This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The Utah Legislature has just passed a law demanding that public schools teach our children that America is not a democracy, but is a republic, with appropriate explanation of the differences.
I suspect that a lot of people see this as just some pointless political nitpicking. But it isn't. The Repubs are very serious. It's part of a national trend on the part of Republicans to ease the next generation into an acceptance of a right-wing notion of how our country works, or ought to work, the view that power comes from, and belongs at, the top, rather than from and with the people. Present-day Repubs are taking their cue from the royalists of a couple of centuries ago.
Stated as simply as possible, in a democracy the governing power lies with the people. In a republic, the governing power lies with a body of men (and women) chosen to make laws and run things.
"Republic" doesn't imply that the choosing is done by the people: witness the various dictatorial communist republics, and monarchial republics, where the legislators are simply appointed by those in power. "Republic" doesn't imply representation of the populace. It means that power is held by a chosen few.
America happens to be a democratic republic. Our legislators are elected by the people. That's the democratic part.
In the Republican agenda, that's where it should end. Once the people have performed their duty as voters, they need to get out of the way and let the Chosen Ones handle it. The people's only role is to elect; the elected ones' role is to exercise the power they've gained. That the Chosen Ones should represent the wishes of those who elected them is a democratic notion.
Republicans pay lip service to that idea, but for them, what really counts is that the election gives them power. Once they have it, they are in charge, and the people need to sit down and shut up. The Chosen Ones know what's best, whatever the unwashed masses may think, and the masses can be ignored until the time comes to get back to them in order to get re-elected and retain power.
That's the Republican view of how a republic should operate, and how they are doing their best to make it operate, and how they want our kids to believe it should operate. We see it nationwide, in Wisconsin, Michigan and elsewhere.
In Utah, we see them bulldozing widely unpopular laws through the process, simply because they can. They refuse to pass widely popular measures having to do with ethics and redistricting reforms, simply because they don't have to. They replace elections with appointments by the governor (subject to legislative approval!). They work to make all elections partisan, to tighten their ideological grip.
They gut open records laws that might allow the masses to keep an eye on what they're doing. They systematically restrict the ability of the people to take a direct hand in the governing, as the Utah Constitution provides, by making it virtually impossible for the people to pass a referendum.
They tighten voting laws, making it difficult for eligible voters of the wrong party to cast their ballots. They do it because they can, not because it serves the interests of the people who elected them, but because it serves their own interests and ideologies, or the interests of their friends. Having been elected, they are the Chosen, entitled to rule as they damn well please. It's the Republican way.
Conservatives have always held a deep-seated contempt for the general populace, the "unwashed masses." Ruling must be done from the top down, by those qualified to do it. They despise popular movements as attempts to take power from those who are entitled to it. They hate organized labor, because it gives actual power to those who do not deserve it.
And they do everything they can to ensure that democratic participation in the affairs of the state and the nation is held to a minimum. They not only reject democracy as a form of government, but democracy as a process, except as a vehicle for getting themselves elected to power.
They worship the power of those who have it — the wealthy, the giant corporations, organizations such as the National Rifle Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They dismiss or disparage those who lack such power — ordinary people, impoverished people, people out of work, the handicapped. Those don't count in the power pyramid.
They complain about schoolchildren being indoctrinated with "socialist" ideals. In fact, what the kids generally are learning about is democratic ideals, not socialist ones.
The Republicans want to replace that with teaching that democratic participation is a hazardous thing that needs to be limited, and that power belongs, not with the people, but with those at the top and that when they get grown up they should elect prominent citizens to power, then sit down and shut up and let those they elected run things, and not try to exercise power they're not entitled to.
That's what they mean when they say this is a republic, not a democracy. Their goal is to keep it as undemocratic a republic as possible. And the more power they have, the greater the likelihood they will use it to gain still more power for themselves and diminish that of the people, until there is no democracy left worth counting.
Think of the current U.S. Supreme Court and its attitude of elevating the powerful over the people. That's Republican conservatism.
Bangs Tapscott is an emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Utah and a bluegrass musician.