The United States was not founded as just a “representative democracy,” nor is “representative democracy” a synonym for “republic.” The point of the American Republic established by the U.S. Constitution is that free and sovereign individuals ceded to their federal (covenantal) state only a limited, explicitly enumerated, set of powers through that legal document.[1] Ours is, or at its founding was, a government of laws, not of men, whether those men be the majority of citizens or the majority of their representatives. (Inspired by some incessant wording run across in my local paper.)[2]
Notes
[1] I suppose it would be more correct to say that the sovereign individuals had ceded certain powers to their states when establishing the several states’ constitutions, and that the states then ceded an enumerated subset of those powers to the federal government.
[2] Individuals, I should note, are only sovereign within the scope of their God-appointed stewardship. So, for instance, they may freely risk their lives if they deem certain goals worth the risk, but they may not freely commit suicide. Individuals’ authority as stewards of themselves under God closely resembles self-ownership, particularly when it comes to deciding between asserted government authority and individual rights, but it is not self-ownership, at least not in the absolute sense meant by, for instance, secular libertarians.
I just got around to starting a series of YouTube videos that the John Birch Society posted earlier this year. So far (I’m on video 1) the series is excellent. More importantly, the organization has opted to depict the relationship between republics and democracies with a Venn diagram in much the way I’ve here chosen to distinguish republics from “representative democracies” (the only sort of democracies that can actually exist outside relatively small groups):
I’m pleased to see one of the few organizations that still objects to calling the United States a “democracy” opt to use a Venn diagram, not because I’m such a great fan of Venn diagrams, but because it at least confirms that someone else out there finds this kind of illustration cogent and relevant to the topic.
Were it not for my inability to endorse the conspiratorial theory of history, I’d consider signing on with the group, since I do find myself agreeing with most things it says on other topics. While I still must grant that, since the American demos does ultimately determine the laws of our republic, one can’t technically deny that the United States is a “democracy” in the broadest sense of that term, calling our liberty-centered, law-centered constitutional republic a “democracy” does neither our nation nor its people any good. I’m glad an organization like the JBS is our there fighting against such usage.