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Representative Republic
RedRoman 27th Jul 2010
@shis-ka-bob
Saying that we are a Democracy is an oft-repeated error which most of the time is fairly harmless. In this case, though, the error is central to your entire argument, making your argument fatally flawed.

Our system of government is NOT a Democracy, but rather a Representative Republic. One of the main reasons for this is the concept that most citizens do not have the time, resources, and sometimes comprehension to intelligently parse through all issues at hand for the government, and then be able to address them in a fair and deliberate approach. So, to that point, the citizenry elect others to do that for them. One consequence of this is that those elected representatives sometimes need to maintain secrecy around some information so that the "masses" can be protected from themselves and from others. You may not like this (and, for that matter, I may not either), but it is a central concept of our system of governement. And if you don't believe that the "masses" ever need to be protected from themselves, consider the old adage that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" - meaning that if you get a piece of the story, but not the whole story and all its context, then you run the risk of seriously misconstruing the information in the story and acting in an ill-advised manner. The vast majority of society can not - and would not - take the time and effort to gather the entire story. Wiki Leaks does not provide you with the entire story and background.

If you think that this is just plain wrong ... well, then pretty much your only option is to find a way to convince the rest of the country to throw away 234 years of mostly successful society for a do-over.
ie8 fix

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