| Some relevant wisdom from the founding fathers of the United States: When asked about when kind of government the founding fathers had created, Ben Franklin replied "A Republic, if you can keep it." On democracy, John Adams wrote: "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." Thomas Jefferson further wrote that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." tl;dr democracies need to be fought for, or else they won't stay democracies forever. |
| John Adams wrote that as a reason why the United States is not a democracy. It's a Constitutional Republic. It's a consistent theme throughout the Federalist Papers. Individual States and localities have elements of democracy, but the US—built upon knowledge of Rome—is not. The United States of America is the second iteration of American government, after the one that failed in 1787. The arguments leading up to the 1789 Constitution are quite explicit around why democracies don't work. America is a nation of nations, which is why "these United States" as a plural term was used frequently until after the Civil War, when having it be a singular concept once-and-for-all was of paramount importance. That said, this is ban is clearly a restriction on freedom of expression, and highly un-American. |
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| ▲ | tavavex 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > It's a Constitutional Republic. Which is a kind of democracy. Democracy is a broad term describing all forms of government where power is granted by the people. This is a weird framing that I see brought up by Americans only, and I don't understand it, because direct democracies (what these Americans are actually referring to when they say 'democracy') are basically extinct in the modern world. They keep trying to distance themselves from the term. Most democratic nations today are presidential or parliamentary republics, just like you, or something that can be approximated to one of them. I'm doubtful that the US founders didn't recognize they were founding a democratic nation, just a specific subcategory - but ultimately still a state that should hopefully answer to the people. Neither does federalism relate to the form of government - you could have a federal or distributed direct democracy if you wanted to. They're just different categories of things, the way you choose how to best represent the will of a group of people is a different question from how you subdivide these groups into self-governing blocks. | | |
| ▲ | andrewla 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | But Adams was specifically arguing not against democracy in the broad term, but specifically, unconstrained direct democracy, so this is not relevant to this discussion. | | |
| ▲ | abernard1 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don't know. Is it irrelevant? Is it interesting that all these "democracies" around the world have persistent speech bans? When someone says something they don't like? I seem to have a recollection of flipping through HN for a decade or so and people talking about all the meanie-pants who want people to be able to speak freely, even if it hurts people's feelings and might not be endorsed by the elected government. |
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| ▲ | abernard1 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Democracy is a broad term describing all forms of government where power is granted by the people No. It's not. I encourage you to read the quite enlightening treatment of democracies in the Federalist Papers. And Greece's government was nothing like Rome. If there is a conflation there, it is one largely created by America. Which in its own right is interesting. What is interesting about the longest-running continuous constitutional government in history (America)? | | |
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| ▲ | nozzlegear 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Great point about what Adams is actually arguing! Of course, I know the country was founded as/is a Constitutional Republic, but it's always interesting to see how much our modern (American) understanding of democracy differs from how the founders understood it – and also how they shaped the fact that most of us now equate Constitutional Republic with the best form of democracy. | | |
| ▲ | ted_dunning 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Define "most" and "us". If us means humans living in democracies, I would say that parliamentary democracy has more supporters and constitutional republics. And even if us == the US, I would argue that most US citizens actually have only a very hazy idea about how their own system of government works, much less how others work. Most of these people think that chanting "USA, USA" in unison is democracy. | | |
| ▲ | nozzlegear 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > And even if us == the US, I would argue that most US citizens actually have only a very hazy idea about how their own system of government works, much less how others work. Most of these people think that chanting "USA, USA" in unison is democracy. That's a very dim view of your fellow Americans. I don't have such a dim view myself; there are certainly people who don't care and didn't pay attention in their high school civics classes, but I've found that most people do care and do pay attention. I wonder if your opinion is colored by recent events, and whether you'd have thought the same in 2008? |
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