praise_yeshua said:
The Rogue Tomato said:
praise_yeshua said:
And we don't live in a Republic. We live in a Democratic Republic. Get it right. That's why delegates are largely bound by the vote of the people. That's why some states have a winner take all delegate process.
We are technically a constitutional republic. In reality, we're a banana republic.
Which simply a democratic republic that somewhat.... Limits the actions of elected officials through a constitution. That doesn't really matter anymore. Which is why call it a democratic republic.
To many it "does matter". I agree with Rougue that we are a Constitutional Republic as we derive our rights from the constitution. True conservatism is the pursuit to hold to that foundation. From a few of our founding fathers and the Constitution:
Thomas Jefferson: "All the powers of government, legislative, executive, and judiciary, result to the legislative body [in the Virginia Constitution of 1776]. The concentrating these in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one. 173 despots would surely be as oppressive as one."
John Witherspoon: ?pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state ? it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.? - See more at: http://madisonproject.com/page/4/?s=republic#sthash.rq0l2xfW.dpuf
James Madison: An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.
Benjamin Franklin: "It's a republic, if you can keep it.
Article 4 section 4 of the Constitution - ?the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government.?
Because we have become untethered from the foundation doesn't mean we trash the foundation and render it irrelevant. We should seek to regain our footing.