What is a republic? Foreword # 3: Not a democracy
This is probably the most painful and the most controversial point about a republic.
"Your people, sir, are a great beast," Alexander Hamilton supposedly once told Thomas Jefferson. Some historians argue there is no historical proof of Hamilton actually saying it, but the fact that the Founders did not trust democracy is quite settled, and this statement attributed to Hamilton is usually paraded out to support the argument that the U.S. political system has been flawed from the very beginning because it was anti-democratic.
Democracy in action. Whole families, including young boys and girls, often brought picnic lunches to enjoy at a lynching. This is the lynching of Rubin Stacey, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, July 19, 1935. Stacey was a homeless farm worker who had knocked on a door and asked the white woman who answered for a glass of water.
It was not just the south. Frank McManus lynched in front of the Minneapolis public high school, April 28, 1882. Would it have been acceptable if the crowd had voted first?
"....a boundless field of rhetoric and declamation... may inflame the passions of the unthinking and may confirm the prejudices of the misthinking...." --James Madison, The Federalist, Number 41
Comments
As I pointed out in your first post
We are a democratic republic and we do sometimes make laws on a pure democratic basis. Referendums are made by a pure democratic process. We have many referendums all over the country every year. They are a way to go around legislatures who fail to act. And many states voted on adopting the constitution by referendum and its amendments by referendum.
While it is true that we are not a pure democracy, a pure democracy is totally unworkable and infeasible. It did not work in ancient Greece and the founders certainly understood its limits. As a practical manner, we need representatives and judges to make most of our laws.
So I am not sure what the point of your posts were.
About referenda:
You must have never have seen a California ballot where there can be as many as three competing referendums on the same topic. Typically one will be a grass roots effort for, eg., public power authority, and one or two others will be funded by the private power industry for the purpose of confusing voters and splitting the vote. The use of paid signature gatherers has corrupted the iniative process.
Mary Bennett
"It ain't perfect, so it's totally broken"
Pure democracy actually did work in medieval Iceland for several hundred years...until internecine feuds got completely out of hand. Then again, they were so isolated that their only choices were to get along with each other, get out/be thrown out, or get dead.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Does not the Faroe Is. still
have a Allthing where everyone can attend and vote?
Mary Bennett
A Republic is necessarily flawed
A Republic, in which a small group of "representatives" acting on behalf of the public, make all the decisions regarding the laws and the costs (taxes) and Military-warfare matters is on its face a totally flawed concept.
For it removes the decision making role away from the public itself, and places it into the hands of a now suddenly powerful elite and privileged group.
And any small group of people can always be easily corrupted and swayed by Bribery from powerful interests, or if not then blackmailed and driven into submission by them. This is just a natural human phenomena. Whether it is the big Global Bank Cartels, Media Cartels, Multinational Corps, etc. there are a multitude of ways for them exert their power and achieve this.
So a "Republic" can never be something pure. It is destined by nature to be corrupted, and drift far, far away from the needs and interests of the actual people. There is no way under this system to avoid that corruption -- unless elections and campaigns were something that did itself not involve any money or any privilege, and access to things (TV, etc.).
You can always corrupt a small group of people. But it is much, much harder to corrupt millions of independent people. So that's where the answer lies here.
The only workable system is something that former Senator (and 2008 Presidential candidate) Mike Gravel talked about: Direct Democracy. This is where the people can organize and directly petition the Government (via representative branch) with actual legislation. This is already done somewhat on a State level with things like legalizing Marijuana ... but there are always many obstacles, delays, and things that work even against those public efforts.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bHEkNtPD4M]