Every person on this entire planet is an hostage.
when you have a majority of 55% for Barak Obama and a minority for an other persident.
those 45% held hostage for the others world view.
This is how democracy works, everyone is happy just a some a little less.



Stop for six mins and watch this video
Both sides are to blame but 1 side don't have many options.

This post was edited by Many_Names on Mar 13 2012 08:24am

If my country is a democracy, and they are a majority, then yes, I will.
Except such laws would be struck down by being unconstitutional, even if supported by a majority vote- the constitution protecting the minorities.
That is how America wins in the end. That is how a modern democracy functions. Israel is not one. No democracy can exist when all men aren't equal before the law, when a nation calls itself a "Jewish Nation".

*Republic

No, that's not how a democracy works. A democracy is founded upon agreed upon inviolate laws which protect all citizens, while giving them equal say to govern within that leeway.
It is the rule of the majority, with respect to the minority. That is how America works, that is how a democracy works.
It is not a case of "51% of us say X, 49% say Y, everyone now has to do X, even if X is replacing all laws with sharia and headscarf regulations"

If Israel's best excuse for its apartheid state, keeping Arabs out of the political and peace processes beyond a token presence, is that they can't afford to give them their representation-
then Israel is not a democracy. It is not an equal republic. It is an apartheid state, a theocracy. Like Saudi Arabia.



Republic is not a form of government, its a form of legislative process. A republic could just as easily be made from an oligarchy of technocrats.

This post was edited by Goomshill on Mar 13 2012 12:15pm

You heard it here first, folks. How exactly do you divorce "legislative process" from "government?"

Santara, did you flunk political science or comp gov? =/
Now I never took any pol sci classes back in my day because I wouldn't go near that crap with a 10 ft pole, but its basic knowledge.

A republic is just a system of how the power is used and laws written- multiple entities representative of different interests writing the laws, but not all the people directly, and not necessarily representing the people
It is not mutually exclusive or overlapping with actual systems of governments- where they derive their power. Democracies have representation of all the people, oligarchies of a select few, dictatorships of a single one.

America is a democratic republic.
Just as easily, a republic could be non-democratic. For example, if only a hereditary line of elders would make all decisions without ever being elected- an oligarchal republic. Or if all senators were appointed by the emperor- a republican dictatorship.
You have some silly idea in your head that the only form of "democracy" is direct democracy (which does not exist).

Or for example, the Israeli Knesset. Where one race has a say, and the other is kept only as a token and prevented from having any political clout, with the majority of them imprisoned in the world's largest concentration camp during genocide.
In which case its a theocracy- a jewish state ruled by the jewish religion and jewish law.

The United States of America is a Jeffersonian Democracy. No asterisk.

I love how conservatives try to take the democracy out of our Jeffersonian Democracy.

Now there its been put much better
I think conservatives also try to take the jefferson out of our jeffersonian democracy though, too.

This post was edited by Goomshill on Mar 13 2012 12:53pm

Yep, they live in a Calvinist Republic.