[ I like the idea here but the term "democratic republic" is an oxymoron;
they are two completely different ideas.  The US is a limited constitutional
republic.  Democracy is just mob rule with a shortened name. ]

From: https://tinyurl.com/p6xnrbzb (americanthinker.com)

===

   September 23, 2024

                            How Pure Democracy Fails

   By Paul C. Binotto

   Fiddling with the Constitution to limit existing state rights in favor of
   pure majority rule should be rejected.

   Yet, there's a movement afoot to do just that.  It really isn't all that
   new.  An earlier example of this movement culminated in 1913 with the
   ratification of the 17^th Amendment.  The primary changes the 17^th
   Amendment made to the Constitution was to provide for the direct popular
   election of U.S.  senators, a function originally reserved only for the
   state's legislatures.  As a result, the ability of less-populated states
   to exercise their co-equal rights was eroded.

   Presently, a push is gaining momentum to circumvent the Electoral
   College, in favor of a national popular vote.  Changing how Senate seats
   are assigned to states is also being advocated.  A "census-based" system
   like the one used for determining the number of seats in the House of
   Representatives, thereby, giving more populated states more seats and
   votes in the Senate.

   Whatever form and approach, the common goal is to replace the democratic
   republic form of federal government with pure democracy.

   The Supreme Court's recent reversal of Roe has increased calls for
   eliminating the Senate filibuster. It's true the filibuster is only a
   Senate rule, not law, so its elimination wouldn't directly challenge, or
   violate the Constitution. However, it does indirectly affect the
   co-equality of states guaranteed by the Constitution.

   Bruce Ledewitz, a law professor at the Catholic-affiliated Duquesne
   University, gives what he considers four good reasons in his recent
   opinion piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

   According to Ledewitz, supporters of ending the Senate filibuster believe
   that the potential benefits from the filibuster's demise, both for the
   Senate and for American democracy, outweigh any potential negative
   consequences.

   Proponents view one probable consequence of ending the filibuster to also
   be a welcomed benefit. Ledewitz enthusiastically anticipates and endorses
   that it will permit voters to "[give] control of the government to one
   party, that party could enact anything that the Constitution permits."

   He glibly dismisses this outcome as, "So what? We have a name for that
   situation. It's called democracy... Sounds like a good system. We should
   try it."  Presumably because voters can always vote out the one party out.
   This naively ignores the reality of how difficult it is to remove
   one-party rule once in power.

   Most Americans would agree that one-party rule does not "sound(s) like"
   Democracy. Because it is, in fact, tyranny, only going by the name of
   democracy. And it's not at all what the Constitution's framers envisioned
   for a democratic republic form of government.

   A good argument can be made that one reason for the filibuster rule in the
   Senate is to give a tool to senators in the minority for asserting or
   forcing senators in the majority to recognize their state's co-equal
   rights. The left-leaning non-profit Brennan Center for Justice
   acknowledges, "that a group of senators representing a small minority of
   the country can use the filibuster to prevent the passage of bills with
   broad public support." Predictably, they view this practice unfavorably.
   But, in fact, the practice is vital for ensuring equal footing among all
   states in the union on the Senate floor.

   Without the filibuster, states whose senators are not in the majority risk
   losing their co-equal footing with the states in the majority. They will
   become more prone to having their Senate voices and rights diminished,
   ignored, or abused.

   Supporters of pure democracy would do well to first reflect on the
   Framer's own reasoning for rejecting it. The Framers chose their words
   carefully and precisely. They did so because they knew well that their
   words would one day be used against them, or rather, more detrimentally,
   against the Constitution which they were setting down as the new law of
   the land.

   It's important to note that the Framers deliberately chose to open the
   Constitution with "We the People." This introduction was not phrased this
   way only to show whose authority and behalf they were given the power to
   represent and speak. But also, whose rights and interests they were
   beholden to defend.

   If they intended only to speak for the majority of people, as in a pure
   democracy, they would have rightly and precisely written, "We the Majority
   of the People..." They did not, because they intended to represent equally
   all the people, the people both of the majority, and of the minority. They
   intended to create what Abraham Lincoln would later immortalize at
   Gettysburg, a national "government of the people, by the people, for the
   people" -- all the people.

   The Framers didn't reject pure democracy because they instead preferred
   minority rule, but because they had a keen understanding and distrust of
   human nature. More so, of the tyrannical tendencies of human nature
   concentrated anonymously as "The Majority." One party ruling over a
   minority is the same as an absolute monarch, as King George. They
   absolutely did not want or intend this.

   That same precision was used in the careful choice the words when naming
   the new country. The name was to describe its true character, The United
   States of America. "States," by design, hold a prominent and central
   position in the name.

   Subsequent nations would choose names familiar to all as much for what
   they are, as for what they are not, such as, the People's Republic of
   China (PRC), and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), aka
   North Korea. These nations, of course, are neither (purely or remotely)
   democratic nor protective of individual rights. The American democratic
   republic, the United States of America (USA), is both!

   Had the Framers intended a pure democracy, pure majority rule, they would
   have enshrined it in the nation's name. They would have named it some
   variation to those chosen by China and North Korea. And if they had, time
   would have proved pure democracy to be no less tyrannical in practice than
   the actual systems of these two other countries with free-sounding names.

   "States" hold a prominent and central position in the naming of the United
   States of America by design because the Framers wanted to clearly
   communicate that the new nation was to be a union of individual states,
   peopled by individuals with common but also distinct interests.

   By experience, from when the states were joined together only by a loose
   confederacy, they knew a republican form of government was preferable to a
   confederacy. They could also perceive how one day, what's good for a
   "California" and a "New York" may not be good for a "Montana" and an
   "Ohio." Thus, they also knew that a democratic republic form of government
   was preferable to either a pure republic or a pure democracy.

   Pure democracy may sound good on paper and may seem a no-brainer to modern
   American mind. But for good reason, it does not appear anywhere on the
   paper of the U.S. Constitution. The Framers understood well that pure
   democracy would ultimately only lead to poor democracy. Pure democracy is
   poor democracy because it does not adequately protect the rights and
   unique interests of all the people from the dangers of a tyrannical
   majority. If pure democracy did not sound good to the Framers, most
   assuredly, "one party rule" did not sound to them anything at all like
   democracy. We definitely should not try it.
===

-- Sean

... Retirement is the time where there is plenty of it or not enough.
--- MultiMail/Linux
 * Origin: Outpost BBS * Johnson City, TN (618:618/1)