James Madison defined republic as a representative democracy.

I have seen the two words listed as SYNONYMS.

I’ve seen this wordplay before from the Reich Wingnuts, it is apparently a printed talking point that they cut and paste.

It is a MOOT talking point. Arguing the correct usage of “Democracy” or “Republic” is an intentional distraction from the real issue being discussed here.

Typical Reich Wingnut propaganda spew.

http://www.racismreview.com/bl.....niversary/

Keep up the good work, SPLC!

~ Jessie

I’m not quite sure it fair to fault someone just because it has taken him this long to wake up. Sure, Bush was stealing rights from us in the name of our safety in this country while bankrupting us with the neo-con agenda (never ending war) overseas. The fact that such a large percentage of the population assembling in protest now has little to do with the ethnicity of our president or his party affiliation, but simply because it took 8 years for everyone to understand the depth of the corruption. The result of this will be Obama being held to a higher level of scrutiny and quite frankly, that’s a good thing for all of us.’Yet we ALL should be upset for allowing government to become what it is now (post 9/11). The price of our freedom is our eternal diligence and we the people weren’t watching while we were being duped in the name of safety. Please try to see this for what it is -just as the voters did when they elected Obama – His upbringing and ethnicity are of little concern compared to the BIG issue…The country is BANKRUPT and no CHANGE has occurred – the government is still breaking spending records. The Patriot Act has been extended AND augmented under a bill titled ‘Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act’, which, to me doesn’t exactly seem ‘TRANSPARENT’. Of course only 5 republicans in the house voted against this rewrite by the Senate of the House’s bill and the President got his pen out on a Sunday night. So violations of rights by the powers at be is a common bipartisan behavior. It’s nothing new, just newly noticed.

You may have voted for Obama, however, if you have the same GOP members reelected, how can you have a different outcome? I’ve heard it, at well as many others heard Rush and others say “it will be Obama’s waterloo….we want Obama to fail…”

IMHO, you are blaming government, yet, you fail to implicate the big corporations in this picture! Hint, a recent court decision let corporations act as a person! LOL! How many officials are in bed with the corporations? Wasn’t it the GOP who fought tooth-and-nail not to have elections like Canada-every candidate have the same amount of money for their campaigns and the same amount of teevee air time?

Now you keep complaining about the government, what difference does it make if all of us, including the government, is at the mercy of corporations? Haven’t you noticed, the creditors used to write bankruptcy laws, insurance companies used to write laws….as far as I’m concerned, when the government has to beg a corporation to do the right thing for the citizens and its workers, there is something wrong!

Another thing, I’ve noticed no one is watching Arizona! It flew right over everyone’s head – people voiced concerns about having to carry citizenship papers in the past-much like, oh, let’s say France! I don’t know if Arizona is a ‘test-pilot program,’ but I would urge you to see the article in the phoenix new times last month, the article is called Joe Arpaio on Falso McDonalds Arrest:Take All Brown People into Custody, Release Citizens Later. Be sure to see the comments on the blog on this article to see opposing view points – the main point, a citizens was arrested/detained for four hours, and the response was pretty much, oh well!

If there is any doubt, my own view is that 200+ years of US experience with checks and balances as agreed by people acting in good faith means we can agree a solution and move on. When someone oversteps, they are brought back into line through rule of law. That is not what we are seeing on our TV screens today, mainstream media or otherwise.

Today we see lies, unsupported and unjustified, repeated and unchallenged by people who should know better. We see threats and attempts at intimidation, brick-throwing and death threats and signs supporting or encouraging this type of activity. We see signs encouraging armed demonstrations, but of course no individual is willing to take responsibility and all are quick to deny involvement. We see seditious and insulting even threatening rhetoric and when we challenge it we are accused of being insulting and tarring all with the same brush.

All of those programs mentioned by Mr. Young above as ’stepping outside its enumerated powers’ have been tested in courts or duly authorized and accepted in practice.

That appears to be the modern definition of democracy. A quick reading of the Federalist Papers can give you some insight into what the difference between a democracy and a republic meant at the time of our nation’s founding. To our Founding Fathers democracy was simple majority rule. A republic was understood to mean a system of government with limited powers and used representatives.

You may want to use that pocket Constitution to see if you can think of any examples where the government has stepped outside its enumerated powers? Here are a few hints; social security, medicare, gun control laws, patriot act, eminent domain, etc…

“It seems that some people are most anti-government when majority rule places them in the minority.”

[Me] To what are you referring?

[LJ] “I remember very recently having to live with a president who had nothing in common with my values, and voted opposite anything I would support. But, I sucked it up in support of democracy.”

[Me] Welcome to life in the USA! I don’t know anyone who has had their choice candidate for President consistently elected.

[LJ] “By the way, Tea Partiers, “you’re treading on me”. You’re threatening my pursuit of happiness, not Obama.”

[Me] Were there people who identified themselves as “Tea Partiers” banging on your door with baseball bats, or behaving equally as bad? I really doubt it. Exactly how did these “Tea Partiers” threaten your pursuit of happiness? Does your ‘pursuit of happiness’ include living off of taxes which other people have provided from the fruits of their hard labor? If so, I would re-think my thought processes if I were you.

+JMJ+

Well, Kat, if ever you take your own advice, why don’t you also keep a civil tongue in your head while doing so, instead of spitting out innuendo? But don’t take your cues from Stephen Manning, amateur con law scholar. He’ll drag you right back to the old trick of trying to poison the well (as with his irrelevant claptrap about anticollectivists not using the Internet on account of its origins).

Now, Stephen, pls open your “quite handy” “pocket copy of the Constitution” to the 1st clause of Art. VII. When was that clause established? Was it before or not before the ratification vote of the 9th state?

If you think “before”, then you must presuppose the establishment of the whole text prior to the vote to ratify by the 9th state, i.e. NH. But to presuppose the whole established beforehand would be absurd, for it implies the text was established merely by its being written down and passed around.

So it must be “not before”, i.e. either simultaneous to the ninth vote or after it, right? But neither of these offers the “Restore the Constitution” crowd any clear basis for supposing the text established at all.

If you think the 1st clause was established after the ninth ratification vote, then you need to explain why it was supposed that nine states were necessary. After all, the allegedly relevant clause was itself not yet established.

This leaves us with only one possibility: “simultaneous to the ninth vote”. But again, why nine? Why not suppose Art. VII, cl. 1, was established by the first state, or the second, etc?

It seems that the 1st clause of Art. VII was NEVER established. And either the whole text as it was in 1787-1788 was established, or none of it was. So, none of it was. The Constitution of the USA is a hoax foisted on the world by the Federalists.

Nor am I advocating for an establishment GOP’er to be in the white house like McCain. Just recently he and Chuck Schumer (bipartisanship at its best-lol) introduced a piece of legislation that says it is ok to detain AMERICAN CITIZENS indefinetely without trial or council. This is lunacy!

Oh – and yes I’m against the Federal Reserve. They are the reason why we can afford to fight all these wars and expand the empire. They are the ones that enable the warfare and welfare state by printing phantom money. And by printing all this money, they devalue the money already in circulation which destroys the wealth of people living on fixed incomes (seniors and the middle/lower class). This is no conspiracy. This is just basic common sense! This does not mean that I promote violence of any kind. When I tell people that we need a rEVOLution – I say it with LOVE – and I refer to it as an intellectual one of ideas. So if the SPLC wants to categorize people like myself who promote the abolishment of the Fed, sound money, or who want to scale back the previous/current administration’s attack on civil liberties as racist – so be it. I find it laughable! By doing so – you simply make yourselves out to be the very thing you strive so hard to fight against. Adios!

Which group is denying equal rights?

Well we were angry then too, just that we didn’t get any news coverage because it wasn’t politically correct for us to get it. Tho’ I think that the Federal Firearms Act of 1934 was “The biggest offensive against the constitution”.

The rest of should never be forced to respect violence yet we can always afford to respect opinions.

You should borrow that other guy’s dictionary. You would be much happier if you actually knew what it meant. Try Google. But you won’t like it.

DEMOS is ancient Greek for common people. Democracy is defined as rule by the people directly or through elected representatives. A federal republic ruled by the vote of the people in the nation-state or through its individual states is no less a democracy.

I’m not sure about your use of the term collectivist in this sense, unless you are trying to sneak in a code word for socialism.

I find my pocket copy of the Constitution quite handy when discussing these issues with people who believe the mere act of dissent automatically validates their opinion.

Incidentally, if you object to socialism or any form of collective use of resources for the common weal, you should not be using the Internet, on principle. It was developed as ARPANET by DOD, a taxpayer-funded and therefore socialist organization. Unless you have your own well, I wouldn’t suggest using a socialist toilet connected to a public water and sewer system.

Perhaps we’re not ‘too ignorant,’ maybe we’re confused on what your intentions are! You argue that you’re trying to restore the constitution, at the same time, your groups deny equal rights to all-thereby, all men are not created equal. It’s interesting that not one tea party member, sovereign citizen member, patriot member…speak out when a person is a victim of racial profiling, police abuse…
Let me give an example, a few weeks ago, I posed a question to someone from your side. I asked them to name one ‘white suspect shot in the head by police!’ I asked this question because as of late, there have been numerous police shootings of minority suspects that have been shot in the head. As a suspect, they were never given ‘a right to a fair trial, nor a speedy trial, nor a right to life.’
Now for you to quote the constitution, IMHO, the only people I’ve heard that always like to quote the constitution are convicts-that’s right, people that are, or have been locked up. Now, what’s your story?

By the way, Tea Partiers, “you’re treading on me”. You’re threatening my pursuit of happiness, not Obama.

And for all the democracy lovers here, the US was not setup as a democracy. The founders of our nation recognized the dangers of mob rule.

This is true, but only because they were prodded to do so this time and not when Bush was urinating all over the Bill of Rights. I’ve yet to encounter a single teabagger who can accurately even define the government bailouts, much less understand them, and the health care bill is about as far from a “takeover” as you can get, but don’t let facts get in the way of your rhetoric and repeated propaganda.

The Right – even the crazy elements of the Right which lately has been driving the bus – have every right to protest anything they want. But if they choose to make things up and be hateful racists, then I have every right to call them out on it. Isn’t America great? I don’t recall the Right giving me the same respect when I was protesting; in fact most of them threatened me and called me a terrorist, so excuse me if I am not sympathetic to their whining.