Reply #29: Those are bad definitions.

[jobycom]

A Republic is just a form of government chosen by the people. In the traditional sense it just means a non-monarchical government. A Democracy is a form of government chosen by election. It can be a direct democracy, where the people make each decision, or a representative democracy, like ours, where the people choose their leaders and the leaders make decisions. How responsible the leaders are to the people is based on how the democracy is set up. Frequent, open elections means more responsive, where rare, closed elections means less.

We have a Republic and a Representative Democracy. The terms don't describe exactly the same thing, nor are they exclusive, so all those "We are a Republic not a Democracy" statements are just ignorance, probably based on James Madison's rhetoric in the Federalist Papers (whose name was misleading and rhetorical, too).

All that stuff about Republics investing individuals with power and Democracies investing the collective with power are nonsense, since a Republic can technically be a dictatorship. The strength of an individual's voice in a government is always going to be weakest in a large populace and strongest in a small one, but other factors--such as the rule of law, the equality granted each individual, the number of representatives for each individual, and the strength of the courts--play a role. In America, Republicans are against anything which would strengthen the individual--courts, lawsuits, true census counts, equality of all citizens instead of a select few, etc--so that definition is doubly goofy. It's like Republicans go out of their ways to define themselves as the opposite of what they are. Which is a good indicator of what they themselves think of themselves.

Avoid their pseudo-intellectual language. They are fools with keyboards, that's all.