There is a story, often told, that upon exiting the Constitutional Convention Benjamin Franklin was approached by a group of citizens asking what sort of government the delegates had created. His answer was: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Perspectives on the Constitution: A Republic, If You Can Keep It
And yes, we are a Republic with a Democratic process included, but that is not what she is aiming at. She is after the Democracy I grew up with in which we did not elect representatives but and elected royalty. A Democracy in which the people voted itself clear of human rights and the ability not only to live in peace but to live free. A democracy where the constitutions are re-written and interpreted as the Elected Royals see fit for their purpose because the people gave them absolute power via the democratic vote. The people voted very democratically and elected their executioners.
The US has a very unique way of government: No matter how many votes you collect, our rights cannot be voted out of the Bill of Rights. This is something so very hard to understand in other countries. If the Many need something and a majority vote, the individual must endure for the good of the many. The very traditional nd imbued American concept of saying “F*** you! It is my right”, flip two birds and walk away ignoring the wishes of the majority is unheard of outside the US where the diabolical “Vox Populi Vox Dei” (The voice of the people is the voice of God.) is what the puppeteers use to rule the people. Speak against this dictum from above and you are to b shunned and punished, ostracized as some sort of selfish evil creature who does not care for others.
Do you want to know something funny? I think I have voted more times as US Citizen than as a Venezuelan. I know I voted the first time in 1978 and my last was in 1988 for a total of three elections. After the soft coup which knocked down President Perez, I figured I should not bother anymore and quit giving the idiots more power.
I became an US Citizen in 1999 and voted for the first time in 2000 and in the middle of the hanging chads controversy. And I have voted in every election ever since. That also makes for three Presidents and all the other elections in between for Congress, so at least what? Five or six elections?
And yes, God willing I am voting next year because I care for the Republic and I want to keep it.
There was a popular email a few years ago that was patterned after Jeff Foxworthy’s “you just might be a redneck”, only it was “…you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.”
There is no finer example of “run by idiots”.
You can bet that if she was from one of the low population areas protected by the way the country was designed, she’d be screaming for it.
Someone recently posted this:
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding on what to have for dinner.
A representative republic is 5000 wolves and 4000 sheep voting 5 wolves and 4 sheep into office to decide what to have for dinner.
A constitutional republic is a similar situation but with a constitution saying that lamb cannot be for dinner, and with a Supreme Court of 5 wolves voting against 4 sheep to determine that mutton is not lamb.
Liberty is an armed sheep disputing the vote.
It’s been pointed out in various places that “democracy” and “republic” are synonyms, from the Greek and the Latin respectively, both meaning roughly “people power”. That’s not precisely true; the Latin translates more accurately to “the people’s welfare”.
The founding fathers were known to be worried about “democracy”. What exactly they meant by that isn’t entirely clear to me. Any adult able to vote, perhaps? They also pointed at examples of countries with problems, such as the Dutch Republic, but that was in no way a democracy, nor a representative republic as we know it.
The Founders were worried about the willingness of the mob to vote away the rights of people they didn’t like, whether Jews or land owners or redheads.
The founders fears about a pure democracy was brought to tragic reality by the French Revolution and subsequent “Reign of Terror.” With the mob trying to run France, and at the same time punish the aristocracy for their and their father’s sins, Robespierre became First Citizen and any denunciation by any citizen was enough to send anyone to the guillotine for any reason. Eventually Napoleon seized power and became a dictator, but he did restore order at the expense of “Liberté égalité fraternité” and a disastrous series of foreign wars.
The point of establishing a Constitutional Republic was to put checks on “Mob Rule” and let people get on with their lives and pursuit of happiness with minimal government interference. We haven’t always lived up to the ideal, but we are (still) way ahead of everyone else.