> America is, in theory, a representative democracy ...
America was once a republic, precisely to avoid the madness we are talking about in this thread. One by one the protections against mob rule have been dismantled.
A country with a Supreme Court that believes threshing wheat is interstate commerce is not a republic. Ditto for a country with federal bunny rabbit inspectors.
> A country with a Supreme Court that believes threshing wheat is interstate commerce is not a republic. Ditto for a country with federal bunny rabbit inspectors.
I know of no reasonable definition of "republic" under which either of these statements is defensible. "Republic" doesn't mean a system of government that produces exclusively outcomes that meet with Daniel_Newby's approval.
that's a non-sequitur. "Republic" isn't the average of oligarchy and mob rule, or anywhere in between those. It's orthogonal to them. You certainly can have a system with strong elements of both that is a republic (as demonstrated by the essentially prototypical republic, that of Rome.)
You seem, again, to be conflating what you like with what a Republic is.
America was once a republic, precisely to avoid the madness we are talking about in this thread. One by one the protections against mob rule have been dismantled.