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From: mahoney@bach.DEC
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Is America a Democracy
Message-ID: <349@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Date: Thu, 9-Jan-86 10:35:04 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.349
Posted: Thu Jan  9 10:35:04 1986
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-------------------- mail dated 7-JAN-1986 20:49---------------------

>----
>   No, it doesn't.  The president is elected by the people.  The president
>is also commander and chief of the armed forces.  Democracy does not mean
>that the people make the decisions directly.
>  The U. S. constitution does give Congress the sole power to declare war.
>It can be legitimately argued that undeclared wars such as Korea and Vietnam
>are unconstitutional.  This has no bearing on whether the U. S. is a democracy.
>If Reagan unilaterally decided to push the button tomorrow, we will all be
>dead, and Reagan will have become the greatest mass murderer in history, but
>the U. S.  will still have been a democracy.
>--
>Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL  ihnp4!ihlpg!tan


  Mr Tanenbaum

       Democracy does mean the the people make the decisions directly.  The
best represenative of a democarcy in the US is New England Town Meetings.
The people by direct vote make the policy decisions for the town. The US is a
republic or as the term now in vougue repersenative democracy. The reason the
term democracy is used is that men like Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt
thought that democracy sounded better then rebublic. (They being democrats and
all).
   I feel even the term represenative democracy is misleading remember what the
name of the army during the civil war The Grand Army of the Republic.  We have
freedoms and so forth but freedoms do not make you a democracy direct control
of decision making is what makes you a democracy.  We the people do not have
direct control we elect represenatives to make decisions for us. We have
indirect control and thus we are a republic.

  One of the big reasons for moving away from the term reublic I think is that
most of your communist countries use it.  We don't want people to be confused.
:-)


  I agree with you when you say what the presidents do has no bearing on what
type of government the US is.  They obviously are acting in an unconstitutional
manner as such those presidents should have been removed but that is neither
here nor there now.

Brian Mahoney