Comments by "Kevin Schmidt" (@kevinschmidt2210) on "Farzad"
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@arrogantprickly The risks of nuclear are too great and the cost is too much. It is highly toxic from the mining, transporation, refinement, storage, fuel use, and spent fuel disposal. It is impossible to compete with alternatives, and even with coal, without huge amounts of corporate welfare.
Wind and solar are best used during the day when power use is at it's highest. This eliminates the need to build additional fossil fuel plants, which are very expensive, even when they receive generous amounts of coporate welfare.
Alternative energy battery storage costs are now at a point where they can compete with fossil fuels, and eliminate intermittency.
Of course, the best way to proceed is to let the value of alternatives outcompete non renewable energy. This provides an orderly transition from the old to the new. Because no one wants to shut down the old before the new is built, regardless of what the anti-alternative energy propagandists claims.
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@trentp151 The US is both a republic and a democracy. In fact, a republic is a form of democracy. Read a seventh grade civics book.
Is the United States a democracy?
Yes, the United States is a democracy, since we, the people, hold the ultimate political power. We’re not a “direct democracy,” but we are a “representative democracy.”
This is where our history education might add some confusion. We are commonly taught that democracy is a product of ancient Greece. It’s their word – demokratia – after all. The city-state of Athens is credited with implementing a system of government of and by the people, whereby eligible citizens would congregate to make decisions. They’d make these decisions themselves (or “directly”), not through any elected representatives.
That system of government, better understood today as direct democracy, lives on in the United States in the form of ballot initiatives and referenda. Some states and localities afford their citizens the right to use these measures to directly enact, change, or repeal laws themselves.
More commonly, we exercise our political power in a different way: by voting in elections to choose our representatives. That’s representative democracy.
The Constitution does not use the term “democracy.” It’s true. But as Eugene Volokh notes in the Washington Post, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Noah Webster, Justice James Wilson and Chief Justice John Marshall all used the word. These scholars understood representative democracy – the American variety – to be democracy all the same.
Is the United States a republic?
Yes. The United States is a republic because our elected representatives exercise political power.
History also tells us that Rome was a republic, unlike Athens. When its monarchy was overthrown, Rome developed a republican system of government whereby citizens elected officials who were empowered to make decisions for the public. That’s the core of how our government works. While “democracy” and “republic” have been historically pitted against one another, the reality is that the two terms enjoy considerable overlap.
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