Reply #96: It's an impression that's fostered by certain people

[Mairead]

for their own ends, but it's not really true, if you accept that specialised words mean what experts in the applicable field (political science, in this case) say they mean, rather than what non-experts might say they mean. If you don't accept that principle, of course, then all bets are off.

The former colonists were a mix of monarchists and republicans. Monarchies were in the majority in Europe--the only republics were the minor states like San Marino. The important states--France, Britain, and to a lesser degree Spain (because of its New-World colonies) and Russia (because of its looming bulk) --were monarchies. The fragments that in the 19th c. became Italy and Germany were monarchies. The monarchists in the ex-colonies wanted Washington to take the title 'king', but he said no.

A monarchy can be an elected one or a hereditary one...but so can a presidency. There are conventions (most monarchs are hereditary, most presidencies elected), but they don't even rise to the status of guidelines--they're merely observations. Is someone who holds the title 'President-for-life' a real president, or a near-monarch? If someone has the title Predsedatel, is that an elected or appointed or hereditary one? There's no way to know from just looking at the title.

The ultimate power in any state always rests with its people. They can, if they work hard enough and are willing to sacrifice themselves, toss any monarch, dictator, president, or grand high poobah out on his arse or string him up to a lamppost, and change the system. So in some sense every state is a democracy.

But we actually call it a democracy only when the people have the power to take the big decisions. Decisions like whether to have universal healthcare, or whether to go to war, or how much to pay government functionaries, or whether to sack the president before his time. On some level, whether we cast the ballots ourselves or send a delegate to cast them for us doesn't matter. If the decision is ours then we have a democracy, and if the decision is not ours then we do not have a democracy.

Over 70% of us have wanted universal healthcare for decades...but we still don't have it, and it's not even on the horizon. That should tell us that we do not have a democracy.