re: I believe many Americans have a functional misunderstanding

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I believe many Americans have a functional misunderstanding

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This is why. Even the educated are retards.

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Do More Than Half of Americans Read Below a 6th-Grade Level?
This claim is true, according to a review of the U.S. education system that was conducted in September 2020

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A new survey commissioned from Gallup by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the National Geographic Society (NGS) finds that adult Americans exhibit gaps in their knowledge about geography and world affairs. While the report shows that U.S. adults have limited knowledge about these topics, seven in ten respondents consider international issues to be relevant to their daily lives and express a desire to promote education in these areas.

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“The advances in technology that are going to drive where the world goes in the next 50 years are going to come from other countries, because they have the intellectual capital and we don’t,” said Jim Stigler, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies the process of teaching and learning subjects including math.

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Yet, there are still people championing "Democracy and populism."

We are fricked. Anyone denying it deserves whats coming.

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Here are a few countries that are true democracies and they all are totalitarian..

Democratic Republic of Congo
Democratic Republic of North Korea
Democratic people republic of China

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God this forum is amazing.

I’d say that you missed the point. It’s right in front of you!

Just not wording it correctly and that's my fault. I'm uneducated.

I was just trying to make a distinction why a true republic as the country was founded on is not what is happening.

I am quite sure what is happening isn't what they had envisioned..

True democracies don't work because by definition they are mob rule vs constitutional rule..

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So are these Democracies or Republics?

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Common mistake is naming a country but referencing a political party that rules it.

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Except we aren't a democratic republic. We are a Constitutional republic.

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Good grief.

We are obviously both.

You even used "democratic" with a lower case "d." It's an adjective that accurately describes our form of government.

We are a constitutional republic. We also have a democratic form of government.

A republic is simply a system in which the people vote for representatives.

The word "democracy" is generally very poorly defined and is usually defined broadly as a system in which the "power resides with the people," either by direct governance or the election of representatives.

There's not necessarily much difference between the two in definition, but the two small differences are very important. More on that in a minute. First, a word about constitutions...

Not all democracies lack a constitution. Despite popular misunderstanding, not all republics have a constitution. Some countries considered republics or democracies have constitutions, but the constitutions aren't considered the ultimate governmental authority.

Back to republics vs constitutions. The first obvious difference is that in a democracy you may or may not have elected representatives, in a republic you always will. In the US we do both. We adopt some laws by direct referendum and we also elect representatives to make laws for us.

Therefore, we are not a pure republic.

The other usual distinction between the two is what I always post about here that gets lots of downvotes because this board is about 90% populist. Both systems may have elected representatives, but an unofficial but broadly held distinction between the two is that in a democracy the population at large gets a say. Everybody, or very close to everybody, without any special credentials.

In a republic there are usually qualifiers that narrow down the voting pool. Not everybody gets to vote.

And our system was designed to be more of a true republic. Not everyone was supposed to be able to vote. The FF were not populists. They were elitists. At least from what I can see.

I think that's why they conceived of the constitution. I think they understood that the average John or Jane Q. public had no business influencing most matters of governance, but they still needed to be protected from the elites in government who might abuse them if there were no limits on government.

So at this point IMO it's actually more accurate to call us a democracy than a republic. It's not what the US was supposed to be, but it's what it has become.

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You even used "democratic" with a lower case "d." It's an adjective that accurately describes our form of government.

We are a constitutional republic. We also have a democratic form of government.

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You're right.

I've tried to educate the NPCs who think they have some gotcha on this for years and I've about given up.

This was the stupidest gotcha attempt I had ever seen until this Trump trial started.

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There's not necessarily much difference between the two in definition, but the two small differences are very important. More on that in a minute. First, a word about constitutions...

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If you want the best example of how the interplay exists, look at Senators.

Senators are representatives of a population group that isn't federal, therefore, a function of a republic.

Senators were once appointed, however, now they are elected directly. When this happened, democracy came into play. So now they have a dual role as parties of the republic and our democracy, when previously they were just a function of a republic.

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Another great example of how we were conceived as a republic, but have become more of a democracy.

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That's that pesky constitution and its ability to be changed as society/values change

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Here are a few countries that are true democracies

Democratic Republic of Congo
Democratic Republic of North Korea
Democratic people republic of China

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