Quote from: captchunk on July 18, 2014, 07:23:25 AM

Quote

The USA was NEVER a Democracy!

Where did you go to school?

Did you sleep through class?

The USA is a Constitutional Federal Republic.

It has never been and never will be a "Democracy"!

Jesus.

Sometimes I wonder how some people remember to breathe.

You done yet? That warm fuzzy feeling of being a condescending jerk worn off now?

Ok now read:

"Democracy is a form of government in which all eligible citizens participate equallyeither directly or indirectly through elected representativesin the proposal, development, and creation of laws."

The Economist's 2012 list of countries classified as "Full Democracies":

Norway
Sweden
Iceland
Denmark
New Zealand
Australia
Switzerland
Canada
Finland
Netherlands
Luxembourg
Austria
Ireland
Germany
Malta
United Kingdom
Czech Republic
Uruguay
Mauritius
South Korea
United States of America***
Costa Rica
Japan
Belgium

Democracy comes in many forms. A Constitutional Republic is still a democracy. Many states even engage in direct-democracy.

Got it? Good. My sympathies however, because now you're going to have to find some other piece of semantics to vocalize on internet forums in order to rudely insult other people's intelligence and feel good about yourself.

The LostDutchman is additionally wrong because the discussion topic is New York state legislation.

Even if you want to nitpick over whether or not a constitutional republic is classified as a democracy or not, individual US states such as New York are themselves democracies. The federal government on the other hand is a constitutional republic comprised of multiple individual state democracies. Since we are discussing NY state legislation (not federal), we are discussing a democracy.

Dutchman probably slept through his civics classes Wink