On Aug 12, 2:20 pm, plainolamerican <[email protected]> wrote: > wrong > it's a federal constitutional republic > love it or leave it
And that's not changing, so I'll await your answer as to whether your leaving or not. But let's expand on your definition of what a constitutional republic is; Constitutional republics are a deliberate attempt to diminish the perceived threat of majoritarianism (damn, I guess that blows your next statement out of the water), thereby protecting dissenting individuals and minority groups from the "tyranny of the majority" by placing checks on the power of the majority of the population. That the head(s) of state and other officials are chosen by election, rather than inheriting their positions, and that their decisions are subject to judicial review makes a state republican. Republics were born out of the idea of democracy, not the other way around. In other words, a constitutional republic can be a democratic representative republic all the same. A rose by any other name smells the same. These labels actually don't mean a lot because they can both be very similar to one another. Hong Kong is freer than the U.S. on a economic freedom index. It ranks the U.S. #9, which isn't bad at all...but to be outdone by communist Chinese should make you wonder. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_economic_freedom > who wants the USA to be a democracy? > minorities The motto goes: E Pluribus Unum = Out of many, one. Not the other way around. There are precisely 7 Constitutional Republics in the world, the U.S. being the largest. The others are: Somaliland, Sierra Leone, Paraguay, Honduras, Ghana, and the Philippines. Not exactly the most shining examples as constitutional republics go. I won't even mention vanilla Republics because then it gets really scary. Compare this to other forms of Representative Democracies and they're usually somewhat better off. Of course some vanilla democracies can get just as scary. > What is behind the opposition to the Obama healthcare plan? < Just a wild guess...ignorance? MSNBC had the guy on who yelled at Arlen Specter, and all I can say is wow. This guy went to the health care meeting because he didn't believe that Obama was a legitimate President. It had nothing to do with any debate on health care at all. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
