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


>   > 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.

> Well, the real point is that in a democracy, the majority, whether 
> it be
> directly or through representatives, can arbitrarily vote to relieve 
> you of
> life, liberty,
> property or the pursuit of happiness.  In our country, a republic, 
> (Article
> IV,
> Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every state in this 
> union
> a republican form of government...) that can't happen except by 
> passing
> laws which apply to everyone equally and which can be overturned 
> only by
> the Supreme Court on the basis they don't implement the 
> Constitution.
> So, you have two important processes in our country - people are 
> treated
> by an pre-existing written law, not a vote and all people are 
> treated the
> same under the same laws.  This is the "equal protection under the 
> law"
> clause of the Constitution - Amendment XIV, Section 1.

You still *seem* to be missing his point and the point. "A Republic" 
is a subset of democracy. People in it, largely, have equal rights to 
participate in the processes of governance. The protections, in the 
republic that you cite, are a result of democratic process and are 
only maintained as a consequence of the undergirding democratic 
principles. It is also important to note that these protections are a 
phantasm, a convenience which has greater or lesser reality depending 
on circumstance. A barrier to action whose only real (non-spiritual) 
strength lies in the will of the people to have it upheld and to 
uphold it. Where those in power wish to take more power to themselves, 
more power will be taken, constitution or no (as eg has happened in 
the example republic over the last few years) until a point of 
resistance is reached where 'we the people' decide things have gone 
too far. The much vaunted Supreme Court is both only an expression of 
the people's will and also a perversion of it. How great a perversion 
and how little an expression depends, again, on the people's 
willingness to allow it. ((Entirely as an outside observer, it seems 
that they allow it quite a lot in recent times. No doubt my perception 
is flawed :-) )).

Democracy is the subset of anarchy where a majority of people are in 
broad agreement and agree to formalise their consensus
A Republic is a Democracy established and maintained by bureaucrats.

Somewhat unrelated - but we may as well add it for good measure, since 
this thread has the benison of the local higher power, and it's 
generally apposite. A libertarian is a person who wants nothing from 
government except a strong police force to protect her from her 
slaves.



        RM 

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