I think I get where you're coming from. We're confusing Democracy, a form of elected government, to democracy, short hand for majority rule.

I would suggests that Democracy =/= democracy. Having a Democracy does not preclude special voting requirements as we can see in our amendment voting requirements. Another example is run-off voting preformed in some countries. Further, as many constitutions are cribbed from ours, I'd speculate that special voting requirements are a somewhat common thing.

No Democracy that I know of solely relies on democracy. But just as we shouldn't automatically accept majority opinion, nor should we discard it.

If we accept liberty as a metric, we can only conclude that western Democracies are far more free than the alternatives. I do agree, however, that this subject is outside the scope of the forums.

The Saudi's aren't our regional enforcer; we're their's. The Saudi's have had us by our curlies for longer than my lifetime. The fact that the US made no overt support for the Bahrainian Monarchy, despite the Saudi's very special interest for us to do so, speaks volumes to me.

Originally Posted By: Derid
I think a case could be made that US behavior has changed to a degree. Though I think an equally strong case could be made that we have a long ways to go.


That's fair, as long as we can agree that supporting Democracy, not necessarily democracy, is a good thing.