Centerfield

Why Is Republican Democracy Good?

In classrooms, they teach us all that the United States is a Democratic Republic, as opposed to just plain Democracies, which didn't scale and involved single cities like Athens. But that's about it.

Imagine if the City Council of Washington, DC, or maybe its town assembly, governed the entire nation. Yes, it'd be a pretty bad government compared to what we have, because capital cities are always arrogant and partisan, and, well, people everywhere really only understand and deal well with what's in front of their nose.

Imagine if most generals who failed or had the slightest question mark raised tended to fall. Rumsfeld would've fallen much faster, but so, likely, would've one Gen Grant, whom you may've heard of. The Athenian Assembly could and did sentence people to death and any other penalty hastily - including an entire town in the Peloponnesian War. Imperial Athens and Republican Rome were like our DC - full of intrigues via investigations against the powerful, except it was far easier for the powerful to be booted with little evidence of wrongdoing.

The Athenian Empire fell when the Athenian people grew arrogant enough to believe they could conquer the world and gave power to demagogues who promised easy victories over first Sparta and then another big democracy, Syracuse. I lived near DC for many years, and feel that its culture is pretty arrogant, just as Athens' was, and for similar reasons. We can all be grateful the rest of the nation gets to vote. Mind you, I do think DC should get statehood (via amendment) - as they point out, no taxation without representation. That representation would still be a small minority. I also think DC should get the power to annex suburbs in Maryland and Virginia to reduce planning and funding problems.

That's what the Athenian Empire, and Roman Republic were like. Except at the very beginning of the Athenian Empire, there was only anything like any freedom for the one city. The Athenian Empire allowed subject cities to choose their own governments, albeit with the same kind of encouragement for democracy we've given, but Athens came to dominate all questions of foreign and military policy for subject cities, and took advantage of their status to invest imperial capital in Athenian projects like the Parthenon, and to punish even minimally troublesome subject cities by giving bits of them to Athenians.

Republican Democracy was invented in Great Britain. That's how it came to be called the United Kingdom - it's the unifications of the Monarchies and Parliaments of all nations on the island of Britain. You get to vote for your MP, regardless of whether you were born in England, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, or N Ireland (am I missing any?). Most PMs have been English, but the office is currently held by a Scot.

Notice that, when the UK got an Empire going, it did still look more old-style, in that Imperial subjects, like in, say, North America, couldn't cast any votes on anything, only some citizens of the United Kingdom could. Also, interestingly, on the subject of citizenship, was that one big cookie that Augustus and later Emperors gave out to to make people happy with the Empire was widening Roman citizenship far beyond the City; why not? no vote came with it anymore.

The UK still works today, though some Britons seem to think it's getting a little creaky, as they've federalized Scotland. Version 1.0 of anything tends to be a little limiting compared to later versions.