• yata
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      1 year ago

      No, republic just means that the role of head of state isn’t hereditary. Lots of dictatorships are republics, some democracies are as well. The actual political system of the USA is representative democracy (in theory at least).

      The fact that these terms are so muddled in the minds of the average American is completely deliberate, because it makes it so much easier for them to subvert US democracy when people have been told that the US is not one.

      • rhombus
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        1 year ago

        There are a couple definitions. One I’ve heard most is a republic has a citizen as head of state, which disqualifies both monarchies and military dictatorships. Another is that the head of state is elected or nominated, which disqualifies non-representative systems entirely.

        • sugar_in_your_tea
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          1 year ago

          I’ve always heard that a Republic is one where power rests in the people and is exercised through their representatives. So more the latter than the former.

          And it’s convoluted because governments are weird. For example, the UK is not a Republic, it’s a monarchy, though it’s effectively a Republic because the monarch has only symbolic power. To change the UK to a Republic would only require changing the position of head of state to an elected or appointed position subject to Parliament or the people (either one), which is largely a name change. On the flipside, Iran is a Republic, and it’s certainly less representative of the will of the people than the UK.

          So using terms like “Republic” or “Democracy” by themselves isn’t interesting, what’s interesting is what level of control the people have over their own government.

      • Ludwig van Beethoven
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        1 year ago

        republic /rɪˈpʌblɪk/ noun a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.

        from one of those Oxford ones

        • yata
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          1 year ago

          That is why it is technically a republic, but not in practice. The constitution says it is a republic, and they actually have an election for the role of head of state, well “election”, but of course in practice that is not how it works at all.

          The US is also technically a representative democracy, but in practice, well…

            • yata
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              1 year ago

              Your reading comprehension leaves something to be desired. We are in agreement, you are just a moron who can’t read.

              Also I am not lying, I am stating facts.

      • Z3k3@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s not just a Republic its a people’s Republic.

        So you know like way better. That’s why they don’t need elections it already says it belongs to the people

            • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              Sorry you prefer to choose between bad and worse every election over reaching concensus in a constituent meeting and then voting to confirm the candidate in an election, but that doesn’t make the dprk’s system less democratic

            • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              Racist “believe anything the US says about a state enemy they’ve previously committed genocide on” bootlicker

              • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Two words: Tienanmen square. If you have anything that resembles a defense of that you’re a POS. And you do.

                • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  The holocaust

                  The Bengal famine

                  The potato famine

                  WW1

                  WW2

                  The Vietnam war

                  The slave trade

                  Immigrant concentration camps

                  Apartheid/Segregation

                  If you have anything that resembles a defense of that you’re a POS

                  Imagine thinking the June 4th incident -where around 300 people died, slightly less than half of those people being unarmed PLA soldiers- can be used to condemn a system as large as China while every capitalist country has done much, much worse.

                  Hell, say the cultural revolution, say the post-civil-war famine, the way the cpc handled them can reasonably be criticized, and they are, by the current cpc.