RE: What IS America?
October 21, 2011 at 1:04 pm
(This post was last modified: October 21, 2011 at 1:13 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(October 21, 2011 at 1:01 pm)Vaeolet Lilly Blossom Wrote:(October 21, 2011 at 12:36 pm)Minimalist Wrote: We are a kleptocracy.
Which is a plutocracy that got rich out of stealing your money.
No, plutocrats needs to have one or two arguably virtuous traits.
As to whether the US is a democracy in the sense common used in modern discourse, it is on the relative scale of things.
But When the US was conceived, it was intended to be a participatory republic, but at the time the word democracy carried a distinctly negative meaning that no longer dominate the image conjured up by the same word today. At the time, the word democracy did not refer narrowly to government by high levels of participation. Instead it refers to the excesses that results when this form of government fails.
In other words, "Republic" means government of the people, for the people, by the people. "Democracy" means failed republic where the mob rules.
This negative connotation carried all the way through the 19th century. It was only with engineered propaganda slogans of WWI that the word Democracy was reformed.
