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SALT LAKE CITY -- Do Americans live in a republic or a democracy? The question has been a real talker in the Utah Legislature, where a bill would mandate that Utah's public schools specifically teach that the United States is a constitutional republic.
-Merriam-Webster
But a survey of students and a history teacher at East High School demonstrated that the answer to the question can change depending on how it's asked.
"Technically, it's a republic because we elect representatives to pass legislation and vote in a democratic system for us," said senior Mike Ricks.
He and friend Christian Bennett, also an East High senior, did exceptionally well on the AP U.S. History test, which for the past two years has had questions that include the terms "representative democracy" and "democratic government" without mentioning the term "republic."
Related:
What's in a name? Democracy or Republic?
Is the government of the United States technically a "Democracy," or a "Republic," and what difference does it make?"Democracy is kind of a word people use as a catch phrase to say like 'Oh, I live in a democracy. I do what I want. I make my own decisions' But at the same time, really, democracy means more than that," Bennett said.
Katie Black, another senior, said, "I think that 'democracy' is kind of more like a thought or an idea for government and a 'republic' is the actual form of government."
History teacher Henry George said the term "democracy" has come to mean a number of things. "We do use certain terms interchangeably, and I think that's part of the, perhaps, confusion," George said. "There's capital-D democracy, there's small-d democracy. There are Democratic political parties, Republican — we kind of jumble it all up."
Lincoln, Kennedy, Reagan, both Roosevelts and many other American presidents expressed political ideals using small-d democracy, though it's hard to imagine they did not know about "the republic, for which it stands," to borrow from the Pledge of Allegiance.
But it would be like fingernails on a chalkboard to compare American ideals with countries like Iran, China and North Korea, which all have the word "republic" in their official name.
-Merriam-Webster
A number of high school texts define the United States' government as a republic. But beyond that, it's a lot easier to find references to small-D "democracy" among their chapters than any form of the word "republic."
"We do have decent textbooks that do, in fact, help to articulate the differences and help people to understand the kind of government we have," George said.
KSL-Newsradio listeners weighed in on the Doug Wright Show recently when they found out Utah legislators were spending time on this.
"The callers were basically ticked off," Doug Wright said. "They wondered why — when there were so many important things that Utah needs to deal with, not the least of which is the budget and education and things like that — why we're bogged down over this democracy-versus-republic conversation."
If it's important to agree on how the terms should be used, we could do the democratic thing and put it to a vote, or follow the principles of a republic and let our elected officials decide.
HB220, "Civics Education Amendments" has passed the Utah House and was scheduled for discussion by the Senate Standing Committee on Education at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 23, room 415 of the state Capitol.
E-mail: sfidel@desnews.com
