Our nation's founders are rolling in their graves.
Here are some examples of how they described Democracy:
Before getting into the specific quotes you offer, I note that of them, you offer
only one with any source. It is very important to offer sources for any quote you mention. In this way they can be verified to be correct and checked for context. Instead, you merely throw out a bunch of alleged quotes while offering no evidence any are real. And indeed, some of them appear to
not be real. One isn't even by a "Founding Father"! Did you not double check who Edmund Burke was before you copy/pasted this list?
However, even if every single one is real, they actually don't respond to my point at all. As I said in my prior post:
Yes, I know that in the past the word "democracy" was generally more specifically used to refer to a system like that in Ancient Athens (and other places in Greece), where power was given directly to the people (well, the ones who had the right to vote anyway) rather than exercised through representatives. Thus one can find various earlier writings contrasting "democracy" with the government of the United States--but that is in reference to that more narrow definition of democracy. And even then, often qualifiers like "pure" would be used to make it clear that was what they were referring to.
However, word meanings can shift over time, and the meaning of "democracy" has expanded and is commonly used to refer to cases where people exercise power through elected representatives like the United States (which is how pretty much every modern democracy exists). To say that the United States isn't a democracy simply doesn't make sense. It is. Long ago ago maybe you could be telling people they were misusing the word, but by the modern meaning of the term the United States fits.
You gave no response at all to the above point. Even if every single quote you offered is correct,
it doesn't matter, because the word does not have the same connotations as it did back in the 18th century and is more broadly used than it was then. I suppose if you want to say it would be wrong to call the United States a democracy according to the 18th century meaning, that might be valid; but last I checked, we are not living in the 18th century. Nor is this shift in meaning a recent thing; I noted how even two hundred years ago, the word was explicitly used to describe the United States by John Quincy Adams in his
inaugural address. You completely skipped over these points in favor of offering a bunch of quotes it is clear you just copy/pasted without spending any real effort verifying them.
So as noted, the quotes you offer do not matter. However, let us look at them anyway.
"Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; have in general been as short in their lives as they are violent in their deaths." --James Madison (You know...that guy who wrote our Constitution), Federalist Papers (# 10)
First, James Madison didn't write the Constitution. He contributed to it, obviously, but a lot of people played such a role.
However, the quote you offer very dishonestly cuts in
mid-sentence. Here is the full sentence:
"Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
Preceding "democracies" with "such" clearly shows he is referring to a specific kind of democracy, which your quote dishonestly omits. But what is this subset? If we see the full paragraph, we can easily see:
"From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions."
I previously noted that various writers would use the qualifier "pure democracy" and this is indeed an example. Thus, even back then, when the term had different connotations than it does now, it appears they did not inherently consider the term "democracy" to exclude that of the United States, but rather a "pure democracy".
"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." --Benjamin Franklin
You offer no source for this. I tried searching for it online, and I only found people either offering this quote with no source, or questioning whether Benjamin Franklin ever said this. Thus it is highly questionable that Franklin ever said it.
Even if he did say it, the word "democracy" is not found anywhere in this quote you offered, and thus is irrelevant to the meaning of the word.
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide". --John Adams
This one is actually valid. However, see my points mentioned at the start.
"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." --Thomas Jefferson
This one appears to be a false quote.
"Democracy is the most vile form of government... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." --James Madison
Everything following the ellipsis is just your first quote again from The Federalist 10, again dishonestly cutting in mid-sentence and omitting context. However, this one is worse because that opening part, "Democracy is the most vile form of government", isn't i the Federalist 10 at all. It appears to be completely made up, like the Jefferson quote I just looked into.
So, we have a false quoted mixed with a misrepresented quote.
"This was the only defence agst. the inconveniencies of democracy consistent with the democratic form of Govt. All civilized Societies would be divided into different Sects, Factions, & interests, as they happened to consist of rich & poor, debtors & creditors, the landed, the manufacturing, the commercial interests, the inhabitants of this district or that district, the followers of this political leader or that political leader, the disciples of this religious Sect or that religious Sect. In all cases where a majority are united by a common interest or passion, the rights of the minority are in danger. What motives are to restrain them?" -- James Madison
This one is legitimate (it's found
in Madison's notes at the Constitutional Convention), but the context is a bit more complicated. Here Madison is talking about the House of Representatives being popularly elected. Some expressed hesitance, and Madison here refers to how the large size of the country would be a "defence agst. the inconveniences of democracy" in it because it would make it difficult to assemble a reliable majority faction. In other words, he is not saying it is not a democracy, but that the population size would work to stop issues a democracy could have. Of course, as we know now, and have known for centuries, that political parties combined with first-past-the-post voting all but guaranteed there would be a clear majority and minority in the House of Representatives (hence the phrases "House Majority Leader" and "House Minority Leader"). Their lack of foresight on the issue of political parties is a major flaw with the Constitution--but that's another matter.
In the end, though, my points I raised at the start still stand.
"It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity." -- Alexander Hamilton
Hamilton here specifies "pure democracy" in reference to things like Athens. Again, even back then some felt it appropriate to add the qualifier "pure" to the word to clarify what they were referring to.
"In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority." --Edmund Burke
You preceded this list of copy/pasted quotes by saying it was what the "Founding Fathers" said. But Edmund Burke wasn't a "Founding Father", but a British politician.
Now, as noted at the start, even if every single one of these quotes were accurate, it still wouldn't actually affect my point. Insisting that the United States "isn't a democracy" based on how people back in the 18th century used the term makes little sense given we do not live in the 18th century. One might as well object to people using the word "awful" as meaning bad, and insist it be used in its earlier meaning of awe-inspiring.
However, even though the quotes you post are irrelevant to my point, I still find it notable how many of the quotes you offered are false, taken out of context, don't even use the word democracy, or aren't by any Founding Father. Indeed, let us take the wise words of another Founding Father:
"Many quotes you see on the Internet are not true." - George Washington
