My bad - I thought this was the DEMOCRATIC

[elleng]

14. Thanks, jazzimov, and welcome.

Bucky posted this. May be of interest to some:

'You should learn a lot about Charles-Louis, Baron de Brede et Montesquieu (Chucky for short). In your civics class, he's taught as the guy who identified the three basic functions of government--legislative, executive, and judicial--and who had a powerful pull on the Founding Conventioneers in Philadelphia in 1787. He's more important for the Constitution than John Locke is. Locke more inspired the Declaration, but it was Chucky who inspired both the three branches scheme and laid the philosophical groundwork for maintaining a federal, instead of a national, structure to the Old 13. However Chucky had some other, more pertinent observations about how men & their governments interact. He identified the governments of the world as falling into three types: Republic, Monarchy, or Despotism. Yes, he always thought in threes. Like any Frenchman, he spent a good deal of time worrying about how size matters. And Chucky didn't think a country, like ours, nearly the size of a continent was quite suited for republicanism. There are dangerous signs he was rights.

In his view, a true republic requires a public and culture that has a love of virtue, that is, a society in which people (particularly leaders) put their love of country and the welfare of the community above their own personal needs. Think about everything we revere George Washington for and now compare it to, say, Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, that clown from Alaska, or Rand Paul. But this character must exist among a nation as well. When a people lose virtuousness, they begin to lose their republican form of government. We pause now for this important commercial message.'

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2639097