Civics Quiz

ISI ^

[Copernicus]

A list of governments making the claim to be a Republic is not a definition.

Curious. You argue for democracy until the vast overwhelming majority of countries are listed as Republics at which point you revert to a formal (Republican) style of definition to support your definition of democracy. Quite a tangle!

If I thought it would help I would activate the link so you might read the article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_republics

or even offer you another link:

http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/AmericanIdeal/aspects/demrep.html

but I suspect it will not make any difference.

You will have to unravel this one alone.

Keep me apprised of your progress.

Best regards,

[LexBaird]

or even offer you another link:

Read your link. Nothing but a strawman argument, which sets up flawed definitions of Republic and Democracy, and then proceeds to argue against them. Only convincing to the people already convinced.

[Constitutional Republic] is a subset of [Republic], which is a subset of [Limited Democracy] which is a subset of [Democracies].

[Copernicus]

So in a word, your progress is slow.

Understood.

Democracies can do that to people as Socrates discovered. When the vast overwhelming majority argue the earth is flat or the sun revolves around the earth it can be difficult to discover the truth.

Fear not, epiphany comes slowly, but it does come.

Best regards,

[LexBaird]

Well, when the vast overwhelming majority of people define an abstract concept one way, and you choose to argue it really means something else, I wouldn’t characterize your definition as an “epiphany”.

[Copernicus]

Exactly the problem faced by Socrates, a man who committed no crime and yet suffered the death penalty because the vast overwhelming majority ruled it so.

Democracies are to be feared and avoided. A Republic which protects minority rights is to be preferred.

Best regards,

[P.O.E.]

You answered 58 out of 60 correctly — 96.67 %

Ahem.

[LexBaird]

Democracies are to be feared and avoided. A Republic which protects minority rights is to be preferred.

PURE democracies, where there is strict majority rule on every subject, are to be feared and avoided. LIMITED democracies, such as Republics, are equally subject to abuse of the individual, because they simply remove the majority rule to an elected representative of that majority. Our CONSTITUTIONAL republic includes safeguards for the individuals that override the will of the majority, but that is only because the majority supported them in the crafting of that constitution. There are other constitutions out there that run roughshod over individual liberties.

There is nothing inherent in a Republic that protects a minority or an individual. It is simply a name for one method of organizing a government by democratic process: democractic election of representatives to govern.

There is nothing inherent in a constitution that protects individuals either. They are simply the organizational structures that frame the government and outline the powers of the government which is being "constituted".

The magical thing about the United States is not that it is a Republic, but that it used the will of the majority to protect the rights of the minority, and enshrined those protections into its foundational documents.

(p.s. Socrates was not condemned by a true democracy, but by a limited democracy of the elites. The "vast majority" of Athenians got no vote, being non-native, slaves and/or women)

[Copernicus]

There is nothing inherent in a Republic that protects a minority or an individual. It is simply a name for one method of organizing a government by democratic process: democractic election of representatives to govern. There is nothing inherent in a constitution that protects individuals either. They are simply the organizational structures that frame the government and outline the powers of the government which is being "constituted".

The Founding Fathers thought Republic-"Republican" important enough to use the word in the Constitution.

You do not advance the discussion of their idea of checks and balances and divided sovereignties by a test question that reduces the word Republic to a variant of democracy (the philosophy the Founding Fathers feared most-possibly because Communism had not yet been invented)and inserts it twice into the same list of choices-effectively eliminating the concept of Republic from the minds of impressionable youts and convincing them all the world is a democracy.

It is just plain wrong.

I will not be silent which I see the little children abused in such fashion.

And if you like what I have to say about the bait-and-switch form of government question you should hear what I think about the Puritan Religious question.

Frankly, the entire test is a fraud and should be treated as such.

Best regards,

[smokingfrog]

Additional Finding

Elected Officials Score Lower than the General Public

Officeholders typically have less civic knowledge than the general public. On average, they score 44%, five percentage points lower than non-officeholders.

• Thirty percent of elected officials do not know that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are the inalienable rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence.

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Seventy-one percent of Americans fail the test, with an overall average score of 49%.

• Liberals score 49%; conservatives score 48%. Republicans score 52%; Democrats score 45%.
• Fewer than half of all Americans can name all three branches of government, a minimal requirement for understanding America’s constitutional system.