…not a democracy. Some people apparently need continual reminding.
50 thoughts on “We Are A Republic”
Rand, which defintion of republic are you using? I have no idea which definition the author of the article you linked to was using (and the lack of a definition defeated the purpose of the article.)
Anyone who wants to give a definition will have confront the fact that “republic” does not adequately characterize what makes the USA’s form of government so wonderful – you need to also refer to “democracy” in some way, or you’ll have included too many other kinds of government.
It might be instructive to cmpare and contrast the USA with other countries to see the relative importance of “republic” and “democracy” — for example: the UK is not a republic while Russia is one.
Like the author, I am using the one the Founders used. Recall Franklin’s comment to the woman who asked him what he had given us when he walked out of the Constitutional Convention: “A Republic, madame, if you can keep it.” We have been eroding it for many decades (the Sixteenth and Seventeenth amendments having been disastrous in that regard).
What is the defintion used by AWR Hawkins? I think he doesn’t really give one when he says “Yet America is a republic, not a democracy. Our Founding Fathers instituted a form of government guided by the rule of law rather than the desires of a majority of voters. ” You could have a totalitarian state that is guided by the rule of law rather than the desires of a majority of voters.
I think you can’t ask people to remember to call the USA a republic and not a democracy unless they have a good definition of what a Republic is.
Here’s the wikipedia article: “en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic” Do you disagree with the definitions suggested in the article?
I think “liberal democratic republic” is the best characterization, almost regardless of how you define “republic”.
Bob, did you skip over the part about unalienable rights?
So care to define these “unalienable” rights for us while you’re at it?
I’m curious to understand which philosophical school of thought you believe in on that score.
We’ve been discussing this issue over at John Scalzi’s blog (you’d like his piece on Healthcare btw) and there does appear to be quite a lot of disagreement on this point – which suggests that these rights, whatever they are, are far from universally agreed, nor clear.
I also wonder if there would even be a USA without the 16th amendment?
The USA managed to survive for over a century without a Sixteenth Amendment. How would its absence have resulted in the end of the Republic?
@Dave:
IIRC, Jefferson listed three: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. I haven’t seen too many people argue with those.
One can make a case that the Bill of Rights (Madisons’ greatest achievemnt IMNSHO) constitutes a fairly good summation of Unalienable Rights – as long as they’re not watered down by later laws/judicial opinions.
The 17th Amendment is an abomination. There’s a reason Senators are not directly elected in the original Constitution.
The 16th Amendment is rather silly. The Constitution grants to Congress the power to levy taxes. They didn’t need an Amendment to go to an Income Tax.
I also have a fundamental problem with 26th Amendment.
The inalienable rights make the USA a liberal sort of democratic republic (or, if the word “liberal” is overloaded, use “free” instead).
I have yet to see why you put so much weight on the USA being a republic. I’d much rather live in free democratic non-republics like the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zeeland, and Japan rather than republics like, say, Russia, Iran, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Burundi.
“Republic” implies very little – it leaves room for the worst government imaginable. Freedom and democracy are much more important.
Now I understand why this country is going in the direction it is; arguing over the definition of “Republic” or what is an “unalienable rights”. To destroy a society first you must destroy the language. PC speak and obscuring the meanings of words does this and allows charlatans and thieves to take over.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”
I’d much rather live in free democratic non-republics like the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zeeland, and Japan rather than republics like, say, Russia, Iran, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Burundi.
Your point is that you’d rather live in places other than hell holes? Who wouldn’t?
Did you have a point? The question is, would you rather llve in those places than here? If not, why?
George, I don’t understand your comment. Don’t you think the founding fathers would want each generation to make sure they understood what a republic was? I see no PC speak in this thread, and the meaning of words will not be obscured if we simply offer a definition.
I think “Republic” simply means “a country without a king” , a form of government which served the USA well, but the UK,etc came up with a good alternative, and meanwhile, communists, fascists, theocrats, and kleptocrats came up with terrible examples of republics.
If you want to focus on life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the consent of the governed, focus on preserving and promoting free democracies rather than getting hung up on the republican nature of the USA’s form of government.
PS It is fun to think about whether rights are indeed alienable in the UK and other free countries, particularly those which are not republics.
Rand, I made my point repeatedly: Being a “republic” does not rule out a place being a repressive undemocratic hellhole. The USA is not a hellhole by virtue of being a republic – it is a wonderful place by virtue of being a liberal democracy.
Caveat: you might choose a more obscure definition of “republic” which incorportates “democracy” but in that case, you should acknowledge it and stop saying “the USA is not a democracy”.
Being a “republic” does not rule out a place being a repressive undemocratic hellhole.
Of course. But I didn’t use scare quotes about the word Republic, as you did. No, we are not one of those places that use it cynically and deceptively, as the “Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea” does.
We mean it.
If you really are having a problem with this, I would suggest reading Burke, Locke and the Federalist Papers. You’d apparently be much better for the education.
Please ignore what appear to be scare quotes – they were a result of bad editing, the vestigial remnants of a previous version which I almost successfully deleted.
I completely agree that we mean it when we say we are a republic. But is it that we mean? I say that we simply mean we have no king. In that case, we are a republic, just as surely as Iran is a republic. North Korea claims to be a republic but its leader seems to be the functional equivalent of a king. The UK is not a republic, but its Queen has been put in her proper place and her subjects have the freedom that we enjoy and that Iranians and North Koreans yearn for. The point, again, is that being a republic is not the most important part of being a free country.
Bob, I’m very disturbed (though not in a Darth Vader way — else you should be very concerned) that you continue to compare us to North Korea and Iran. Why are you so obtuse about this? Or do you really think there’s no difference? Do you have no idea how un-American/idiotic you make yourself look?
Simply calling yourself a republic doesn’t make you one. Why are you having so much trouble with this concept?
You are the one having trouble with a concept. I asked you for a definition of republic. I gave you the one I was using (a republic is a country without a king, and that doesn’t imply freedom or democracy). What is your definition?
Also: please check your reading comprehension — I think you misread what I wrote. I am saying that the USA is like the UK, even though the UK is not a republic, and I am saying that the USA is not like Iran, even though it is a republic. As for North Korea, I think I made it clear that I think it is not a republic, despite its name. No need to be disturbed — all I was doing was laying out the four permutations of (republic or not a republic, free or not free).
Bob, I already told you how to find it. Read what the Founders thought it was. I don’t have time to write a Reader’s Digest Condensed Version for you.
Ok, but your project of reminding people that “america is a republic” is doomed if you can’t explain what a republic is in just a few sentences.
Also, coming up with a short definition would be a good exercise for you. When I was in school (working on artificial intelligence techniques), my thesis advisor’s advice was “if you can’t explain how your program works to your mother, you don’t really understand it yet.” (*)
(*) (With apologies to any mothers who are well versed in AI.) There, that was for you George. Now I’ve finally gotten all PC.
Bob-1, just Google “constitutional republic” for an answer.
“A Republic, madame, if you can keep it.”
I believe it is pretty obvious that Franklin referred our nation as a “republic” in the sense that the power is held by the citizens of our nation. Under a framework of laws, the citizens democratically elect representatives to represent their interests within the government as well as officers to oversee the functioning of government. Sadly, Franklin was probably correct in his implied warning that the citizens grasp on power was probably tenuous at best.
To destroy a society first you must destroy the language. PC speak and obscuring the meanings of words does this and allows charlatans and thieves to take over.
There seems to be a lot of this going around these days.
I’d say the two articles are inconsistent with each other, and both are inconsistent with Hawkin’s article. No surprise – the word “republic” is seriously muddled.
Don’t you think the founding fathers would want each generation to make sure they understood what a republic was?
There’s understanding, and then there’s redefining. One is good, the other — as Mike alludes above — not so much.
a republic is a country without a king
What is a king? For example, North Korea purports to be a republic, but it clearly has a head of state who inherited that position for life, a king in all but name. Second, the Wikipedia definition also includes “the people (or at least a part of its people) have an impact on its government”. I would count Iran as a republic (in addition to being a theocracy), for example, merely due to the elections (assuming a bit too generously they don’t keep rigging them).
I don’t really know how to describe the US, since it has a mixed government, but it clearly is not a pure democracy and unlikely to become so (perhaps just as unlikely as it is to be come a pure Libertarian state for those interested in such things).
I always thought the distinction between a republic and a democracy was whether the public directly votes on issues, or votes to elect representatives who vote on the issues. Whether a government has constitutional guarantees or whether anything can be decided by majority vote is important, but I didn’t think that was what distinguished republics from democracies. These definitions form dictionary.com support that.
republic
a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.
democracy
government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.
Bob Steinke,
Note that dictionary.com gives at least three definitionns:
1. a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.
2. any body of persons viewed as a commonwealth.
3. a state in which the head of government is not a monarch or other hereditary head of state.
In any case, Rand and Hawkins seem to be emphasizing yet another defintion, hence the confusion. After all, if Rand had initially written “We are a representative democracy, not a direct democracy. Some people apparently need continual reminding”, he wouldn’t have linked to Hawkins and given the non-contentiousness and clarity of such a claim, I doubt anyone would have even commented, and he certainly wouldn’t have gotten any argument from anyone
Karl,
What you are saying about N. Korea is exactly what I’m saying about N. Korea.
But consider that having a king isn’t necessarily what keeps a country from being free. Unlike the 1700s, humanity has now invented ways to keep royalty from being repressive. Obviously there are the liberal democratic constitutional monarchies of Europe, but “powerless figurehead” is not the only role royalty can play in a free country. Canada and Australia have both had constitutional crises recently (see links below) which could have been resolved democratically, but instead, they situations were resolved by the intervention by the governor-general (the King or Queen’s representative), and this intervention did not make Australians or Canadians substantially less free. Australia may become a republic in the next 25 years, but if/when it does, nothing much will change.
Define the term Republic as used in Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
I doubt anyone would have even commented, and he certainly wouldn’t have gotten any argument from anyone
Hmmm, we do seem to be missing some our usual gang of reflexive contrarians in this thread, now that you mention it.
Leland, I think we all agree that North Korea uses the word for propaganda purposes only. I don’t think anyone contributing to this thread disagrees about North Korea. It is not a republic, both because it appears to have a hereditary system for selecting its head of government and, depending on your definition of the word “republic”, because a very small group of military leaders appear to be running the country without any input from any other part of the populace. Does this answer suffice?
Bob,
Define the term Republic as used in Islamic Republic of Iran.
Leland, Iran and the UK lie at the heart of my argument that it doesn’t mean much to say that a country is a republic. I’ll answer your question about Iran, and the I’ll ask you a question about the UK.
The argument for why it is a republic can be made differently depending on which definition of republic you use.
If you simply use the definition which says that a republic is a country without a king or king-like hereditary ruler, then Iran has been a republic since the Shah was overthrown.
If you use the definition which says that a republic is a country in which, in addition to not having a king, a portion of the populace has an impact on the government of the country, then Iran is republic due to its unique and rather complex system of distributing power. Iran is not a free country, and its democracy very flawed, and a sham in some ways, but it is not a complete and utter sham. Refer to “www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ir.html” for a description of Iran’s power structures and a description of the influences that the populace has on the government. If the Supreme Leader was simply running the show, Iran would not be a republic under this second definition, but that’s not what is happening – it is much more complex than that, as the CIA website indicates. You won’t hear any praise from me for Iran’s system and yes,they beat people in the street recently – I’m not ignoring that at all! But those beatings are not the whole story when it comes to figuring out how power is distributed in Iran.
If you use the definition of republic which says that a republic is a representative democracy, then Iran is a republic. We can get into the mechanics of Iran’s unique government if you insist, but we’ll end up arguing about the relative power of the various elected bodies such as Legislature of Iran versus the Assembly of Experts versus the role of the local city councils (which have a national role as well). Candidates come from pre-selected lists, and yet, because of the competing power centers referred to above, the people’s vote often actually matters, and will determine the direction of the country.
There are other more murky definitions of a republic using which Iran would not be a republic. I suspect that Rand and Hawkins are referring to some these definitions, but I think a concise definition is required if you want to actually use these definitions.
I tried to answer your questions.
Now I have a question for you: Is the United Kingdom a republic?
The USA managed to survive for over a century without a Sixteenth Amendment. How would its absence have resulted in the end of the Republic?
It might not, but I don’t believe it would have been able to handle the wars of the 20th century from a position as leading power without it. Certainly not and survive in an easily recognizable form.
@Gregory:
Jefferson listed three: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. I haven’t seen too many people argue with those.
He did, although they’re a paraphrase of earlier works which included “property”.
However, frankly, these are a little hard to disagree with in the way that a statement like “rain is generally wet” is hard to argue against.
Without a contextual understanding of Liberty or Happiness it’s really hard to examine how these rights can be maintained or ensured.
I’ll note, on reflection that I’m also not convinced that you actually need a constitutional amendment for the government to collect income tax. So, I will modify my position that without a centralized system of tax collection I don’t believe the US could have maintained it’s position of power it gained at the start of the 20th century and maintained it through WW2 and the various proxy wars of the Cold War.
Although, knowing how your constitution gets thrown around when deciding if the government actually *can* do something I suppose I understand why they went down that route.
Not sure I can fault the 26th on anything other than a knee jerk reaction to my 40s setting in and looking at kids today and shaking my head.
without a centralized system of tax collection I don’t believe the US could have maintained it’s position of power it gained at the start of the 20th century and maintained it through WW2 and the various proxy wars of the Cold War.
We managed to have a pretty major war on our own soil without an income tax.
We managed to have a pretty major war on our own soil without an income tax.
Now, I don’t want to be accused of mis-reading you or making things up Rand – so could you clarify the point you’re making here:
Are you actually saying that you believe that because the US (or constituent parts as then) didn’t need an income tax to fight the civil war, the same would have been true of the global series of conflicts starting in the 1930s and rolling through to the end of the Cold War in the 1990s?
Would your position be that the US would have the same military force projection capability it has now without an income tax system?
I don’t see why not. There are other ways to raise money than with an income tax (again, as we saw in the war between the states). And in fact, that force projection is hardly the biggest portion of the federal budget. At least, not any more.
I’m still not convinced that the comparison is the same. Not to mention, I suspect that even if you’d had an income tax it would have been tricky to collect in the middle of a civil war!
Googling around on estimates of the cost of the Civil War, I find most places tend to agree on a sum of $10billion in 1870s dollars as the total direct costs. Using the Measuring Worth calculators (http://www.measuringworth.com/) I get a range of answers, but if we go with the most conservative (the inflation based analysis) that gives us $185 billion in 2008…
If I compare with the numbers that Boing Boing were using to show how insane the bail out was (http://boingboing.net/2008/11/25/bailout-costs-more-t.html) which were also inflation adjusted that puts the Civil War at half the cost of the Korean War.
Ignoring WW2 and just looking at post WW2 US military and related activity in adjusted dollars we have $1.8 trillion spent (Marshall Plan, Iraq, Vietnam, Korea) – I’ve only seen estimates of the total 1945 cost of WW2 to the US but they were around $340billion or $4 trillion in adjust dollars.
So if we add in WW2, Iraq, Vietnam, the Marshall Plan and Korea I get about $5.8 trillion in inflation adjusted dollars… factor in WW1, which Google keeps telling me cost about the same as WW1 (which I find hard to believe), then we’re at $9.8 trillion in inflation adjusted dollars for the major conflicts (excluding general Cold War spending) of the time period since you brought in the 16th Amendment…
Or, to put it differently, the military activity funded by the US government since 1913 is equivalent to the cost of about 50 American Civil Wars.
On reflection, I also find it interesting that the current US national debt is about the same as the US have spent on foreign military activities since 1913.
Is the United Kingdom a republic? No
Define the term Republic as used in People’s Republic of China.
Leland, what point are you trying to make? Are you trying to say that some countries call themselves republics when they really aren’t? Does anyone disagree with that claim? I certainly don’t.
The key issue is that I’m trying to make is that when someone from the UK says “we are not a republic”, it doesn’t mean anything particularly bad, and when Rand reminds us that the USA is a republic, it doesn’t mean anything particularly wonderful.
I think the more interesting way to disagree with my claim is to argue that the UK is indeed a republic, using a definition of “republic” which I would hope would be spelled out, but you haven’t chosen to make that argument, so I’m not sure what you are trying to accomplish.
Clarification; if you define “republic” to require “representative democracy”, then it might be something wonderful, but in that case, Rand’s claim that “we are a republic and not a democracy” is wrong, and Hawkin’s muddled claims are even more wrong.
Bob wrote: the USA is a republic, it doesn’t mean anything particularly wonderful.
Leland, I suggest you read this very short article in its entirety:
It discusses the difficulties with defining the word “republic”, it makes every point I wanted to make, and it gives James Madison the credit that is due to him. At the very least, read parts (I) and (IV).
Bob,
Define the term Republic as used in Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
I will answer your question after you answer my question about what you are trying to accomplish, and after you give at least some indication that you read and understood what I wrote in the above comments. If there was something you were unclear about, I would be happy to have a conversation with you, but thus far, our interaction doesn’t seem very much like a conversation.
Bob,
If you want a conversation, create your own blog. There, you can link to whatever and have expectations others will read the links, and maybe they will follow the lead of your post as a conversation in the thread.
Whatever you do, this is not a conversation: I think the more interesting way to disagree with my claim is to argue that the UK is indeed a republic
That’s idiocy, and I’ll have no part of it. And before you demand people read your links, read Burke, Locke, and the Federalist Papers. After all, this is Rand’s blog, and if you want to participate in conversations with him, perhaps you should try reading what he suggests. Otherwise, you can’t expect to keep up.
I think that under many of the definitions of “republic” discussed above, the modern UK could be considered a republic.
Bob Steinke, in an above comment, suggested that we use dictionary.com’s first definition: “a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.” Using that definition, the modern UK is a republic. First, lets assume we are only talking about legal power, not coups, not illegal procedures. Even so, if the Queen were to make some demand which contradicted the will of the majority of the voters in the UK, or even the majority of lawmakers, I bet she would find that one way or another, she would not get what she wants, even as legal niceties were still observed.
Bob: I think the more interesting way to disagree with my claim is to argue that the UK is indeed a republic
Bob: the modern UK is a republic.
Enjoy the conversation, Bob.
Japan is an even more interesting case. It is a constitutional monarchy, but according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_power#Japan
unlike other constitutional monarchies, the emperor has no reserve powers at all. Instead, the American lawyers who wrote Japan’s post-war constitution saw to it that the constitution “states that the sovereignty of Japan rests with the people, not the emperor, and that the emperor is merely the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people.” Using the various definitions discussed in the comments and links above, Japan appears to be a good example (perhaps the world’s best example) of a constitutional monarchy which is also a constitutional republic.
Rand, which defintion of republic are you using? I have no idea which definition the author of the article you linked to was using (and the lack of a definition defeated the purpose of the article.)
Anyone who wants to give a definition will have confront the fact that “republic” does not adequately characterize what makes the USA’s form of government so wonderful – you need to also refer to “democracy” in some way, or you’ll have included too many other kinds of government.
It might be instructive to cmpare and contrast the USA with other countries to see the relative importance of “republic” and “democracy” — for example: the UK is not a republic while Russia is one.
Like the author, I am using the one the Founders used. Recall Franklin’s comment to the woman who asked him what he had given us when he walked out of the Constitutional Convention: “A Republic, madame, if you can keep it.” We have been eroding it for many decades (the Sixteenth and Seventeenth amendments having been disastrous in that regard).
What is the defintion used by AWR Hawkins? I think he doesn’t really give one when he says “Yet America is a republic, not a democracy. Our Founding Fathers instituted a form of government guided by the rule of law rather than the desires of a majority of voters. ” You could have a totalitarian state that is guided by the rule of law rather than the desires of a majority of voters.
I think you can’t ask people to remember to call the USA a republic and not a democracy unless they have a good definition of what a Republic is.
Here’s the wikipedia article: “en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic” Do you disagree with the definitions suggested in the article?
I think “liberal democratic republic” is the best characterization, almost regardless of how you define “republic”.
Bob, did you skip over the part about unalienable rights?
So care to define these “unalienable” rights for us while you’re at it?
I’m curious to understand which philosophical school of thought you believe in on that score.
We’ve been discussing this issue over at John Scalzi’s blog (you’d like his piece on Healthcare btw) and there does appear to be quite a lot of disagreement on this point – which suggests that these rights, whatever they are, are far from universally agreed, nor clear.
I also wonder if there would even be a USA without the 16th amendment?
The USA managed to survive for over a century without a Sixteenth Amendment. How would its absence have resulted in the end of the Republic?
@Dave:
IIRC, Jefferson listed three: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. I haven’t seen too many people argue with those.
One can make a case that the Bill of Rights (Madisons’ greatest achievemnt IMNSHO) constitutes a fairly good summation of Unalienable Rights – as long as they’re not watered down by later laws/judicial opinions.
The 17th Amendment is an abomination. There’s a reason Senators are not directly elected in the original Constitution.
The 16th Amendment is rather silly. The Constitution grants to Congress the power to levy taxes. They didn’t need an Amendment to go to an Income Tax.
I also have a fundamental problem with 26th Amendment.
The inalienable rights make the USA a liberal sort of democratic republic (or, if the word “liberal” is overloaded, use “free” instead).
I have yet to see why you put so much weight on the USA being a republic. I’d much rather live in free democratic non-republics like the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zeeland, and Japan rather than republics like, say, Russia, Iran, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Burundi.
“Republic” implies very little – it leaves room for the worst government imaginable. Freedom and democracy are much more important.
Now I understand why this country is going in the direction it is; arguing over the definition of “Republic” or what is an “unalienable rights”. To destroy a society first you must destroy the language. PC speak and obscuring the meanings of words does this and allows charlatans and thieves to take over.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”
I’d much rather live in free democratic non-republics like the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zeeland, and Japan rather than republics like, say, Russia, Iran, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Burundi.
Your point is that you’d rather live in places other than hell holes? Who wouldn’t?
Did you have a point? The question is, would you rather llve in those places than here? If not, why?
George, I don’t understand your comment. Don’t you think the founding fathers would want each generation to make sure they understood what a republic was? I see no PC speak in this thread, and the meaning of words will not be obscured if we simply offer a definition.
I think “Republic” simply means “a country without a king” , a form of government which served the USA well, but the UK,etc came up with a good alternative, and meanwhile, communists, fascists, theocrats, and kleptocrats came up with terrible examples of republics.
If you want to focus on life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the consent of the governed, focus on preserving and promoting free democracies rather than getting hung up on the republican nature of the USA’s form of government.
PS It is fun to think about whether rights are indeed alienable in the UK and other free countries, particularly those which are not republics.
Rand, I made my point repeatedly: Being a “republic” does not rule out a place being a repressive undemocratic hellhole. The USA is not a hellhole by virtue of being a republic – it is a wonderful place by virtue of being a liberal democracy.
Caveat: you might choose a more obscure definition of “republic” which incorportates “democracy” but in that case, you should acknowledge it and stop saying “the USA is not a democracy”.
Being a “republic” does not rule out a place being a repressive undemocratic hellhole.
Of course. But I didn’t use scare quotes about the word Republic, as you did. No, we are not one of those places that use it cynically and deceptively, as the “Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea” does.
We mean it.
If you really are having a problem with this, I would suggest reading Burke, Locke and the Federalist Papers. You’d apparently be much better for the education.
Please ignore what appear to be scare quotes – they were a result of bad editing, the vestigial remnants of a previous version which I almost successfully deleted.
I completely agree that we mean it when we say we are a republic. But is it that we mean? I say that we simply mean we have no king. In that case, we are a republic, just as surely as Iran is a republic. North Korea claims to be a republic but its leader seems to be the functional equivalent of a king. The UK is not a republic, but its Queen has been put in her proper place and her subjects have the freedom that we enjoy and that Iranians and North Koreans yearn for. The point, again, is that being a republic is not the most important part of being a free country.
Bob, I’m very disturbed (though not in a Darth Vader way — else you should be very concerned) that you continue to compare us to North Korea and Iran. Why are you so obtuse about this? Or do you really think there’s no difference? Do you have no idea how un-American/idiotic you make yourself look?
Simply calling yourself a republic doesn’t make you one. Why are you having so much trouble with this concept?
You are the one having trouble with a concept. I asked you for a definition of republic. I gave you the one I was using (a republic is a country without a king, and that doesn’t imply freedom or democracy). What is your definition?
Also: please check your reading comprehension — I think you misread what I wrote. I am saying that the USA is like the UK, even though the UK is not a republic, and I am saying that the USA is not like Iran, even though it is a republic. As for North Korea, I think I made it clear that I think it is not a republic, despite its name. No need to be disturbed — all I was doing was laying out the four permutations of (republic or not a republic, free or not free).
Bob, I already told you how to find it. Read what the Founders thought it was. I don’t have time to write a Reader’s Digest Condensed Version for you.
Ok, but your project of reminding people that “america is a republic” is doomed if you can’t explain what a republic is in just a few sentences.
Also, coming up with a short definition would be a good exercise for you. When I was in school (working on artificial intelligence techniques), my thesis advisor’s advice was “if you can’t explain how your program works to your mother, you don’t really understand it yet.” (*)
(*) (With apologies to any mothers who are well versed in AI.) There, that was for you George. Now I’ve finally gotten all PC.
Bob-1, just Google “constitutional republic” for an answer.
“A Republic, madame, if you can keep it.”
I believe it is pretty obvious that Franklin referred our nation as a “republic” in the sense that the power is held by the citizens of our nation. Under a framework of laws, the citizens democratically elect representatives to represent their interests within the government as well as officers to oversee the functioning of government. Sadly, Franklin was probably correct in his implied warning that the citizens grasp on power was probably tenuous at best.
To destroy a society first you must destroy the language. PC speak and obscuring the meanings of words does this and allows charlatans and thieves to take over.
There seems to be a lot of this going around these days.
Danae,
Compare and contrast this article,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic including this part
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic#United_States
with this article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_republic
I’d say the two articles are inconsistent with each other, and both are inconsistent with Hawkin’s article. No surprise – the word “republic” is seriously muddled.
See this discussion on the flaws of the latter article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Constitutional_republic_2
There’s understanding, and then there’s redefining. One is good, the other — as Mike alludes above — not so much.
a republic is a country without a king
What is a king? For example, North Korea purports to be a republic, but it clearly has a head of state who inherited that position for life, a king in all but name. Second, the Wikipedia definition also includes “the people (or at least a part of its people) have an impact on its government”. I would count Iran as a republic (in addition to being a theocracy), for example, merely due to the elections (assuming a bit too generously they don’t keep rigging them).
I don’t really know how to describe the US, since it has a mixed government, but it clearly is not a pure democracy and unlikely to become so (perhaps just as unlikely as it is to be come a pure Libertarian state for those interested in such things).
I always thought the distinction between a republic and a democracy was whether the public directly votes on issues, or votes to elect representatives who vote on the issues. Whether a government has constitutional guarantees or whether anything can be decided by majority vote is important, but I didn’t think that was what distinguished republics from democracies. These definitions form dictionary.com support that.
republic
a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.
democracy
government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.
Bob Steinke,
Note that dictionary.com gives at least three definitionns:
1. a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.
2. any body of persons viewed as a commonwealth.
3. a state in which the head of government is not a monarch or other hereditary head of state.
In any case, Rand and Hawkins seem to be emphasizing yet another defintion, hence the confusion. After all, if Rand had initially written “We are a representative democracy, not a direct democracy. Some people apparently need continual reminding”, he wouldn’t have linked to Hawkins and given the non-contentiousness and clarity of such a claim, I doubt anyone would have even commented, and he certainly wouldn’t have gotten any argument from anyone
Karl,
What you are saying about N. Korea is exactly what I’m saying about N. Korea.
But consider that having a king isn’t necessarily what keeps a country from being free. Unlike the 1700s, humanity has now invented ways to keep royalty from being repressive. Obviously there are the liberal democratic constitutional monarchies of Europe, but “powerless figurehead” is not the only role royalty can play in a free country. Canada and Australia have both had constitutional crises recently (see links below) which could have been resolved democratically, but instead, they situations were resolved by the intervention by the governor-general (the King or Queen’s representative), and this intervention did not make Australians or Canadians substantially less free. Australia may become a republic in the next 25 years, but if/when it does, nothing much will change.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King-Byng_Affair (the grandfather of the more recent events)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional_crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008–2009_Canadian_parliamentary_dispute
and, in general,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_powers
Bob,
Define the term Republic as used in Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Hmmm, we do seem to be missing some our usual gang of reflexive contrarians in this thread, now that you mention it.
Leland, I think we all agree that North Korea uses the word for propaganda purposes only. I don’t think anyone contributing to this thread disagrees about North Korea. It is not a republic, both because it appears to have a hereditary system for selecting its head of government and, depending on your definition of the word “republic”, because a very small group of military leaders appear to be running the country without any input from any other part of the populace. Does this answer suffice?
Bob,
Define the term Republic as used in Islamic Republic of Iran.
Leland, Iran and the UK lie at the heart of my argument that it doesn’t mean much to say that a country is a republic. I’ll answer your question about Iran, and the I’ll ask you a question about the UK.
The argument for why it is a republic can be made differently depending on which definition of republic you use.
If you simply use the definition which says that a republic is a country without a king or king-like hereditary ruler, then Iran has been a republic since the Shah was overthrown.
If you use the definition which says that a republic is a country in which, in addition to not having a king, a portion of the populace has an impact on the government of the country, then Iran is republic due to its unique and rather complex system of distributing power. Iran is not a free country, and its democracy very flawed, and a sham in some ways, but it is not a complete and utter sham. Refer to “www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ir.html” for a description of Iran’s power structures and a description of the influences that the populace has on the government. If the Supreme Leader was simply running the show, Iran would not be a republic under this second definition, but that’s not what is happening – it is much more complex than that, as the CIA website indicates. You won’t hear any praise from me for Iran’s system and yes,they beat people in the street recently – I’m not ignoring that at all! But those beatings are not the whole story when it comes to figuring out how power is distributed in Iran.
If you use the definition of republic which says that a republic is a representative democracy, then Iran is a republic. We can get into the mechanics of Iran’s unique government if you insist, but we’ll end up arguing about the relative power of the various elected bodies such as Legislature of Iran versus the Assembly of Experts versus the role of the local city councils (which have a national role as well). Candidates come from pre-selected lists, and yet, because of the competing power centers referred to above, the people’s vote often actually matters, and will determine the direction of the country.
There are other more murky definitions of a republic using which Iran would not be a republic. I suspect that Rand and Hawkins are referring to some these definitions, but I think a concise definition is required if you want to actually use these definitions.
I tried to answer your questions.
Now I have a question for you: Is the United Kingdom a republic?
The USA managed to survive for over a century without a Sixteenth Amendment. How would its absence have resulted in the end of the Republic?
It might not, but I don’t believe it would have been able to handle the wars of the 20th century from a position as leading power without it. Certainly not and survive in an easily recognizable form.
@Gregory:
Jefferson listed three: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. I haven’t seen too many people argue with those.
He did, although they’re a paraphrase of earlier works which included “property”.
However, frankly, these are a little hard to disagree with in the way that a statement like “rain is generally wet” is hard to argue against.
Without a contextual understanding of Liberty or Happiness it’s really hard to examine how these rights can be maintained or ensured.
I’ll note, on reflection that I’m also not convinced that you actually need a constitutional amendment for the government to collect income tax. So, I will modify my position that without a centralized system of tax collection I don’t believe the US could have maintained it’s position of power it gained at the start of the 20th century and maintained it through WW2 and the various proxy wars of the Cold War.
Although, knowing how your constitution gets thrown around when deciding if the government actually *can* do something I suppose I understand why they went down that route.
Not sure I can fault the 26th on anything other than a knee jerk reaction to my 40s setting in and looking at kids today and shaking my head.
without a centralized system of tax collection I don’t believe the US could have maintained it’s position of power it gained at the start of the 20th century and maintained it through WW2 and the various proxy wars of the Cold War.
We managed to have a pretty major war on our own soil without an income tax.
We managed to have a pretty major war on our own soil without an income tax.
Now, I don’t want to be accused of mis-reading you or making things up Rand – so could you clarify the point you’re making here:
Are you actually saying that you believe that because the US (or constituent parts as then) didn’t need an income tax to fight the civil war, the same would have been true of the global series of conflicts starting in the 1930s and rolling through to the end of the Cold War in the 1990s?
Would your position be that the US would have the same military force projection capability it has now without an income tax system?
I don’t see why not. There are other ways to raise money than with an income tax (again, as we saw in the war between the states). And in fact, that force projection is hardly the biggest portion of the federal budget. At least, not any more.
I’m still not convinced that the comparison is the same. Not to mention, I suspect that even if you’d had an income tax it would have been tricky to collect in the middle of a civil war!
Googling around on estimates of the cost of the Civil War, I find most places tend to agree on a sum of $10billion in 1870s dollars as the total direct costs. Using the Measuring Worth calculators (http://www.measuringworth.com/) I get a range of answers, but if we go with the most conservative (the inflation based analysis) that gives us $185 billion in 2008…
If I compare with the numbers that Boing Boing were using to show how insane the bail out was (http://boingboing.net/2008/11/25/bailout-costs-more-t.html) which were also inflation adjusted that puts the Civil War at half the cost of the Korean War.
Ignoring WW2 and just looking at post WW2 US military and related activity in adjusted dollars we have $1.8 trillion spent (Marshall Plan, Iraq, Vietnam, Korea) – I’ve only seen estimates of the total 1945 cost of WW2 to the US but they were around $340billion or $4 trillion in adjust dollars.
So if we add in WW2, Iraq, Vietnam, the Marshall Plan and Korea I get about $5.8 trillion in inflation adjusted dollars… factor in WW1, which Google keeps telling me cost about the same as WW1 (which I find hard to believe), then we’re at $9.8 trillion in inflation adjusted dollars for the major conflicts (excluding general Cold War spending) of the time period since you brought in the 16th Amendment…
Or, to put it differently, the military activity funded by the US government since 1913 is equivalent to the cost of about 50 American Civil Wars.
On reflection, I also find it interesting that the current US national debt is about the same as the US have spent on foreign military activities since 1913.
Is the United Kingdom a republic? No
Define the term Republic as used in People’s Republic of China.
Leland, what point are you trying to make? Are you trying to say that some countries call themselves republics when they really aren’t? Does anyone disagree with that claim? I certainly don’t.
The key issue is that I’m trying to make is that when someone from the UK says “we are not a republic”, it doesn’t mean anything particularly bad, and when Rand reminds us that the USA is a republic, it doesn’t mean anything particularly wonderful.
I think the more interesting way to disagree with my claim is to argue that the UK is indeed a republic, using a definition of “republic” which I would hope would be spelled out, but you haven’t chosen to make that argument, so I’m not sure what you are trying to accomplish.
Clarification; if you define “republic” to require “representative democracy”, then it might be something wonderful, but in that case, Rand’s claim that “we are a republic and not a democracy” is wrong, and Hawkin’s muddled claims are even more wrong.
Bob wrote: the USA is a republic, it doesn’t mean anything particularly wonderful.
Leland, I suggest you read this very short article in its entirety:
http://encarta.msn.com/text_761554383___0/Republic_(government).html
It discusses the difficulties with defining the word “republic”, it makes every point I wanted to make, and it gives James Madison the credit that is due to him. At the very least, read parts (I) and (IV).
Bob,
Define the term Republic as used in Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
I will answer your question after you answer my question about what you are trying to accomplish, and after you give at least some indication that you read and understood what I wrote in the above comments. If there was something you were unclear about, I would be happy to have a conversation with you, but thus far, our interaction doesn’t seem very much like a conversation.
Bob,
If you want a conversation, create your own blog. There, you can link to whatever and have expectations others will read the links, and maybe they will follow the lead of your post as a conversation in the thread.
Whatever you do, this is not a conversation:
I think the more interesting way to disagree with my claim is to argue that the UK is indeed a republic
That’s idiocy, and I’ll have no part of it. And before you demand people read your links, read Burke, Locke, and the Federalist Papers. After all, this is Rand’s blog, and if you want to participate in conversations with him, perhaps you should try reading what he suggests. Otherwise, you can’t expect to keep up.
I think that under many of the definitions of “republic” discussed above, the modern UK could be considered a republic.
Bob Steinke, in an above comment, suggested that we use dictionary.com’s first definition: “a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.” Using that definition, the modern UK is a republic. First, lets assume we are only talking about legal power, not coups, not illegal procedures. Even so, if the Queen were to make some demand which contradicted the will of the majority of the voters in the UK, or even the majority of lawmakers, I bet she would find that one way or another, she would not get what she wants, even as legal niceties were still observed.
Bob: I think the more interesting way to disagree with my claim is to argue that the UK is indeed a republic
Bob: the modern UK is a republic.
Enjoy the conversation, Bob.
Japan is an even more interesting case. It is a constitutional monarchy, but according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_power#Japan
unlike other constitutional monarchies, the emperor has no reserve powers at all. Instead, the American lawyers who wrote Japan’s post-war constitution saw to it that the constitution “states that the sovereignty of Japan rests with the people, not the emperor, and that the emperor is merely the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people.” Using the various definitions discussed in the comments and links above, Japan appears to be a good example (perhaps the world’s best example) of a constitutional monarchy which is also a constitutional republic.