Seth wrote:
The point is that what you say the "common parlance" is and what it actually is are two different things. Those who spout "democracy" at every turn don't mean or support a republic bound and guided by a constitution which limits both the power and scope of the government, but also restricts the "democratic" decisions of the collective. "Democrats" today are people who want things their way, and only their way, and are unwilling to acknowledge, recognize or respect the rights of others when and where those rights conflict with the "democratic" party line.
Therefore, to say that "democracy" is a good thing is to say that the tyranny of the majority is a good thing, which it's not.
It means what it means in modern English usage. That's what the words mean.
What you're actually saying is that what it means, and what it may have meant in some other place and time are two different things. Yes, indeed, the meanings of words change and evolve over time. Today, democracy means what I wrote. Look it up in any of the major dictionaries.
Some people do, when they spout "democracy", mean and support a republic bound and guided by a constitution. Others don't. The words democracy and republic cover a broad array of forms of government, and before one knows what another person is spouting about, one needs to ask them what they mean.
There are some people who think that there should be no individual rights, and that the majority, even in areas of religion and speech and whatnot, ought to win the day in every case. But, that's not many people. Most people, when they say they like democracy also like the idea that the majority can't vote about who they have consensual sex with, and what political beliefs they hold and express, etc.
We, the US, is not a "pure" democracy in the sense of a democracy where the people directly vote on all issues, and the majority rules come what may. But, then again, such a society has never existed in the history of mankind, and to be a "democracy" a government need not be that. A representative republic is, in fact, a democracy under modern English usage.
And, I'll add that for the last 200+ years the English usage has been much the same -- here, a quick google revealed this dictionary from 1828 --
http://books.google.com/books?id=z3kKAA ... &q&f=false - look up democracy. All it says is that the sovereign power lodged in the collective body of the people.
Here is Samuel Johnson's diction from the late 1700s -
http://books.google.com/books?id=bXsCAA ... &q&f=false - it says that "democracy" is one of the three forms of government, that in which the sovereign power is lodged in the body of the people. The "three forms of government" referred to there were "autocracy", "oligopoly" and "democracy." So, before and after the founding of the US, English usage was that the United States was, in fact, a "democracy."
