On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 5:52 PM, <
Joshua N Pritikin> wrote:
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.