American Democracy
There is much confusion surrounding the words “democracy” and “republic.” The word “democracy” is a combination of the Greek words demos and kratia, meaning the people and government, respectively. Thus the meaning of the word “democracy” should be clear: it is a government of the people. Likewise, a “republic” comes from the Latin res meaning government and publica meaning “the public.” Both a republic and a democracy are considered a government of the people, but “republic” has a much more inclusive meaning than “democracy.”
Typically, a republic refers to any system of government besides monarchy or despotism. Thus, by definition, the United States of America and all other democratic countries are republics, but undemocratic countries such as the Republic of China and the Soviet Union are too.
The Founding Fathers believed that a democracy was the proper form of government, but they acknowledged the many problems with the classical form of direct democracy associated with ancient Athens. For the Founding Fathers, this sort of democracy was nothing other than mob rule – a mobocracy. As James Madison explains in the Federalist Papers #10,
“[…]such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
Unlike a direct democracy, a representative system of democracy properly expresses the public’s will,
“by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose.”
As history has clearly shown, the American form of government is superior to all others. The dire problem for the United States of America is that the liberal pathology has created a situation in which the current government does not represent the True Will of the American People. The liberal pathology hijacks a person in such a way that they no longer act according to their inner True Will. Instead, their deeds and words are all symptoms of this pathological state. Politicians and representatives have mistaken these pathological symptoms as the expression of the True Will of many Americans and, in some cases, they have even become infected with it themselves.
Due to the rise of the liberal pathology, American citizens have lost their legislative autonomy. The government is no longer an extension of our will. It represents the symptoms the liberal pathology, not the True Will of Americans. The government represents a sickness and thus itself is now sick.
We have slowly lost our autonomy and self-governance due to the sickness of progress. Any law contrary to the American Way of Life does not represent the True Will of “We the People.”
