Tough Dog Says "Donate"
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Posted on 04/21/2011 7:45:47 AM PDT by bunkerhill7
[MY CAPS]
I Pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
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Article 4, Section 4 Republican Government
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a REPUBLICAN Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.``
Nowhere in the Constitution is the word `democracy` found.
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ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech, 1856
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the REPUBLIC is destroyed."
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Abraham Lincoln LETTER: Mrs. Bixby Letter
Executive Mansion
Washington, D.C.
November 21, 1864
Dear Madam,
I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.
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Horace Greeley's "The Prayer of the Twenty Millions" (August 19, 1862)
To ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States DEAR SIR: I do not intrude to tell you--for you must know already--that a great proportion of those who triumphed in you election, and of all who desire the unqualified suppression of the Rebellion now desolating our country, are sorely disappointed and deeply pained by the policy you seem to be pursuing with regard to the slaves of the Rebels. I write only to set succinctly and unmistakably before you what we require, what we think we have a right to expect, and of what we complain. I. We require of you, as the first servant of the REPUBLIC, charged especially and preeminently with this duty, that you EXECUTE THE LAWS.
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Frederick Douglas said 1859:
"Our fathers, when they framed this Government under which we live, understood this question [of popular sovereignty] just as well, and even better, than we do now. They knew when they made this REPUBLIC that a country so broad as ours, with such a variety of climate, soil, and productions, must have a variety of interests, requiring different laws adapted to each locality."
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Lincoln`s Speech to the One Hundred Sixty-Fourth Ohio Regiment Washington, D.C. August 18, 1864
``Soldiers -- You are about to return to your homes and your friends, after having, as I learn, performed in camp a comparatively short term of duty in this great contest. I am greatly obliged to you, and to all who have come forward at the call of their country. I wish it might be more generally and universally understood what the country is now engaged in. We have, as all will agree, a free Government, where every man has a right to be equal with every other man. In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed. There is more involved in this contest than is realized by every one. There is involved in this struggle the question whether your children and my children shall enjoy the privileges we have enjoyed. I say this in order to impress upon you, if you are not already so impressed, that no small matter should divert us from our great purpose. There may be some irregularities in the practical application of our system. It is fair that each man shall pay taxes in exact proportion to the value of his property; but if we should wait before collecting a tax to adjust the taxes upon each man in exact proportion with every other man, we should never collect any tax at all. There may be mistakes made sometimes; things may be done wrong while the officers of the Government do all they can to prevent mistakes. But I beg of you, as citizens of this great REPUBLIC, not to let your minds to carried off from the great work we have before us.``
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Tedddy Roosevelt-
``This was the most famous university of mediaeval Europe at a time when no one dreamed that there was a New World to discover. Its services to the cause of human knowledge already stretched far back into the remote past at a time when my forefathers, three centuries ago, were among the sparse bands of traders, ploughmen, wood-choppers, and fisherfolk who, in hard struggle with the iron unfriendliness of the Indian-haunted land, were laying the foundations of what has now become the giant REPUBLIC of the West``
ping
You would flunk Pol Sci I describing that as a government.
The citizens also don’t choose the President. That’s the job of the electors.
Many people confuse type with form. They aren’t the same. Our type of government is Republic. Meaning that there is no monarch or other strong man. Our form of government is Representive Democracy which is clearly laid out in the constitution.
My first reaction is that this is willfull propagandizing on the part of the socialists and communists who infest every branch of the federal government from top to bottom.
But then I think that the bureaucrats who write garbage like this probably learned their mushy-headed version of history in government schools and have never actually read the constitution themselves.
Then I realize that both explanations are no doubt true.
Is this a RECENT CHANGE IN WORDING?
From Webster’s 1828 dictionary:
republic
REPUB’LIC, n. [L. respublica; res and publica; public affairs.]
1. A commonwealth; a state in which the exercise of the sovereign power is lodged in representatives elected by the people. In modern usage, it differs from a democracy or democratic state, in which the people exercise the powers of sovereignty in person. Yet the democracies of Greece are often called republics.
The US is a republic, and is also a representative democracy.
Has any one noted that republic and democracy are almost synonyms etymologically? Republic comes from Latin res publica, meaning of the people (or more literally, “the people’s thing”). Democracy come from Greek: rule by the demos (people).
Republic has genberally been taken to mean a government in which the chief executive is elected. The electors do not need to be representative of the whole population: see Rome or Venice as examples. This distinguishes a republic from a monarchy, where rule is (in theory) hereditary.
A representative democracy is designed to reflect the interests of the people, through elections choosing legislators.
Rather than getting too worked up over fine distinctions, I think that much more important to regard is the fundamental fallacy in all governments, which is that the people cannot be at all accurately represented in their infinite variety through occasion elections with very restricted choices (usually only two viable Presidential candidates, for example). The government makes so many rules that no one can know them all, and there is no conceivable way that the thousands of decisions made ievery year can represent the public. Therefore, the only approximation of the ideal of a popular government is to have the functions of the state as restricted as possible, and let the people make their own decisions, including their own life choices for their own sustenance and care, and provision for their own families. That is the only true ideal for popular government, and we are far from it.
Not only is restricted (or limited) government the ideal, but it is the most efficient in allowing and encouraging creative work, and in nurturing independent-minded and self-supporting adults. Even mental health is better in a society of people who have learned, and have been allowed to support themselves, care for their dependents, and make their own decisions.
The other way, of helpless dependency of the perpetual infant, leads to poverty and social strife, with frequent deadly conflict.
We do not need private interpretation of the Constitution. Even a fifth grader can see that these are not the same words.
Show me where do the words ``representative democracy`` occur in the Constitution!!!
``Article 4, Section 4 Republican Government ...a Republican Form of Government...``
US immigration Sercvice:= ``The Constitution establishes a system of government called “REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY`
The word ``republic`` is nowhere mentioned in the US Immigration booklet.
Thus they are not even using the words of the constitution to teach newly-to-be citizens. What the h is this crap?
To tell someone that a legal document has something in it but omits the words and verbally substitutes another word as true is fraud. Are you going to call this country a ``constitutional democracy`` as India does?? Or a democracy, but not a republic as Australia calls itself?? Give me a break!!
Now you want to redefine the US Constitution and the country? My family has been here since 1648 and we have always been taught by our teachers in school that we live in a republic.
If one does not want to uphold the Constitution, which, as one can read, is made up of WORDS!!- then find another constitution in another country but leave the U.S. Constitution alone!!
I will not dance to a new tune nor sing a new song.
pg 14...a president must be a “native-born”? Where is that in the constitution?
What’s a republic?
The whole bickering between Republic and Democracy is in a word...well...stupid.
We are a Constitutionally Federated Democratic Republic. In shorthand, calling us a republic is no more or less accurate than calling us a democracy. Both are wholly inadequate to describe our form of government on their own, but they’re convenient.
Republic alone is meaningless. The USSR was a Republic in every sense of the word, but had a system of government far different than our own. There are at least a couple dozen forms of Republican government, with at least half a dozen still practiced. I could dispense with conformity altogether and start referring to the USA as a federation in shorthand, and be no less accurate than those who refer to us solely as a democracy or solely as a republic.
< sigh >
We need to worry about REAL issues folks and semantics don’t cut it.
A “representative democracy” = a “democratic republic.” The term “representative” however is more understandable, and more regularly used, than “republic” (a word used in the name of many communist and other dictatorships, btw).
I’m very happy that citizenship courses actually teach that we live in a REPRESENTATIVE democracy, and not the more commonly used word for our system, “a democracy,” which of course ignores the fact that we are represented by others, and protected by the rule of law.
Well said. The problem here lies in the stubborn belief held by some that you can describe ANY form of government in one word. Not even dictatorship is sufficient on its own.
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