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Comment by Dr_tldr | Hacker News Reader

But most people would pick the will of the majority making some bad decisions than the absolute dictatorship that would be needed to enforce a highly subjective list of human rights.

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You understand that this is the very reason the US is a Republic not a Democracy, and has safe guards to prevent the tyranny of the majority.

Maybe maybe not. Democracy must mean that society has some right to shape how people will behave within it, and sometimes that imposes an affirmative burden on people to behave a certain way (e.g. mandatory schooling). That's not all tyranny.

I understand the argument you are attempting to make, but you presuppose the masses are informed and always capable of making logical decisions which will not infringe upon the rights of the minority. Thankfully the Founders of Our Nation had the Foresight to protect its citizens from themselves they established a Republic.

>“ It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure.” -James Madison Federalist Papers No 51

The Politicians of Our Nation Throw Around the Word Democracy to make the low information plebs feel as though the power rests with them, it is a charade. I don't mind the down votes if it means some of the users on the site have a better understanding of US civics.

Edit: By the way your example of Mandatory Schooling could not be further from an example of a Democracy. Did you or the rest of the citizens of the US ever have a vote on that?

FWIW mandatory schooling is seen as tyrannical by a not insignificant section of [UK] society. Some even see schooling as primarily a way to establish the populous within an authority structure to allow the ruling classes to maintain control more easily.

An 'affirmative burden' and a 'tyrannical edict' seem like they could differ only in perspective.

Technically I believe we are a Democratic Republic, as we directly vote on laws within our states. Legal Marijuana, for instance, was chosen by the Citizens of my state, Oregon; not by elected politicians.

We're really a Federal Republic, a collection of states where the citizens vote on their Representatives, who are then supposed to legislate under the guidelines of a Constitution which delegates power to various branches.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_republic

The citizens of Oregon do get to vote on Initiatives and Referendums, that is something which is relatively new to the state 1908, and not the way states outside of the Western part of the country operate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy_in_Oregon ^^ This page has a nice map showing other states as well.

In many of the blue states on the map constitutional amendments for the state can be proposed and voted on but the majority of laws are simply written by the legislature.

... the legislature being comprised of democratically elected representatives, no?

A federal republic of democracies at least?

Not really, most of the states in the US are not Direct Democracies.

> as we directly vote on laws within our states.

that varies from state to state. California, for example, does have direct ballot initiatives at the state level. New York State (where I live) generally does not, though they aren't excluded by the state constitution, there is just not a very strong tradition of direct ballot measures here.

every state in the U.S. implements representative democracy in a slightly different way.

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