NYCPHP Meetup

[Randal Rust]

On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 12:50 PM, David Krings <ramons at gmx.net> wrote:

> But that is what an election in a democracy is supposed to be.

I wouldn't have jumped in on this, except that I am nearly finished
with reading McCullough's "John Adams" and that simply is not the
case. The U.S. government is not a democracy [1], never has been. It's
a republic [2]. This is spelled out in Article IV, Section 4 of the
Constitution.

The Founding Fathers were not only concerned about *mob rule* but also
having the will of a monarch imposed. They tried to find a balance and
they used previous and existing governmental models as the basis for
the Constitution. They also didn't want the rich to rule the poor, or
the poor to rule the rich. The system is meant to counter-balance
things, and sometimes one faction gains the upper hand and in other
matters they lose out. It is not a *what is good for the few is good
for the many* system of government, nor the other way around.

Whether or not the act of voting is *democratic* or not, I don't know.
Never really thought about it. But the U.S. is a republic, not a
democracy. I'll go back to coding now:)

[1] http://www.constitution.org/constit_.htm
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic

-- 
Randal Rust
R.Squared Communications
www.r2communications.com