The United States has never been a democracy
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After 2 votes and with 6 points ahead, the winner is...
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Since the election of 2020, supporters of former President Donald Trump have become notably more willing to assert their belief that voting in America is suspect. That Trump won an election he lost. That "millions of ballots" were uncounted or miscounted. That voting by mail was fraught with abuse.
Despite the lack of evidence, and the judgments of election officials from both parties and judges appointed by presidents from both parties, election denialism has become not only a thing, but a movement. And when critics call this an attack on democracy, some election deniers respond by saying the U.S. is not a democracy, it is a republic.
There's a lot of discussion in this debate over what makes a strong vs. a weak democracy, particularly from Pro. That's not a particularly relevant question in this debate, since this debate is a yes or no question: does the US have a democracy or not? The case Pro brings argues that the system is often oligarchic, which he does support, but Con makes a rather convincing case that democracy still exists within the US, albeit sometimes without the typical majority rule system. Pro concedes that majority rule does, at least sometimes, play a role in how we elect our officials, since he only mitigates the evidence Con presents. As such, we need a clear delineation, i.e. what would make the US a non-democracy? Pro stipulates that there are three distinct elements that are all required to call a country a democracy:
"(CA) public opinion has significant impact on lawmaking.
(CB) each individuals voice is of equal power.
(CC) the population is called to a free election at regular intervals"
Pro concedes the third. Pro also concedes the first, since he concedes (largely by omission) that public opinion has a significant impact on who becomes/stays a lawmaker, and as such, there is at least some significant impact on lawmaking. The only question is whether each individual must have equal power, as Pro does make the case quite convincingly that that equality does not exist.
The problem here is definitional. It's unclear from Pro's definitions that equal power must exist between voters for it to be a democracy. His Dictionary.com definition does include the necessity of "equality of rights and privileges" and "political or social equality", though in both cases, it's unclear how much equality must be achieved to be called a democracy. Must this be absolute? Also, it doesn't help that Pro presents two definitions, the first of which (from Oxford) doesn't include these specifications of equality, nor does Con's Merriam-Webster definition. So if the majority of definitions in this debate don't include this stipulation, I need to know why Dictionary.com definition is the end-all-be-all, and I need to know what degree of equality is required to meet the threshold for democracy. In the absence of that clarification, all of Pro's arguments end up on the sliding scale between weak and strong democracies. Con basically concedes that the US is a weak democracy, but he nonetheless demonstrates that, under the majority of definitions in this debate as well as those best clarified throughout the debate, it is still a democracy. As such, I vote Con.
Pretty straight forward debate over definitions.
I will say that con missed a glaring weakness in the pro case, in that pro listed things which are eroding the democracy in a debate declaring there was never any democracy to erode…
So pro does well in showing that the US is fairly undemocratic on the aggregate level. With a huge population, the impact of my one voter is negligible, and elected officials try to rid elections with such BS as gerrymandering, plus there’s non-elected officials in certain key roles
Con is able to show that the elected officials are indeed elected by the people, and the minority which cannot vote does not undermine if something is a democracy via one of the definitions offered by pro. That elected officials place non-elected officials into key roles, is still fitting with democracy via the self evident detail that elected officials are /elected/.
were the debate over the strength of the democracy, cons case would not hold up, but elected representatives sucking doesn’t invalidate that they are elected making everything stem from democracy itself.
TY for the votes
I've read through this so I'll try to get a vote up this weekend.
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>Reported Vote: Undefeatable // Mod action: Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 3 points to Pro
>Reason for Decision:
Sadly, Con did not address the heart of Pro's argument telling us that the minority of the persons can vote for a president, and the president will still win. Con has only offered the possibility of the law making and the checks and balances, which don't really tell us how they outweigh the people having little to no effect on the Senate Laws or perhaps even the Presidential election. Feel free to ask for more details in the comments.
>Reason for Mod Action:
Though the voter does address some arguments presented by both sides, they left aside the central issue of the debate, which is the definitional debate. It's fine if the voter sees certain parts of the given definitions as paramount, but the voter must at least address that portion of the debate, as it appears crucial to the arguments from both sides.
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I'll see what I can do.
Please vote on this debate.
Can you vote in this please?
The checks and balances are literally what keep the US democratic. How can you call that a valid rfd?
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>Reported Vote: Shila // Mod action: Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 7 points to Pro
>Reason for Decision:
The hypocrisy in the American system of government has been fully exposed. The organized lies behind all its foreign policy resulted in unnecessary wars. The American system sustained black slavery for 300 years. The founding fathers were themselves slave owners.
10 percentage of the rich own 89% of America’s wealth. Democracy is not supposed to function this way. But America did since its creation.
Therefore one is forced to conclude: The United States has never been a democracy.
>Reason for Mod Action:
Awarding arguments requires that the voter assess points made in the debate, not select a side that they see as agreeing with their perspective. The voter does not justify any of their other point allocations.
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Thanks for the feedback.
Thanks for retracting your vote in light of your new assessment about this debate.
Your strategy is the same in both your statements as it is here in the comments.
You are getting criticized, but do not address the content and pretend that another context-less point of your argument has just not been understood.
And ending your statement with "I win" is really not worthy of the art of debating!
I can remove it, although I would caution you not to use comments as the basis of your decision, since that discussion is all happening outside of the debate itself.
Here is your vote for reference:
"I expected slightly more from this but it seems rudimentary so I can be more brief. Con provided a definition of democracy, seemingly a commonplace one that perfectly encompasses the United States. Pro's argument appeared to be akin to the nirvana fallacy, and did not sufficiently combat the categories laid out by the contender. I get the impression that the US is an indirect democracy, and pro's notions of imperfection were not enough to disprove this."
Stop your games novice.
Can you remove my current vote for now?
I may have to change my vote, I want to rather, but the time has ended. I would have left it as a placeholder tie, because I can add more analysis based on what people are bringing up in the comments section and I should actually go through some of the arguments.
I critized that you didn't refer to pro's arguments, not that I don't understand your arguments
If you understand what Senators and House Representatives are, as well as governors, a lot becomes clearer about how the US is a democracy.
You just explained the US system but didn't really address pro's arguments - by doing so you would be much more convincing. For example Jesper stated that US presidents can win the election with minority support and that studies show that the opinion of one person doesn't really matter in the US - you didn't refer to these pointsl
Okay, I feel the same about Pro with my arguments.
i think rationalmadmane has not really understood the arguments
He is arguing that it is not pure mob rule enough for his liking.
I felt it was irrelevant as something does not need to be an extreme democracy to be a democracy the definitions spoke for themselves there.
It is up to you and other voters to decide if I made a mistake or Pro did.
Did RationalMadman even read and fully understand pro's arguments?
Please vote, thanks.
Most americans have no education or knowledge needed to build a prosperous nation. I recommend they read "On the principle of Juche" by Kim Jong Il.
What is the definition of democracy and republic? And are we going with the classical understanding of republic or the classically liberal view of republic? And is a democracy simply a majority vote, as the classical liberals understood it? Or is it the way 21st century Democrat Party understands it, as the government having a popular vote for officials and then doing whatever it wants once in power without any checks or balances other than another vote?
Without these definitions it is impossible to actually have this debate. Because, in the classically liberal sense, America is not a democracy, because it is not based solely on a majority vote. It is a Republic, which is based on controlled representation in government, where the people get just enough representation to have a voice, but not a bigger voice than the government itself. In this case, America is a republic.
But if we are going by the ancient understanding of a Republic, then it could be a dictatorship, a warrior king society, or a society built on natural rights, since all of these were called a "republic" in ancient times. In this case, America is a Republic.
And if we are going by the 21st century Democrat Party definition of a republic, then America does not qualify as a Republic, because of the huge scores of unelected bureaucrats determining policy without the people's majority voice.