Actually not, the second sentence of the very first paragraph of our first exchange #38 reads as follows: But it is a good thing that we are a representative democracy as well as a constitutional republic. The equating of a representative democracy and a democratic republic has been consistent in my replies from the beginning.
This fixation on wording is only important if word games are important and, it is quite clear, that word games are at the root of your objection to my using the phrase "democratic republic."
An objection which no doubt originates when you heard somewhere that a conservative must never concede that the American system is anything other than a constitutional system because one then is rendered vulnerable to leftists who want to inflict their policies upon us by justifying them as the will of the majority. This reflex is most apparent among NRA members who quite properly want to protect their Second Amendment rights.
But the Democratic content of conservatism cannot be excised from a true understanding of American constitutionalism as I have previously demonstrated in our exchange. Before the Declaration of Independence or the Scottish Enlightenment, majority rule could not avail against divine right. In communist regimes the "dictatorship of the proletariat" was always postponed by the elites who manipulated "scientific" Marxism. Both systems needed an infusion of "we the people" as I have noted before.
To pursue this example, our Constitution provides for a democratic way of abolishing guns, simply repeal the Second Amendment as provided for in the Constitution and pass confiscation laws. All perfectly constitutional and all perfectly democratic-and all perfectly ill advised.
The point still hasn't changed, you need both where you have either autocracy or mob rule camouflaged with word games.
