Republic or Democracy?
Posted in Of The People by R Lee Wrights on July 31st, 2007 by Ed Lewis
“A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.”
- Thomas Jefferson
This could just as well have been titled “Liberty (Freedom) or Servitude” because to answer “Republic or Democracy?” is exactly the same as answering “liberty” or “servitude.”
How can such questions be answered, with the full import of the difference between being free (Republic) and NOT being free (Democracy)?
Let us assume you have just purchased your home, a home you are proud of except for the color. It is white, as is all others houses on your street. But, you want to paint it colonial blue with darker blue trim and shutters.
Republicans have prayer breakfasts - Libertarians have the Statement of Principles, Nolan Chart, None of the Above, the Pledge, and the Dallas Accords.
In the heartbreaking Melinda Smith case, a San Diego father and daughter were needlessly separated by the foster care system for over a decade. Last week, Los Angeles County settled a lawsuit over the case for an undisclosed sum. Yet a recent Urban Institute study found that the Smith case typifies the way the foster care system harms children by disregarding the loving bonds they share with their fathers.
Following a vote Tuesday by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to adopt tough new anti-gun laws, a sponsor of the ordinances admitted that they probably won’t quell violent crime, prompting the Second Amendment Foundation to call passage of these new ordinances an exercise in futility.
“When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered.”
Wagner’s law is named after the German economist Adolph Wagner (1835-1917). Wagner’s law predicts that the development of an industrial economy will be accompanied by an increased share of public expenditure in gross national product.
In September 2000, publishing house Alfred A. Knopf handed professional librarians a knotty problem. It published Arming America, a book in which Emory University professor Michael Bellesiles outlined research supposedly showing that guns were rare in America from the Colonial period to the Civil War. The book was awarded Columbia University’s Bancroft Prize in history in April 2001, and immediately appeared in library collections around the country. 
Even while we are busy defending our Second Amendment rights against efforts to enhance the Brady Law, there is a movement afoot to restrict our First Amendment rights as well… a movement that can make the defense of our liberties that much harder.
Family Values - There are few parts of family life more sensitive than guiding medical care for family members unable to act for themselves. In the Terry Schiavo case, Congress tried to steal control of her medical care. Congress voted against real family values. If you support real family values, you should elect Libertarians. We believe Uncle Sam has no business making life and death decisions for you and your loved ones.
I’m not a signed member of any official political party. I do, however happen to be acquainted with a number of local Republicans, and so it was that I received an invitation to an event celebrating the Party’s nomination of George W. Bush as its official presidential candidate.
