badgenome said:
LOL. No. The reality is that the Republicans are a uselessly centrist party who suck at politics, while the Democrats keep moving further and further to the left on almost every single issue and the majority of the media provides cover for them by pretending that only Republican positions are extreme. See: abortion. The mainstream position on abortion is that it should be legal up to a point, and that a viable fetus should not be terminated without reason. The Democratic Party has drifted so far left on the issue that the pro-life Democrat is basically extinct, but you won't hear a word about how this represents a radicalization of the party to the point that no Democrat can challenge this dogma without being called anti-woman. While the media ceaselessly tried to tie every single pro-life Republican to Todd Akin, they have never spent a single second scrutinizing Obama's equally extreme position of abortion any time, anywhere, for any reason, paid for by tax payers.
I don't exactly see how the idea that the United States is a republic and not a democracy has anything to do with your jumping at Ayn Rand-shaped shadows, but as far as I'm concerned the "Tea Party mentality" (also, the founding fathers' mentality) that there ought to be a hedge against a tyranny of the majority is charmingly quaint in this day and age of unbridled government and much preferable to the left's mentality that the Constitution is just so much toilet paper. |
America is a democracy that elects representatives, outside of some local and state initivaties. It elects representatives that are to respond to the will of the people and temper extremes. You can also have non-democratic republics which are dictatorial, and one party rule. America isn't that. You has the U.S.S.R that was a socialostic republic. For a democratic republic to work, you need to have a sufficiently independent and self-reliant public, and sufficiently educated, in order to have the will of the people properly represented.
This democratic republic mentality grew post the founding fathers and was subject to debate also. You had eltists who wanted to end up being governed by an upper class, and you had the populist side. Originally, Democrat and Republican represented the differences in these mindsets. As of now, it is a big blur, with both the Republican and Democratic parties representing collections of interests groups and negotiated truces between them. The GOP side happens to currently represent a collection of interests groups that isn't sufficient to get elected.
The heart of the issue here is whether or not the people should rule themselves, or if they need to be governed by elites. Anything else is a matter of degree and implementation.
