I do consider it to be evidence. I consider it to be evidence that we are both a republic and a democracy.
Samm
November 9, 2022, 7:01am
484
And therein lies your problem.
This part is going in circles. I’m more interested in knowing why you shun modern political science.
Samm
November 9, 2022, 7:07am
487
Why do you shun established documents?
I have no problem. I’m not the one who disagrees with modern political science.
I don’t. Why do you shun modern political science? Why do you deny the existence of representative democracy?
Samm
November 9, 2022, 7:10am
490
Modern political science has no authority to change the Constitution.
Samm
November 9, 2022, 7:12am
491
I don’t shun it. But I am aware of its limitations, whereas you seem to think it is omnipotent.
Representative Democracy is a contradiction in terms.
It doesn’t change the Constitution. It’s already in there. Republics are, for the most part, representative democracies.
I dare say its you who thinks is omnipotent as you seem to think it has the power to change the meaning of the US Constitution. It doesn’t.
Representative Democracy is a contradiction in terms.
If you prefer you can call its by its alternative name which is indirect democracy.
It’s not even all the “modern” of political science. There were people around during the time of the founding who also used “democracy” to simply mean the rule by the people, be it direct or via representatives:
Even among his contemporaries, Madison’s refusal to apply the term democracy to representative governments, even those based on broad electorates, was aberrant. In November 1787, only two months after the convention had adjourned, James Wilson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, proposed a new classification. “[T]he three species of governments,” he wrote, “are the monarchical, aristocratical and democratical. In a monarchy, the supreme power is vested in a single person; in an aristocracy…by a body not formed upon the principle of representation, but enjoying their station by descent, or election among themselves, or in right of some personal or territorial qualifications; and lastly, in a democracy, it is inherent in a people, and is exercised by themselves or their representatives.” Applying this understanding of democracy to the newly adopted constitution, Wilson asserted that “in its principles,…it is purely democratical: varying indeed in its form in order to admit all the advantages, and to exclude all the disadvantages which are incidental to the known and established constitutions of government. But when we take an extensive and accurate view of the streams of power that appear through this great and comprehensive plan…we shall be able to trace them to one great and noble source, THE PEOPLE.” At the Virginia ratifying convention some months later, John Marshall, the future chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, declared that the “Constitution provided for ‘a well regulated democracy’ where no king, or president, could undermine representative government.” The political party that he helped to organize and lead in cooperation with Thomas Jefferson, principal author of the Declaration of Independence and future third president of the United States, was named the Democratic-Republican Party; the party adopted its present name, the Democratic Party, in 1844.
Following his visit to the United States in 1831–32, the French political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville asserted in no uncertain terms that the country he had observed was a democracy—indeed, the world’s first representative democracy, where the fundamental principle of government was “the sovereignty of the people.” Tocqueville’s estimation of the American system of government reached a wide audience in Europe and beyond through his monumental four-volume study Democracy in America (1835–40).
Democracy - Representation, Equality, Participation: Is democracy the most appropriate name for a large-scale representative system such as that of the early United States? At the end of the 18th century, the history of the terms whose literal...
Samm
November 9, 2022, 9:40pm
494
Thanks …
“…the term representative democracy is self-contradictory.”
Just as I said.
Full quote for the popcorn eaters:
It is thus easy to see why direct democracies are sometimes thought to approach ideal democracy much more closely than representative systems ever could, and why the most ardent advocates of direct democracy have sometimes insisted, as Rousseau did in The Social Contract, that the term representative democracy is self-contradictory. Yet, views like these have failed to win many converts.
I’m surprised you made bedfellows with an ardent advocate of direct democracy.
Samm
November 9, 2022, 9:52pm
496
Majority rules, right? No matter how wrong they are.
Time too. Here’s the definition from Webster’s in 1892:
In 1830 it was:
What do you think changed?
Samm
November 10, 2022, 8:12am
498
The idiotification of the majority?
johnwk2
November 10, 2022, 3:40pm
499
You are absolutely correct about “misinformed opinion”. Perhaps the time has come to not feed a troll!
JWK
“From each according to their ability to pay, to each who needs help living a decent life.” fallenturtle
1 Like
johnwk2:
You are absolutely correct about “misinformed opinion”. Perhaps the time has come to not feed a troll!
JWK
“From each according to their ability to pay, to each who needs help living a decent life.” fallenturtle
Arguing the OP is not trolling.
Your random desire to quote me from an unrelated post from two years ago is borderline trolling.
