Unseen and Fellow Unbelievers,
First, let’s define our terms: Democracy, literally defined, is unlimited rule by a majority. Or as it is sometimes attributed to Ben Franklin: “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.”
Democracies can be direct in the form of a New England town hall meeting or representative in the form in State Legislatures or Congress, but they both would turn into rule by mob or rule by whoever can whip up a mob if they were not held in check by division of powers and by a charter of principles to check unlimited power.
With this in mind, The Founders of the United States made us a Constitutional Republic, which Ben Franklin is said to have described as “a well-armed lamb calling off the vote.”
Under the U.S. Constitution, government power is divided geographically between the Federal Government and the several State Governments and the Federal Government is divided into Branches of Legislative, Judicial, and Executive. The Legislative Branch is divided into the House and the Senate. The House can propose new laws and spending but can be checked by the Senate. The whole Legislative Branch can approve laws and spending, but can be Vetoed by the Executive Branch or a Citizen with standing who is harmed by the law can make a case and take it all the way to the Supreme Court of the Judicial Branch, who can declared the law Unconstitutional.
Uniting them all is the U.S. Constitution, which is supposed to limit the functions of every Branch of Government and it includes Amendments. The first Ten Amendments are The Bill of Rights that recognize Individual Rights which the Federal Government may not violate. The 13th through 15th Amendments are The Reconstruction Amendments which require the State Governments must also not violate Individual Rights. And the 19th and 26th Amendments extend the vote to women and 18+ year-olds.
In every aspect of the U.S. Constitutional Republic, Democracy in it’s unlimited form has no place and Democracy isn’t even mentioned in the U.S. Constitution.
And we as U.S. Atheists and Atheists visiting from abroad should be glad of this and fight to keep it that way. Even if 30 percent of U.S. Citizens are religiously “Nones,” that is still a minority.
And as Ben Franklin concluded after the formation of The Constitution we have: “A Republic…if you can keep it.”
RichRaelian 2 weeks, 6 days ago.
