not a democracy. It is a
republic run by 565 representative politicians.
best government money can buy

Some people have raised objection to a national ballot initiative on the
grounds that America is a republic, not a democracy. However, this
argument is misleading because there is not much consensus about the
meaning of the word 'republic' aside from the meaning of "not a
monarchy." In the early 1900s, state-level initiatives were challenged
on grounds of the guarantee clause, but the courts refused to decide the
question because they ruled it was of a political nature. Permitting
initiative implicitly legitimized it; By recognizing the legitimacy of
state governments, the federal government has implicitly sanctioned
popular initiative, a democratic device.


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