Democracy vs. Republic

This from a letter to the editor in Star News: "The United States is a republic and not a democracy and the majority does not rule."

I have to agree with that. If democracy were synonymous only with the majority rule, then everything would be relative. The majority rule trivializes inalienable human rights. In other words, there would be no inherent rights, only those that the majority would vote for. Imagine the struggle for Civil Rights in the 60's. Can we imagine voting for Civil Rights? And are we sure that the majority would have voted for the Act?

For example, prop 8 in California. It put gay marriage, which was ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court of California, to a vote. The scant majority (even that is questionable as many people did not even vote on the proposition) voted for the proposition in banning gay marriage. The majority ruled here that gay people do not have a right to marry when the state Supreme Court, in interpreting the state law, said they did. Hmm. I think that this majority rule is dangerous. Another case in point: I like to point out to my students that Nazis were also voted into office.

It truly is important for citizens to be educated so that the vocal majority does not rule and the true majority does not remain silent.