Let me make something clear, the United States is not now, nor ever has been, a democracy. It is a Republic, which means we have a representative form of government.
In a democracy, everyone votes on everything. Granted there is a council and court system, but they are just there to enforce the choices of the people.
Now then, I find it strangely funny that some of the most educated and enlightened men in history chose a republic for our country rather than a true democracy. Granted, a democracy would have been difficult in the first 200 years of our existence, if not impossible.
Of course that brings us to another part of our government that needs explaining, the Republic of the United States of America. The states came together to form a federation of states, hence the term the 'federal government.' The implications of this part of our government are simple, in essence, no federal law can be enacted which interferes with the rights of the state.
It also means, contrary to popular belief, that any state may at any time declare its affiliation with the Republic over and break all government ties to Washington.
In case you are interested, the only Republic in history collapsed after a few hundred years, and that was Rome.
Yet, monarchies, true democracies lasted a thousand years. Athens, the root of democracy lasted well over 700 years as an independent city state, as did many other Greek city states. Even the Greek city states that had kings still had a democratic form of government, which meant until the people had voiced their opinion, the kings had to sit on their thumbs.
Greece, when it was made up of the individual city states that came together only when necessary, stood against many invaders. But when she was under one government, she fell to Rome.
And yes folks, there are still barbarians out there, they aren't the Arabs, or any one race, creed or religion, they are those who believe that the strength of terror is the only way to solve problems.
And, the label terrorist depends on one's viewpoint, a cruise missile striking a small village in Iraq in the hopes of getting a dictator can be viewed as an act of terrorism by the child that just lost its parents.
We bemoan the fact 3904 of our troops have died in Iraq, yet we hear nothing in our news of the 77,321 – 84,238 Iraqi civilians dead from being in the crossfire.
I firmly believe that we fight if even one of our citizens dies at the hand of some terrorist or dictator. However, even as an ex army ranger, I cannot begin to compare the overwhelming number of Iraqi dead to the number who died on 9/11/01.
There is no justification for this much blood.
Which returns us to the last days of Rome. Slaughter was a common practice among the legions in the final days of the Roman Republic/Empire (there was still the senate, chosen by the people, who had some control over the Emperor.) We have followed the practices of Rome throughout our history, even to the point of not caring about the non-combatants killed in a combat zone.
