Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Reminder: We Are a Republic

For the past several weeks, the "This is What Democracy Looks Like" slogan in Madison protests has been grinding on me. I've ignored it because we do colloquially refer to ourselves as a democracy. We are not, however. We are a Republic with representative government. The Founding Fathers did not trust pure democracy because it was vulnerable to the passions of the people, i.e., mob mentalities. Thus, they placed checks and balances on even democracy with our Republic form of government. So I say, if that is what democracy looks like, then I think maybe the Founders were right after all. And maybe some teachers should brush up on their civics.

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