I often wonder how great we would be today if America truly lived up to our potential. If we truly followed democratic principle. The founders set us on the road to a great destiny but the money grubbers changed all that and with our country in the grip of bigoted, right-wing religious extremist, (zealots), we are going down the toilet fast. If we were a nation that advanced truth instead of race, the world would know us as the proud and powerful nation that we pretend to be. I’ve had this discussion before and have always been told the same thing, as if from a secret right-wing playbook, “America is a republic not a democracy”. As you can guess that statement always comes from someone who loudly and proudly proclaim to be ‘conservative’ and who hate any association with the word democrat in any form. They’re half right, though. America is a republic… that follows democratic principles. Let’s take a moment to see where the founders were heading with this. What does republic mean? When the founders declared America a republic they clearly had one thought in mind. To them the definition of republic meant:
“A state in which the head of government is not a monarch or other hereditary head of state”.
So, in fact America IS a republic. Now, let define democracy. Democracy means:
“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”.
This is true also. We have in America, what is called “Representative Democracy”. Can you imagine how our economy would be effected if each and every one of us had to vote on every appointment, ratifications, bill, law, amendment that passed through congress on the state and federal level? Then we must also include in state, county, township and local level. That’s a lot of time voting. We’d be screaming for the return of monarchy. I assume that we are now all in agreement that America is both a republic and democracy, or at least understand, if you refuse to agree. I will move on.
America, like the many great societies that have come before, is at a cross-road. Do we stand behind the principles which we’ve expounded for over 200 years; having shed the blood of untold hundreds of thousands of our young men and women in defense of those principles; executed and assassinated tens of thousands here in this country and abroad; spent billions around the world to prop up seriously flawed democratic governments; fought a 40 year cold war with the then U.S.S.R., and now Islāmic extremists, or do we cast all that aside, because the someone who played by the rules, exercised those American principles and achieved the highest office in the land happens to be black? If those principles are cast aside so easily, then they really aren’t good principles to live by are they?
All across the nation I see crowds of people calling President Obama a socialist; a Nazi; a Kenyan, and those are the nice terms. Pictures of him in clown face are splashed around the world, for his children to see. There are people coming to rallies and town hall meeting where the president is, carrying guns. We have current and former elected and non-elected officials constantly on the airway denouncing a sitting president, spreading lies, misinformation and dissention. When does it end?
Is this the democracy that we’ve been spreading around the world? Do we support discrimination of citizens in other democratic countries, or does discrimination of blacks not really count as discrimination? Where is the outrage at this?
Let me say this. We are all victims of propaganda. When other nations and cultures shout anti-American slogans, they are actually referring to “White Male America”. They study us better than we study them and they know that minorities, (blacks, Hispanics, Asians and women have no power in this country. White male leaders in politics and corporations do. In this country the rest of us aren’t seen as Americans until there is a war. Our job is to consume and be fodder.
Can we get back on track or is it our time to self destruct like the great ancient cultures before us? Because of racism, having a black man win the presidency did more damage to this country than 911. The events of 911 galvanized a country into one people. Racism is going to destroy it.
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