Two Party political systems

[Snrrub]

Originally posted by Jyn
Irrelevant? You really think you can just brush off "the documents" I mentioned? Those documents are the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They aren't just documents.... Please explain why/how you can possibly think this is irrelevant.

I did not say that the documents were irrelavent, I said that the fact they did not explicitly label the United States as a democracy is irrelavent to the consideration of whether the US is a democracy.

Those two documents also don't ever use the word 'nation' in referrence to the United States. Does that mean the US is not a nation? Those two documents do not use the word 'capitalist'. Does that mean the US is not a capitalist society?

Why are you assuming that every property of the United States has to be explicitly stated in those two documents for it to be true?

This is the definition of democracy according to the Oxford English Dictionary:

1) Government by the people; that form of government in which the sovereign power resides in the people as a whole, and is exercised either directly by them (as in the small republics of antiquity) or by officers elected by them. In mod. use often more vaguely denoting a social state in which all have equal rights, without hereditary or arbitrary differences of rank or privilege.

b)A state or community in which the government is vested in the people as a whole.

2. That class of the people which has no hereditary or special rank or privilege; the common people (in reference to their political power).

The United States is quite obviously a democracy according to the definition of the word. The Constitution of the United States quite specifically describes exactly how its democracy is to be implemented, and so on. The Constitution therefore certainly does define the political system of the United States as a democracy, but the fact that it doesn't use that word explicitly doesn't make the slightest difference.

[edit] I notice also that in your posts you offer to explanation as why the US might not be a democracy, except by labelling it as a republic instead - and then suggesting that a 'democratic republic' is simultaneously redundant and contradictory.

[edit 2] Here is the definition of 'republic', also from the Oxford English Dictionary

1. The state, the common weal. Obs.

2. a. A state in which the supreme power rests in the people and their elected representatives or officers, as opposed to one governed by a king or similar ruler; a commonwealth. Now also applied loosely to any state which claims this designation.

b. Applied to particular states having this form of constitution.

c. Without article: Republican constitution or government. rare{em}1.

3. fig. and transf. a. Any community of persons, animals, etc., in which there is a certain equality among the members.