Most people erroneously believe the United States is a democracy. If that were so, every bill would need to be subjected to a nation-wide popular vote. We would spend every minute of every day reading bills and voting on them, and as the Founding Fathers observed, voting ourselves direct payments from the federal treasury!
Our form of government is actually republican. We are represented by others who vote for us. Even their votes are not democratic: the distribution of power in the Senate does not match the population, the President can veto decisions, and the courts can disallow votes based on constitutionality (decided by judges who are appointed, not elected via popular vote). Another example would be presidential elections in which states essentially vote based on their population weight. Ii's possible for a candidate to lose the popular vote, but win in a landslide in this winner-take-all state scenario.Liberals tend to gravitate toward the popular vote due to its perceived fairness. Conservatives tend to support the republican mechanisms due to the original intent of the constitution.
This is where Dancing with the Stars comes in ...The show has been controversial this year due to the unexpected results of the show's popular voting feature. Bristol Palin, for example, has survived longer than most feel is fair due to her good showing with the popular vote.
Here's the irony: liberals love the popular vote, but in this case, the fallacies of this approach are benefitting a conservative family. Should we admit that pure democracy has some margin of error? If we do, can we also concede the possibility that the popular vote in the last presidential election may also have been an anomaly?
1 comment:
You can't count the number of times I've told people that we ARE NOT A DEMOCRACY, but a representative republic based on a common-law-style constitution. Democracy was a "dirty" word when the country was formed and essentially equated to mob rule. Whereas our form of government is setup to protect the minority (and an individual right's are the greatest minority of all).
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