"Democracy, in its best state, is but the politics of Bedlam; while kept chained, its thoughts are frantic, but when it breaks loose, it kills the keeper, fires the building, and perishes." ~ Fisher Ames

Fisher Ames was one of the founding fathers of the United States of America, a political giant and a great orator in his own right, had served as a Representative from Massachusetts in the First to the Fourth Congresses. What he was saying about democracy, he was deeply concerned with the dangers of an uneducated and ill-informed mass of people - susceptible to baser human emotions and vices - using democracy as the iron basis to enact and impose intimidating, punishing or cruel rules of law upon an orderly, civilized society for some demagogues. Moreover, Ames also recognized the dangers of an unfettered democracy through disturbing accounts of the French Revolution and its tragic consequences - in addition to the various political and social problems bedeviling the American colonies during the birthing era of an independent American republic. The United States of America, Fisher staunchly believed, should be a constitutional republic duly adhered to the rules of law agreed upon through elected representatives and not a democracy bounded together by men of preferred values and strong ideological or collective ambitions that could give the nation way to despotism or totalitarianism through an uncertain, terrified and ill-informed mass.

The United States of America have never been a democracy. It has always been a constitutional republic since its founding. For the past 5 years, I am still amazed with hearing or reading from other people - American citizens - who insisted, without a doubt or even second thoughts, that the United States is a democracy.

Sorry, people, it is not. Never have. Never will be.

Democracy is an idea, a powerful idea. A state of the mind meant for public or private discourse among people exchanging ideas on how to establish a just and lawful society of and for the people. A republic is a concept, to be politically developed and established by a group of elected persons with democratic notions, tasked with enormous civic responsibilities, social, and moral obligations to the people to form a just and lawful society. However, some people actually believe in or promote the very idea of a democratic republic but it is absurd and nonsensical. A republic cannot be truly a democracy because it would suggest the majority have the supposed power of the people to rule a republic and leave the minority or minorities powerless to challenge the majority. A case in point: the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" - known to the world as North Korea.

"Republic" is defined, according to any English-language dictionary, as "a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president instead of a monarch", coming from the Latin word, "respublica" or "respublicus" which translated as "concern of the public" (or, if you will, the modern equivalent - the concerns of the people).

When people wanted to live in a just, lawful and civilized society - translated as people of different upbringings getting along with everybody peacefully and to live freely and accordingly to their own ways - their concerns must be addressed all the times, through elected representatives delegated to an elected body of government for the society's sake and survival. Civilizations cannot be merely done by the whims of the powerful, the few or the one for some superficial or grandstanding purposes. It takes peoples, across generations, perhaps centuries, to make a civilization, of which ideas, principles, laws and foundations are shaped and established through various designs, hard works, persistence, and faith. When the people's concerns are addressed and followed through justly, the society will survive, thrive and prosper. So will a civilization.

When it doesn't, the society will wither, collapse and die. Civilization collapse. Therefore, the rule of the people must be in a perpetual balance with the concerns of the people, through the rules of the law as agreed upon by their elected representatives having moral and civic notions for the greater good of the society. The United States of America, as in the whole union, has a government of laws, not of men (or the people). If the rule of the people is paramount, then the United States would be more like Red China (collectivism). If the concerns of the people are paramount, the United States would become a loose affiliation of several hundred smaller independent "states" - each serving its own interests and concerns above all others (corporate feudalism). Which is why, as I'm stressing this importance, the balance between the rule of the people and the concerns of the people must always be perpetual, that to keep the society in motion and thriving.

I think, for the most part, people wanting to rationalize that the United States is a democracy is based on their firm and absolute belief in the nation being run, exclusively, for and by the people. While that's a good justification, the real question is: which people? Your people? My people? That other people? The people in general? Everybody? The Democrats? The Republicans? Are we all that truly equal as the people? Or some being more equal than the others?

Regardless of a clearly defined setup of true equality, democracy in the United States can never be truly achieved without respecting and addressing the concerns of the free citizens, for those who really understand what is at stake and are prepared to shape and to defend it, with their lives so that a free and constitutional republic - as in the United States of America - can survive, thrive and prosper under democratic conditions - without the darker or baser aspects of human nature.

Bear all that in mind when you are about to vote on the Election Day, November 7th. You are doing Fisher Ames, the founding fathers and all those who gave their lives for this country a huge favor.