The USA is a democracy. It is not a direct democracy, but it is a representative democracy. I know that many high school civics teachers love to trot out the "We're a republic, not a democracy" piece of trivia to their students, but they are misusing terms. So are people in this Letters section.

Disciplines define the terms they use: biologists define the terminology of speciation, and physicists define the various categories of subatomic governments. Likewise, political scientists decide on the labels of regime types. So, they define democracy, at least in its technical sense. While the original meaning of the word in the days of the Greeks referred to direct rule by the citizenry, its use is now broader. A direct democracy is one ruled directly by the votes of the citizens, but no large-scale direct democracy exists today as a national government. I've seen the republic/democracy canard thrown out too many times, and I'm going to start correcting people on it.

A democracy is a regime type wherein the government's power is exercised by the people's elected representatives, in the name of the people. At the most basic, simplistic definition, a democracy features elections that decide who will govern. However, most definitions of democracy recognize that elections can be farcical; even some dictatorships have elections.

Thus, a true democracy is one where elections are regular: a maximum interval exists between elections, so that one election is not held and the winner claims a mandate to rule forever. The elections are also competitive, free, and fair: all eligible candidates are allowed to compete, without suppression by the government or authority figures. All major candidates have access to media outlets, and the media is not solely an organ of the state propaganda apparatus. The vote is fair, without rigging, systemic problems, or intimidation, and the result of the vote determines the outcome of the election. Near-universal adult suffrage is a crucial corollary of any electoral system in a democracy. For this reason, some political scientists say that the United States did not become a full democracy until the latter half of the twentieth century, when racial minorities and women were finally allowed to vote.

Furthermore, a democracy also features mechanisms of accountability. The elected officials are accountable to the voters through elections, as well, perhaps, as through recalls or petitionis. The structure of the government features a system of checks and balances, so that no one arm of the government can exercise unlimited power.

Additionally, democracies are characterized by their openness and access to information. The government does not sharply police the books people read, or the magazines to which they subscribe, or the internet sites they visit (provided that those sites do not promote illegal activity). People have access to alternate sources of information, and all media is not controlled exclusively by the government.

Beyond this, guarantees also exist to protect the rights of the citizen from coercion by the government. These rights are either a matter of common law, or are incorporated into a written or unwritten constitution or basic law that has legal force. They include political rights, such as the right to seek office, and civil rights, such as the right to vote, speak, publish, and petition. Underpinning all of this is the the belief in the rule of law: in a democracy, the law is supposed to reign supreme over all citizens.

Some definitions go even further, and use the category of "social democracy" to describe a system that features an integrated welfare state with protections against the worst ravages of poverty and infirmity. It is also assumed that a democratic government is free to act without constraint from any other force, so long as it remains within the law. Thus, if a government is held partially hostage by threat of its own military launching a coup, or the bureaucracy dictates policy of its own accord, regardless of the decisions of the government, or if unelected religious leaders have a veto over policy, then such a system is also inherently undemocratic, because it does not permit the government to reflect the will of the population (judiciaries exercising their legal and/or constitutional prerogatives are an entirely different matter).

You will note that, despite various flaws in the American system, it meets these criteria. The United States, then, is a democracy. Since it has an independently-elected president who serves as head of government and head of state, it is more properly termed a presidential democracy. Because the power of the head of state is vested in an elected official rather than a hereditary monarch, it is a republic, and not a constitutional monarchy. The United States and Brazil are presidential democracies and republics. Finland, Germany, and Italy are parliamentary democracies and republics. The United Kingdom and Japan are parliamentary democracies and constitutional monarchies. Russia, while having elections, does not have a free and fair electoral system, and is thus not a democracy, but rather an authoritarian regime.

"The McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum conducted a random poll of 1,000 American adults to test their knowledge of the First Amendment. The thingy at the beginning of the Bill of Rights? The one that talks about free speech and stuff? The good news is, 69 percent of the respondents knew that much.

"What else does the First Amendment protect? "

Unprompted, 24 percent of the respondents managed to say freedom of religion. Eleven percent said freedom of the press -- the same percentage that claimed, incorrectly, that the First Amendment protects the right to bear arms. Ten percent got freedom of assembly, and a whopping 1 percent managed to remember the right to petition the government for redress of grievances."

--Salon 3/1/06

One percent of 1000 is how many people?

Actually, there are only four freedoms--the rights to assemble and to petition the government are combined into one clause, so I'd give it to the 10% who said freedom of assembly.

Americans are not too dumb. On the contrary, Americans are plenty smart.

They do not pay attention to politics or government or public affairs because there's no reason for them to do so. My experience has taught me that people tend to behave rationally. If voters who had bothered to spend time worrying about whether BHO or HRC had the better plan actually got any benefit from their investment, more voters would do it. But where's the upside?

I pay a great deal of attention to public affairs. I do so because more or less it's my Simpsons. I enjoy it. But my neighbor does not pay any attention. The government treats us the same.

If, as and when it should ever matter to voters, they will pay attention. And they'll do fine. But for all the hand-wringing, I'm not sure that Americans don't have the government (and society) that they want.