Free Republic

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One of the most commonly encountered questions about the word democracy has nothing to do with its spelling or pronunciation, and isn’t even directly related to the meaning of the word itself. That question is “is the United States a democracy or a republic?” The answer to this, as with so many other questions about meaning, may be phrased as some form of “it depends.” Some people assert that a country calling itself a democracy must be engaged in direct (or pure) democracy, in which the people of a state or region vote directly for policies, rather than elect representatives...

Let Us Standhttps://twitter.com/jonvoight/status/1183497355275857922 

Semantic infiltration within the political realm is typically defined, in its various forms, as unknowingly adopting the terms used by an opponent in such a way as to undermines one's own argument. With the help of their cronies in the mainstream media, leftists are exceptionally good at semantic infiltration. Take, for example, the words "illegal alien." The term is simple enough. When a citizen from a foreign country enters a country not of his origin, he is alien to that newly entered country because, by birth, he is not a citizen of it. When the individual has entered the new...

A Washington state police chief who took a stand in refusing to enforce elements of the state’s widely encompassing new gun control package is now running for Governor of the state. He’s making a pledge to restore the gun rights of Washingtonians a central message of his campaign. Loren Culp is the police chief of Republic, Washington. He was praised by gun owners and vilified by liberal prosecutors for his constitutional refusal to enforce parts of a massive gun control law enacted in 2018.

The New York Times has begun a major initiative, the "1619 Project," to observe the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe American history so that slavery and the contributions of black Americans explain who we are as a nation. Nikole Hannah-Jones, staff writer for The New York Times Magazine wrote the lead article, "America Wasn't a Democracy, Until Black Americans Made It One." She writes, "Without the idealistic, strenuous and patriotic efforts of black Americans, our democracy today would most likely look very different -- it might not be a democracy at all." There...

Federal Election Commission (FEC) Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub argued Monday that a failure to accept the results of free and fair elections “undermines our democracy.” “There is no evidence of rampant voter fraud in 2016,” Weintraub told CNN host John Berman. “To be suggesting to people that if the candidate they choose doesn’t win, that it’s because of fraud, that undermines our democracy.” Weintraub was pushing back against President Donald Trump’s repeated accusations of voter fraud that he has claimed may have cost him a greater margin of victory in 2016.

Speaking on NBC’s “Meet The Press” on Sunday, Dr. Ben Carson was asked if a president’s religious beliefs mattered. He said they did, and, when pressed on the issue, said no Muslim should be President of the United States (insert Obama joke here) and that, in fact, Islam is in conflict with the U.S. Constitution: Ben Carson: Well I guess it depends on what that faith is. If it is inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter. But, if it fits within the realm of America and consistent with the Constitution, then no...

First...they devalue the representation of the states / provinces by taking away the right of star governments to be represented on the federal level. Then they devalue the money by basing it off nothing but thin air... Then they devaule citizenship by treating illegal Invaders better than citizens, even counting them to determine apportionment.... Then it all collapses....

A Denver dad was so sick that he was booted off his return flight from the Dominican Republic, and has spent the past three days there in critical condition — vomiting, alone and screaming in pain in a hospital bed, his relatives said. Khalid Adkins became so ill on the trip with his daughter that he wasn’t allowed to fly home Sunday — and has been forced to stay on the embattled Caribbean island, news station KDVR reported. “He said, ‘They pulled me off the plane and made me go to the hospital,'” his sister-in-law, Marla Strick, told the news...

Democratic socialism is a system where godlessness, heartlessness and evil reigns supreme The rise of socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, within the godless Democrat party, should concern all Americans, especially Christians and religious Jews. Why any American, in their right mind, would vote for a socialist politician is puzzling. Maybe people just don’t know the history of socialism; its crimes against humanity. Maybe it’s because academia has confused people with misleading definitions of the various forms of socialism.

Think we are a republic and not a democracy? Think our Electoral College specified by our Constitution protects that republic? Think again folks. I borrowed some of this reasoning from a friend. In the last presidential election, Nevada had six electors (one assigned for each US Senator and one for each US Congressman from the state). Individual states may pass laws binding the electors to vote for the candidate of their respective party or impose any manner of "pledge" obligation on the electors. While it is rare, some electors (fewer than 1% since 1789) have been "faithless" and not voted...

You’re right, I don’t call him a fascist. He’s certainly anti-democratic, and I say so in the book, but I don’t call him a fascist because he isn’t violent. If he ends up declaring an emergency at the border over immigration, then I might change my position. There’s a long history of fascists using “emergencies” to create fear and conflict, so that’s a potential red line. If Trump does that, then he really is a bully with an army. But I do think his approach to the free press, to democratic institutions, to the independent judiciary, is extremely dangerous and...

In the shallow world of modernity, we throw around a word like “democracy” as a stand-in for “things that I like.” Many in popular culture and elite institutions promote democracy as a cure for all that ails us—an unquestioned and unqualified blessing. Still others turn on a dime and hope for its demise as soon as it produces outcomes they don’t like. While democracy often plays a good and necessary role in a self-governing society, we have lost the healthy skepticism of its worst excesses that the Founding Fathers understood when they established the governing institutions of the United States....

I can’t believe I missed Benjamin Franklin’s birthday yesterday [ed. it’s been brought to my attention that I’m actually one day early – so unlike me] but it’s not too late to honor one of the country’s most influential founding fathers. The man who once wrote “If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worthy of reading or do things worth the writing.” in his own life did both. As CDN notes though this truly Renaissance man has never been adequately recognized for his remarkable contributions to this great country. He...

During this last election in California our ballot showed only two Democrats as candidates for US Senator—no Republicans, no independents. Making matters even worse was that the system would not allow write-in votes, which has been a privilege exercised by the voters since the beginning of this nation. The change was due to the Democrats modifying the primary system so it would allow only the two top candidates from the primary to enter the general election. Properly exercised, this modification could, and did, eliminate their republican competitors at the primary level. This system, when combined with the state’s lack of...

.......the American Framers disparaged democracy, which amounts to two wolves and a lamb voting on what—or rather who—is for dinner. Aristotle, himself a statist-elitist in Ancient Athens, described a republic as “rule by the many for the benefit of all”, in contrast to democracy, “rule by the many for the benefit of the many.” In a republic, the rule of law curbs the rule of the majority. Socrates would have received constitutional protections to disparage directly-elected rulers without fear. In a republic, no one is above the law, including the crowd as well as the individual ruler or the governing...

The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy. Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been produced behind closed doors. The answer was provided immediately. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” It seems as of late the US has drifted from a republic to more of a courtacracy. How many decisions of "We the People" have been passed at...

Artists and intellectuals across Europe are calling for the founding of a continentwide republic to replace its many nation states. […] The event is being organized by a group calling itself the European Balcony Project. […] A manifesto on the group’s website declares that “the sovereignty of states is hereby replaced by the sovereignty of citizens.” …

Omnia Romae venalia sunt—all the Romans are for sale. This was the historian Sallust’s judgment on the Roman Republic’s moral climate in the 1st and 2nd centuries BCE as it careened through disintegrating norms of public behavior, faltering institutions, civil wars, and the rise of the empire of the Caesars. I fear the same judgment increasingly applies to our American Republic—that our political and social institutions risk a parallel descent into chaos and authoritarianism. Sallust put his grim judgment in the mouth of Jugurtha, a North African king who resisted Rome at the end of the 2nd century BCE with...