Replies

1. A political order whose head of state is not a monarch and in modern times is usually a president.
2. A nation that has such a political order.
1. A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them.
2. A nation that has such a political order.
often Republic A specific republican government of a nation: the Fourth Republic of France.
An autonomous or partially autonomous political and territorial unit belonging to a sovereign federation.
A group of people working as equals in the same sphere or field: the republic of letters.

Training Manual
No. 20000-25
War Department
Washington, November 30, 1928

CITIZENSHIP
Prepared under the direction of the
Chief of Staff
This Manual Supersedes Manual of Citizenship Training

DEMOCRACY:

A government of the masses.
Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of "direct" expression.
Results in mobocracy.
Attitude toward property is communistic-negating property rights.
Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.
Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.

REPUBLIC:

Authority is derived through the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them.
Attitude toward property is respect for laws and individual rights, and a sensible economic procedure.
Attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accordance with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences.
A greater number of citizens and extent of territory may be brought within its compass.
Avoids the dangerous extreme of either tyranny or mobocracy.
Results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, justice, contentment and progress.
Is the "standard form" of government throughout the world.

A democracy, according to the above definition, is actually controlled by a demagogue, defined as:

"A speaker who seeks to make capital of social discontent and gain political influence."

Alexander Hamilton was aware of the tendency of a democratic form of government to be torn apart by itself, and he has been quoted as writing:

"We are now forming a Republican form of government. Real Liberty is not found in the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy, or some other form of dictatorship."

James Madison wrote:

"In all cases where a majority are united by a common interest or passion, the rights of the minority are in danger!"

Another was John Adams who wrote:

"Unbridled passions produce the same effects, whether in a king, nobility, or a mob. The experience of all mankind has proved the prevalence of a disposition to use power wantonly. It is therefore as necessary to defend an individual against the majority (in a democracy) as against the king in a monarchy."

"Did I say, "republic?" By God, yes, I said "republic!" Long live the glorious republic of the United States of America. Damn democracy. It is a fraudulent term used, often by ignorant persons but no less often by intellectual fakers, to describe an infamous mixture of socialism, miscegenation, graft, confiscation of property and denial of personal rights to individuals whose virtuous principles make them offensive."
Westbrook Pegler in the NY Journal American, January 25^th & 26^th, 1951 under the titles "Upholds Republic of U.S. Against Phony Democracy" and "Democracy in the U.S. Branded Meaningless."

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."

Alexander Tyler

Damn democracy. It is a fraudulent term used, often by ignorant persons but no less often by intellectual fakers...

Except that it isn't normally used that way here. While I agree that we need to be better-educated as to terminology, etc., most people when they say "democracy" are referring to the means used to elect our representatives and other officers, not the form of our government itself.

Now, if you want to point out that those who call George W. Bush an "illegitimate President" and are callling for direct election of the President, are such "intellectual fakers" and demagogues, then I will agree with you.

But too often I see this argument used by teeth-gnashers that are more interested in winning an argument by sophistry, than sincerely concerned about educating the ignorant.