>> Carey Fisher - NCS wrote: 
>> 
>>> Pure Democracy, otherwise known as "majority rule" 

Actually, the point of my reply didn't seem to get through... :)  It was
meant to, in a way, ask where you get this from. Here where I am, "majority
rule" is one form of democracy (that may appear in still different forms),
"representative democracy" is another form of democracy (that may appear in
still different forms), and so on. I'm not quite sure "pure democracy" is a
well-defined term; it's probably as well-defined as "pure <anything>" and
primarily a point of view rather than a generally accepted definition. 

Since I'm an ESL programmer (anyone who doesn't know what this is can ask
me about it and I'll tell the story how I learned what it means :), I have
the habit of checking out dictionaries. 

Random House Webster's:
de-moc-ra-cy (di mok'ruh see)  n. pl. <-cies>
                  1.  government by the people; a form of 
                       government in which the supreme power is 
                       vested in the people and exercised 
                       directly by them or by their elected 
                       agents under a free electoral system.
                  2.  a state having such a form of government.
                  3.  a state of society characterized by 
                       formal equality of rights and privileges.
                  4.  political or social equality; democratic 
                       spirit.
                  5.  the common people, esp. with respect to 
                       their political power.

Seems to me very compatible with representative and direct democracy.

There's also the always helpful Wikipedia, which finally shines some light
on the confusion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy :

"The definition of the word 'democracy' from the time of ancient Greece up
to now has not been constant. In contemporary usage, the term 'democracy'
refers to a government chosen by the people, whether it is direct or
representative.

"There is another definition of democracy, particularly in constitutional
theory and in historical usages and especially when considering the works
of the American "Founding Fathers." According to this usage, the word
'democracy' refers solely to direct democracy, whilst a representative
democracy where representatives of the people govern in accordance with a
constitution is referred to as a 'republic.' This older terminology retains
some popularity in U.S. conservative and Libertarian debate."


I find the use of this quite old meaning ("historic usages", "Founding
Fathers") extremely confusing -- especially in discussions that go outside
of "U.S. conservative" circles. Come on -- the Founding Fathers did
something quite extraordinary, but language has moved on since then. You're
not a traitor when you say that the USA is a representative democracy. The
added advantage is that you get understood outside of US conservative
circles :)


> You know, I wonder the same thing.  After thinking about it a while, I
> think that the "democracy" part the president is referring to is ...

What I think he's referring to is the contemporary meaning of "democracy",
which includes representative forms. With which he obviously would include
the USA in his list of democracies. (There is a chance that this is the
result of him not being that tainted from reading constitutional
comments... :)  

Gerhard
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