Kenneth Burgener wrote:
I have been hearing a lot about how we are happy to see democracy developing in Iraq [1]. This lead me to think about us. Are we a democracy or a republic? Are we both?
A politics teacher told me that the word democracy, as it is often used among politicians, refers to the government's accountability to the people. I think this is a useful definition, though it's quite different from majority vote. When politicians say that democracy is being spread all over the world, they mean that governments are becoming more accountable to their people due to changes in government structure.
We have democrats[2] which advocate a democracy, and we have republicans[3] which advocate a republic. Do we possibly swing back and forth from a democratic nation to a republican nation every 4 years?
This is related to a puzzle I've been trying to solve for years. The differences between the modern republican and democratic parties seem to have little relationship to the root words, republic and democracy. Rather, there's just a pile of controversial issues and each party takes an opposing side. Who takes which side is nearly arbitrary, AFAICT.
For example, democrats seem to favor small business more than republicans do, and I applaud the democrats for that. But republicans seem to favor religious expression more than democrats do, and I applaud the republicans for that. Yet small business yields a strong market, which is important to republicans, and religious expression is related to the Bill of Rights, which is important to democrats. It wouldn't surprise me if both parties flip-flop on these issues in ten years' time.
How can I choose between them? I want more choices, and I want improvements to the voting system so that my vote for a third party isn't wasted. If I don't get more choices, I'll probably just continue to vote about the same way my friends do.
Shane .-----------------------------------. | This has been a P.L.U.G. mailing. | | Don't Fear the Penguin. | | IRC: #utah at irc.freenode.net | `-----------------------------------'
