Posted on 10/28/2011 1:14:38 PM PDT by Christian Engineer Mass
The Republic of The United States of America was founded in 1776. It was founded as a Republic and not a Pure Democracy, because the Founders knew that a Pure Democracy and independence cannot coexist in the long term.
One of the key differences between a republic and a democracy is the requirement for an informed electorate.
A Republic requires that suffrage be as wide as possible, while not including those who are likely to be detrimental to the continuing independence of the Republic.
As an analogy, Democracy is like theoretical mathematics, while Republic is like engineering. Theoretical mathematics is great in the laboratory, among the mathematicians. But if you tried to get those mnathematicians to build bridges, our world would fall apart very quickly. Republic is Democracy in the real world.
For example, Republic holds that felons, and those who do not have a basic understanding of the governmental system for which they are voting, are not eligible to vote. These rules enfranchise those who are not felons and who have basic understanding of the governmental system for which they are voting. These rules ensure the continued independence of the Republic.
These four multiple-choice questions are the absolute minimum that a voter should know.
1) Who is the current president of the United States of America? 2) Which party currently controls the Senate and the House of Representatives? 3) Which one of these is not one of the branches of the U.S government? 4) Who was the first president of the United States?
Let us hope that the next black president will bypass the race-baiting attacks and address the issue of returning America to Republic from the brink of Populism, where she has reached via the conduit of Democracy.
Because the next step after Populism...
(Excerpt) Read more at tkpts.com ...
As Justice Clarence Thomas put it:
I am aware of no cases prior to the New Deal that characterized the power flowing from the Commerce Clause as sweepingly as does our substantial effects test. My review of the case law indicates that the substantial effects test is but an innovation of the 20th century.
--J. Thomas, US v Lopez
Exactly right, the fraudulent passage of the 17th killed the Republic.
While the 17th amendment may have been poorly conceived, on what grounds do you assert that its passage was fraudulent?
I would describe the difference between a democracy and a republic differently, and in a way in which there is no real conflict.
To start with, democracy is a success not directly because it promulgates freedom and liberty, which are, in fact, outgrowths of democracy, but because democracy is far more *efficient* than other systems of decision making.
In practice, democracy is more efficient precisely because “somebody can build a better mousetrap”. But ahead of time, it is hard to divine who that person will be. Anyone in the crowd may just happen to have a better idea than what all the assembled “mousetrap experts” can think up.
Yet while democracy can think up ideas, it is not particularly a good way to implement them, especially when there are an enormous number of ideas, as well as routine tasks that need to be performed. And this is why republican democracy is needed at higher levels of organization. They are better equipped to execute democratic ideas.
The end result is representative government. Electing people to represent us as a group, because they *generally* will do what we want done.
But republicanism has two sides. The first side is just carrying out those tasks that any employee would be expected to carry out, to keep government functioning. That is most of what they do. But the much more challenging part is truly representational.
To make changes based on what most want, but also to keep the status quo, and resist changes that others want. And this is a big difference between the Democrat and Republican parties, and their respective liberal and conservative constituencies.
The Democrats push towards more change, and more democracy at higher levels, driven by opinion polls and what blocs of their followers want. The Republicans are generally more content with the status quo, and are resistant to change, even thinking that we have changed too much and need to undo changes that failed.
Republicans want more republicanism, for government just to function with less noise, fuss and making less trouble for the people; and this is what we want our leaders to push for. Stop expensively fixing what isn’t broken.
Madison put a very strict condition on the change of sufferage in the Senate. “No State, without it’s consent, can be deprived of it’s sufferage in the Senate” That little tidbit would have required a unanimous passage of the 17th, because several states were deprived of their sufferage in Senate without their consent. Now there is no sufferage in the Senate for the states as all senators are elected by the mob. You have to understand that States are real entities, they are not the people of the states.
Unfortunately, it would be very easy to coach voters on how to answer several questions to be eligible to vote. This would not prevent voting by the uninformed. It would have to be more discerning than some questions about our republic. Originally, I believe there was a requirement of land ownership to be able to vote. Something along these lines may be worth investigating, although I don’t think you could get it past the powers that be now.
I agree some would be coached. But at least they would know the answers to those questions. Often there are voters going in to “vote against the the people in power”, and the media has given them the impression that it’s the republicans. Like now with the republicans having the house, the media is NOT telling the public that the democrats have the Senate. I guarantee you there is a LARGE number of people out there who think the republicans have both houses
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