Almost everyone calls the United States a democracy. Constitutional scholar Bill Norton says that is not completely wrong, since we have democratic elements, but it misses what the Founders actually did. They did not just decline to build a democracy. They rejected it outright.
Norton reads James Madison from Federalist No. 10: democracies "have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention," have always been "incompatible with personal security or the rights of property," and have "been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." Then he explains the moment every pure democracy starts to fail: when people discover they can vote themselves money out of someone else's pocket. If you are not part of the majority, you are toast.
Jenny Beth Martin adds the practical problem. Voting on every issue means only the people who show up decide, and nobody has the time to be informed on everything. Norton agrees: it is already a full-time job for legislators, and the people who promote pure democracy have not thought through what it would take to run one.
So if we are not a democracy, what are we? The Founders' word was republic. But Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the BRICS nations, all call themselves republics too, and they look nothing like each other or like us. Res publica just means of the people. Norton's point lands hard: Americans can define every other form of government, but ask them what a republic is and they cannot answer. They do not know who we really are.
This clip is from Lesson 3 of the Constitution and first principles training series on The Jenny Beth Show. Bill Norton is coauthor of Speaking the Language of Liberty.
Watch the full lesson at jennybethshow.com. Sign up to help get out the vote at iwillsaveamerica.com. To reach your senators and representative, call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.
00:00 — We Are Not a Democracy
00:30 — Madison: Democracies Die Violent Deaths
01:12 — Voting on Every Issue Sounds Good Until You Try It
01:52 — Nobody Has Time to Run a Pure Democracy
02:57 — So What Are We? The Word Republic
03:20 — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa
04:11 — Res Publica: Of the People, From the People
04:50 — Nobody Can Define a Republic
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