Is America really a "Democracy"?

[PizzaTheHutt]

Ive been pondering this following the elections of 08 and found that in practice America can not TRULY be considered a democracy. Sure you vote for a guy to tell you what to do and that's all fine and dandy but once you do you have no control over him he can do whatever he pleases. You can ask him to do something but he doesn't have to. Most legislative decisions passed are completely out of your jurisdiction, and the majority of Americans couldn't tell you what more then 2 or 3 of those decisions are. Further more come election season a large number of people don't put much thought into the vote and some don't even vote at all. A real democracy would involve the general public voting on all issues and ideas and a central government carrying out said ideas. But in America its more of a Pick the best face for TV to tell you stuffacracy.

Discuss

 

[GodsOneMistake]

Well America is technically a Republic Apparently.... We just for some reason stuck with the notion of a democracy

 

[Curtmiester]

You do know that the Presidant doesn't have UNLIMITED power. There are other people in the government.

 

[Nimbus]

No. It never was. It always has been a republic.

 

[historybuff]

It's actually a Republic.


Edit: Wow, we all answered in the same minute. Haha.

 

[Hoxton]

We elect the people who we hope will make the right decisions. That's as close to a real democracy as we can get, I mean there has to be some people with power, and some that don't.

Do you even know what is the definition of democracy?
There is no real democracy anywhere.

 

[A random person]

America's a republic, not a democracy. It's that simple.

 

[Armored Prayer]

Basically what everyone above me is saying. Its a Republic.

Edit: Woot, 800 posts.

 

[metagaia]

They tried that once in Greece. Voted to go to war with Sparta (unsuccessfully) and to kill Socrates, not a great success really.

 

[Rawker]

we tried to make it so three points have power, legislative, judical, and executive. so its like rock paper scissors with a country, because one can override one thing while it can also be overridden by another

 

[Bigeyez]

We elect the people who we hope will make the right decisions. That's as close to a real democracy as we can get, I mean there has to be some people with power, and some that don't.

Not only that but having general elections on everything is just impractical. Even the Greeks and Romans eventually had elected officials and their populations were fairly small compared to countries today. If you think the gov't runs like shit now imagine if every single thing had to pass a general election in order to be written into law. Christ that would be a shitstorm.

And as far as us having no control over them while thats true in one sense the general publics power over politicians is that they won't get re-elected or might even face impeachment if they don't hold true to what the public wants.

 

[The Infamous Scamola]

And this only applies to America... why?

I mean, fuck, in Britain, Gordon Brown didn't even get voted in, they just put him there. That's a bigger slap to the face of democracy if you ask me.

Also, please people, saying "It's a republic, not a democracy" doesn't mean anything. America is a democratic republic, just like the UK is a democratic monarchy.

 

[Nemorov]

What they said, about it being a republic.

It's mostly a problem of people only knowing the general idea of who and what they're voting for. And the electoral college, but I REALLY don't want to get into that discussion here because apparently a lot of people are perfectly happy with the way that runs. I'm guilty of it. I know I got to the election booth and when it came time to vote for state and city representatives (and even sometimes House and Senate candidates) I was like 'Who the hell are these people?'

 

[ygetoff]

Technically, America is a Democratic Republic. Real democracy on our scale would be impossible.

 

[Danzaivar]

A constitutional republic actually. They elect people to represent them rather than vote on individual issues, but even this is limited by what the constitution permits. Technically the constitution can be changed now and again, but most of the time it's a limiting force.

I hear some States do state level stuff in a very democratic way however. At least, Daniel Hannan praises them relentlessly for this behaviour in his book...

 

[Twilight_guy]

It's a democratic republic. The constitution never said democracy. Also, there are more forms of democracy then just a direct democracy [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy]. Since we elect leaders to represent us, the government seems to be a republic to me.