American Political System: Difference between revisions

Since the United States is a republic, you will occasionally find people trying to tell you that the United States "is not a democracy." This may or may not be true, since a republic and a democracy are technically two different forms of government, but a republic can still use democratic processes. So ask the person doing the claiming what he means before nodding sagely. The essential issue here is that the founders thought direct democracy (after the fashion of, say, [[Ancient Greece|ancient Athens]]) was a generally bad idea; for example, [[Thomas Jefferson]] claimed "''{{Quote|A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.''"|[[Thomas Jefferson]]}} More colloquially, "Democracy is three wolves and a sheep voting on dinner."