Reddit mentions of What Would Jefferson Do?

For those who respect the Founding Fathers:

Thomas Jefferson:
>Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour and live on.

Thomas "Common Sense" Paine: (Agrarian Justice)
>Paine proposed a detailed plan to tax property owners to pay for the needs of the poor, which could be considered as the precursor of the modern idea of citizen's income or basic income. The money would be raised by taxing all direct inheritances at 10%, and "indirect" inheritances - those not going to close relations - at a somewhat higher rate;

I should add that Thom Hartmann has written an excellent book which refers to one of the men who conservatives like to quote so much:

http://www.amazon.com/What-Would-Jefferson-Thom-Hartmann/dp/1400052084

You're doing nothing more than parsing words here. A constitutional republic is a form of democracy. This notion of a democratic tradition ignores the fact that the fundamental issue here is the people's right to vote. They elect whoever they want that best represents the majority in regards to the issues involved and move forward. Hell, it's as if you're ignoring the fact that the UK has a constitutional monarchy, where the people elect the people in parliament to govern over them.

The fundamental issue here is that everyone is given a right to vote and elect who will be the govern. That is a fact. Right now, there are 167 different democracies in the world with various ways of the electors (voters) having the power of choosing who they want through a democratic process. My view here is rather consistent. What the US is not is a direct democracy which James Madison talked about in FP #10. What he came to change his mind on was how the US was a modern democracy

>In particular, talk show hosts and authors often use this argument, quoting the Founders who explicitly were not trying to create the "mob rule" of "pure democracy" but the "rule of law" in a constitutionally limited democratic republic. In this, they are technically correct, although the suggestion made to Republicans in the 1980s that it would be wise to stop referring to "democracy" in America because it sounds too much like "Democrat" is probably closer to why some are so fond of the term "republic" which sounds like "Republican"

> In a republic, elected representatives make the laws, and in a "pure" democracy there are no representatives: the people themselves vote on each issue. (California and other states' ballot initiatives are closer to pure democracy.) Nonetheless, the distinction between the terms has been lost on most of the world which defines a modern republic as a "modern democracy"

And that's been my point the entire time. You're ignoring the fact that most people believe in a representative democracy which is what the US is. Same as a constitutional monarchy or any other form of government where people elect representatives to be the face of their interests in what they do or do not want out of the government.

The entire point that I've been making that when you look at the nitty gritty details is that the basics have been consistent. We are not (yet) a fascist one party society. We aren't a feudalist society. We are a democracy that elects the people that want to represent us.

We just do not have the same things that have made other countries far more progressive such as Sweden and Norway because we are one of the first democratic experiments.

You want to ignore that, fantastic. But don't delude yourself about parsing the difference of dictatorships and democracies when you can't be arsed to understand the difference.