Is the US a democracy? If so, when did it become one?

"THE PILLARS OF DEMOCRACY


Sovereignty of the people.

Government based upon consent of the governed.

Majority rule.

Minority rights.

Guarantee of basic human rights.

Free and fair elections.

Equality before the law.

Due process of law.

Constitutional limits on government.

Social, economic, and political pluralism.

Values of tolerance, pragmatism, cooperation, and compromise."
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pub...em/whatdm2.htm


I hear many Americans saying that the US were being the first modern democracy of the world. I doubt this.

What do you think? Do you think the US were being the first modern democracy of the world, or do you even think that the US aren't a democracy today?

like you said, first modern democracy... but I think we're in a state of tyranarchy right now, I got lost 2 years ago... :confused:

the US has never been a democracy, it was never intended to be one, "majority rules" lol

>the US has never been a democracy, it was never intended to be one, "majority rules" lol

What? Based on the criteria lil_punjabi stated, we definitely are a democracy. We are technically a representative democracy.

>first modern democracy
Well, of course that depends on your definition of modern democracy

>>we definitely are a democracy

just for sake of argument, whats stopping the guy you voted to put into the house/senate/white house, whatever, from doing what he wants...just look at the patriot act for goodness sake, i think people would have voted against this, but somehow it passed? how, becuase the senate/house/president, have their own agenda.....even better example....do you honestly think that the president is "listening to the people" about this war????

a democracy gives power to ALL people, ours does not, all the power lies in a few selected hands

>a democracy gives power to ALL people
The power does lie with the people. We have the power to vote people in and out of office. Of course, thats not comparable to the power those in the house/senate have, but just think how difficult it would be to have everyone in America vote on every single agenda.

It is infeasable to have every person in a country as big as ours have a vote on every subject, thats why we have representatives. Its not perfect, but its the only practical way in a country like ours.

[edit]
>just for sake of argument, whats stopping the guy you voted to put into the house/senate/white house, whatever, from doing what he wants...
Thats why we have Legislative, Exec, Judicial branches. Each branch has power over the others to prevent a person or a groups of people from running amok
[/edit]

>do you honestly think that the president is "listening to the people" about this war
Polls show that more people than not support the war

i understand that not every person can vote on every topic, thats illocial, but i dont think that we the people are making the decisions. we put people in office and forget about it, and complain when things go wrong

>>Thats why we have Legislative, Exec, Judicial branches. Each branch has power over the others to prevent a person or a groups of people from running amok

well like i said, take a look at the patriot act sometime, the peoples best intrests were not in mind when that thing was drawn up, and if the other braches would have used their checks then we wouldnt be worrying about it

Quote:

---

Originally posted by dP munky

a democracy gives power to ALL people, ours does not, all the power lies in a few selected hands

---

And the people have the choice on who those few selected hands are. Do you think it would be absolutely possible to have everyone in the US vote on every thing that needs voting on? Heck, alot of people don't even vote every four years much less multiple times per year/month.

The U.S. is not a democracy, it is a democratic republic.

>well like i said, take a look at the patriot act sometime, the peoples best intrests were not in mind when that thing was drawn up, and if the other braches would have used their checks then we wouldnt be worrying about it

That bill is less of an example how bad bills can be passed, and more of an example of how dangerous it is to make decisions like that in the immediate aftermath of an event like 9-11.

then what would you have to say about the governments little echelon project?

ya know the one that lets them monitor all communications that take place on phone, computer, whatever

Quote:

---

do you honestly think that the president is "listening to the people" about this war????

---

i already mentioned this "quote" in a thread that handled the "war-topic" then i said
The government can hear the people, but the government cant always listen to the people.

And theres a big difference between hearing and listening.

But like said before in this thread we cant just go vote wether we want to see a war in the Gulf or not.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Eigenvalue
The U.S. is not a democracy, it is a democratic republic.

---

yes, yes it is.

If the US were a pure democracy, every single person would be voting on bills...not the way we vote now. everyone would be a delegate and have to go down to city hall, we elect delegates for this purpose.

plus the current elections are based on plurality and not majority...

Any government is only as good and vituous as the people it
governs.

your all wrong.

its (State)Federated Republic...
i know theres a better way to word this, cant think of it now though.

>If so, when did it become one?

when the Media and Democratic Party decided to start calling it one.

>
then what would you have to say about the governments little echelon project?
<

under-utilized.

>
ya know the one that lets them monitor all communications that take place on phone, computer, whatever
<

there almost enough restrictions to make that capability pretty useless.

I percieve America to be an extreme right-wing governed country that is supposedly a democratic one.

define right wing.
then define left-wing.

I cant really define them, because I suck at words, frankly :)
But I can make a scale:

Left Right
<--socialism---communism----democracy-----capitalism--fascism->

Socialism is more "right" than communism? Fascism is more "left" than democracy? Capitalism definitely doesnt belong on that scale since its not a form of government

>but just think how difficult it would be to have everyone in
>America vote on every single agenda.

In the Netherlands we have a lot of political parties. Everybody has the right to start a political party and if your party has enough support, you can take part on the elections. If you get enough votes, you get in the second chamber (lowerhouse). And if you have most votes, then the leader of your political party can become president, if he/she wants to.

Currently the christian-democratic party and the social-democratic party are leading are in our government. The socialists started very strong in the elections, but did not make it. Unfortenately the neo-liberalists are a bit stronger. But the socialists have support of the social-liberalists.

I always wondered, am I correct that the US have 2 political parties?

>socialism---communism

Communism is more left then socialism. In my opinion the US is not a extreme right-wing, at least, compared to extreme right-wing parties in the Netherlands. They are right-wing, but not extreme right-wing. Extreme right-wing parties are those like the FPö, or worse, the party of Le Pen in France.

socialism is an ill on mankind - germany is closest to a socialist democracy in this world and they have 0% growth in their economy and are declining in every respect.

The US does have 2 major political parties, the republicans and the decomcrats - dems are left and reps are right.

I myself am neither, I like to think of myself as independent and I think that the majority of americans are this way in that they are cintrist in their beliefs. Most voters do have their party that they stick to but if the right candidate came along from a 3rd or even rival party ppl would vote for him regardless.

I didn't vote for GWB but don't really have a problem with him in his presidency, I am 100% behind his foreign policy as it makes sense to me - the rest of the world can go suck a big *****. I do however have some disapointments with him in his domestic agenda - he's been slow and not sure footed about his economic policies and seems to have adopted the old and tired "TAX CUTS" as the solution to everything that is the monta of the republicans, I like the tax cuts but that won't help the economy in the immediate and there seems to be no plan beyond this, that's where he loses me.

Another thing is that he is an oil man, and his cabinet are oil men - I feel that the oil prices being so high are the real ball and chain around this economies neck and around the western civilization in general. If he actually said that tommorrow we are gonna put billions into renewable fuel resources - hydrogen cars - and electric vehicles I think we could break this oil shackle around us - all of american continent from north to south is capable of producing enough renewable fuel sources for the whole world - its unfortunate that noone wishes to accomplish this.

A representative form of democracy is the better form, if majority rules all the time what would happen to any minority dissent? We had this argument back when GWB was elected - GWB actually did not get the most votes - the other candidate got a 1million more votes counted in mass than GWB but george bush won more states than the other guy. If it was all about raw numbers - why would any candidate travel to the middle states of the united states - most of the population lives close to the oceans - ensuring that you must win locally preserves the democracy.

Quote:

---

Another thing is that he is an oil man, and his cabinet are oil men - I feel that the oil prices being so high are the real ball and chain around this economies neck and around the western civilization in general. If he actually said that tommorrow we are gonna put billions into renewable fuel resources - hydrogen cars - and electric vehicles I think we could break this oil shackle around us - all of american continent from north to south is capable of producing enough renewable fuel sources for the whole world - its unfortunate that noone wishes to accomplish this.

---

Isnt this obvious suppose you are an oil men yourself ??
As long as there is "enough" oil they wont go to a renewable fuel source.
They keep on milking the cow untill it runs dry.:mad:

This pic shows how I was taught the politics system. Before I saw this I could never understand why left wing was regarded as liberal when communism is certainly not liberal. If anyone agrees or disagrees then feel free to comment.

>socialism is an ill on mankind

I don't agree. In the Netherlands we always had socialistic parties in the government and we people usually don't see the Netherlands as a poor country. At the elections of last month, almost half of the Netherlands voted for socialistic or social-democratic parties. And I think that is fine, live is more than money.

>I myself am neither, I like to think of myself as independent and
>I think that the majority of americans are this way in that they
>are cintrist in their beliefs.

If the majority of the Americans thinks like you, why don't you have another party then? A party on which people like you, who want to be independent, would want to vote? Is it possible to start new political parties in the US?

Yes, it's true that the United States has only two national political parties that get electable numbers of votes. These two parties are the Democratic Party of Bill Clinton (traditionally more pro-labor, pro-minority rights, pro-environment, continued government-controled Social Security and Medicare, less war inclined, etc.) and the Republican Party of George W. Bush, his father, and Ronald Reagon (anti-abortion, pro-capital punishment, pro-deregulation (pro-big business), promilitary, conservative Christian-based values (this makes for some hypocrisy), gun rights, less centralized authority, etc.). The Reform Party (more conservative, isolationist, and reactionary than the Republican Party) did have a successful state governor in Minnesota--former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura. But other than that, the third parties (Green Party, Libertarian Party, Reform Party, and some nonnational parties) have been quite unnsuccessful.

If you want a left-to-right scale, you must realize that most of those -isms are more economic than political theories:

Left---Center/Moderate---Right:

<Socio-Anarchism---Marxist-Leninist Communism---Social Democracy---Modern U.S.-Style Capitalism/Democracy---Laissez-Faire Capitalism---Fascism/Nazism/Stalinism---Anarcho-Capitalism>.

Really, it's absurd to put these various political-economic on a line because, for example, fascism/nazism/Stalinism have more to do with Marxism (the total state/planned economy) than anarchism of either the left or the right (no state/economy set on voluntary transfers).

The United States of America is a federative republic of republic states. It would be more accurate to say that elections are democratic than to say that the governments of the U.S. themselves are democratic (they're oligarchial). The rights of the individual and limitations imposed upon the governments are more insure a democratic (i.e., liberal) society than to insure a democratic form of government. The Electoral College, the oligarchy democratically elected by the people of the individual states, is just one of many examples of why the federal government of the United States is not democratic.

Whew! I've had my say.

That makes much more sense than any linear comparison between the different forms of govt

>I didn't vote for GWB but don't really have a problem with him in his presidency,

i voted for him, and so far hes doing good on most stuff, except Privacy vs. Security, hes going a bit far in my opinion.

> If he actually said that tommorrow we are gonna put billions into renewable fuel resources - hydrogen cars - and electric vehicles I think we could break this oil shackle around us

didn't he just do that? or was he just saying it, to say it.
wasn't quite a billion, i think somewhere around 650 million.

>I cant really define them,

thats what im trying to point out, you can't really define them, its totally subjective.

>If the majority of the Americans thinks like you, why don't you have another party then?

cost to much money, you have to get 5% of the popular vote to get any government funding of your party,i think 5 million to start.

>Is it possible to start new political parties in the US?

yes.

There are a ton of other political parties and affiliations that exist beyond just republicans and democrats but you will never see them in a debate.

It's all about money, the dems have aligned themselves with Lawyers and Unions while the reps are aligned with large corporations and Christian groups. Many times these debates that we see on tv are bought and paid for by the dems and reps and they'll be damned if they let another party in to debate.

Socialism is about bringing everyone down to the same poverty and depression level. I have never myself seen a happy or content socialist - they are always have something to criticize and get angry about and they provide no solutions to any of the problems they see - those are the ppl we see at protests.

So, if I am correct, people don't start political parties in the US a lot because it costs a lot of money?

In the Netherlands registration of a political party costs about 500 euro when you want your political party to act on national level. For local levels it costs less. If your party wants to take part of the elections, it costs about 10.000 euro. It is not very much money, most people who start a political party have a group of people who supports them and their ideas.

But in my opinion both registration and taking part of the elections should be free, that would be more fair to those who have a small group or can't afford it.

> or was he just saying it, to say it.

Not a flame, but I think that's the case - he was paying lip service to environmentalists to try to quiet them down a little after things like logging rule changes and drilling for oil in Alaska.

>In the Netherlands registration of a political party costs about 500 euro when you want your political party to act on national level.

if im not mistaken it should be free here, but who knows.

not it takes money to buy air time on radio, tv, etc, banners, paying you campaign people, all that crap, and you have to do it it 50 states, and god knows how many cities, it costs some serious money.

>
Not a flame, but I think that's the case - he was paying lip service to environmentalists to try to quiet them down a little after things like logging rule changes and drilling for oil in Alaska.
<

well sounds logical and probably is the case, but im hoping he's funding this for the right reasons, and that doesn't necessarily mean environmentalists causes.

Quote:

---

Socialism is about bringing everyone down to the same poverty and depression level. I have never myself seen a happy or content socialist - they are always have something to criticize and get angry about and they provide no solutions to any of the problems they see - those are the ppl we see at protests.

---

Bringing everyone down at the same poverty is not socialism, that is communism. Or even worse, state-capitalism. That is worse. In the USSR and the old eastern-European countries there was no communism, but state-capitalism. The people were kept poor, but the government was rich. Just think about Cheaucescu.

I am a very happy socialist and I know a lot people here in the Netherlands, also being socialist and being very happy. And we have reason to be happy, we live in a free and rich country. But, I will not ignore the problems there are, also here in the Netherlands.

For example: a right-wing government has made the medical care a private issue. This lead to competition between hospitals and medical assurance agencies. This lead to higher prices of medical products and the managers of the hospitals wanted the hospitals to be lucrative. Hospitals had to cut down expenses because things costed too much. So currently, medical care is best accessible for those who can afford it and not for those who can not afford it.

Get everyone an as equal start as possible. Then, release them, and let them do whatever they want with their own lives, as long as they don't hurt anyone else.

That's my opinion.

Sweden is a quite successful socialist nation, with a high amount of freedom of speech, too.

I think voting is pretty stupid. The electoral college is the ones that actually put the president into office. The popular vote rarely has any pull.