For All Americans: The Best Answer For The GOP's Favorite "It's Not a Democracy, It's a Republic!" Diatribe

(Hey, I only pull out words like "diatribe" when I'm pissed.)

Ed Weissman at Green Mountain Daily does a bang-up job. I'll give you a big snip, but visit his diary at Green Mountain Daily for the whole thing:

This is a republic not a democracy. Of all the right wing claims, this is the most insipid and meaningless. It not only reveals the right's contempt for democracy, but their basic inability to reason.

For something to be A and not B, A and B must be mutually exclusive. One can say, in a silly example: this is an elephant not an ant. Democracies and republics are not mutually exclusive. Democracy refers answers the question: who governs? Republic refers to the question: how is the head of state chosen? The opposite of a republic is a monarchy. In a republic, the head of state is chosen by some mechanism of choice. In a monarchy, the head of state is determined by some form of the hereditary principle. Forms of government can range from democracies to constitutional non-democracies to the authoritarian and to the totalitarian. All these forms of government can be found in republics in monarchies. Fascist Italy was a totalitarian regime with a monarch as the figurehead; Saudi Arabia is a totalitarian regime that can also be called an absolute monarchy. In either a republic or a monarchy, the head of state may either be a figurehead or also the head of government. Monarchies that are constitutional democracies include the UK, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Australia etc. Republics that are constitutional democracies with a figure head as head of state include Germany, Israel, India. Republics with a head of state who is also head of government include the US, Costa Rica, and South Africa. Constitutional democracies may be based on the parliamentary model or the Presidential. Although the President of South Africa is both head of state and head of government, the system is parliamentary.