A Republic, If You Can Keep It
I am reminded of a quote from Benjamin Franklin shortly after the Constitutional Convention:
A woman asked Benjamin Franklin what type of government the Constitution was bringing into existence. Franklin replied “A republic, if you can keep it.”
This quote highlights just how far we have strayed from our founding principles. The Founding Fathers understood the tendency of populism to take control and ignore the minority, this is why they strived so hard to create a republic, a form of government where the smallest minority cannot have its rights stripped from them. Our nationalized educational system has done a great job at convincing millions of Americans that our government is really a Democracy; however, if one were to read “The Federalist Papers” or even the definition of Democracy one would realize how idiotic this notion is. Below is a table listing the differences between a democracy and a republic, you be the judge:
| Democracy: a: government by the people; especially : rule of the majority. b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences |
Republic a: a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government. b: a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law. |
Apparently our elected representatives seem to have failed their Civics course. In closing, I shall leave you with a quote from James Bovard:
Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
