"Wow...I always thought we were a Republic. My bad."
Just so ya know, a republic is a representative democracy.
Buzz
Not according to this: republic.html. Excerpt:
So what? We live in a republic. What difference does it make?
It makes all the difference in the world. In a democracy the "majority rules" - and the minority loses. A hypothetical example can demonstrate the idea. Pretend that you're a land owner, and that I would like to buy some of your property. You don't want to sell this property because it's been in your family for several generations. In a democracy, I could gather a dozen other land owners together, proposing that we divide your land between us. We will allow you to vote on the proposition, because this IS a democracy after all -- and you will lose thirteen to one. That's a democracy!
In a republic, nothing can outvote your individual rights! They are unalienable. If the land belongs to you it doesn't matter if I have a hundred friends, a thousand friends, or a hundred thousand friends! YOUR PROPERTY IS YOUR PROPERTY! It is the government's fiduciary responsibility to protect your rights. If you are in doubt, read your copy of the Declaration of Independence. Right after "...life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" it says, "That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed".
Webster's Definition of Democracy is: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
This means that a pure Democracy can use representative government. Doing that does not change it into a Republic. (I'm not trying to split hairs...I was just trying to point out that many American's do not realize that our form of government is actually a Republic.)