That was more lottery based. It's a different interpretation of the same principle. And as far as I know it was more Athens.
Fact check: parts of it were lottery based.
The Serbian Empire wrote:The US never was a democracy. The Senators were selected by politicians rather than the voters until 1913.
No, that has no bearing on whether or not a state is a democracy. If done well it doesn't even represent a particularly undemocratic idea (of course, this depends on how things work... if your upper house can generate legislation, for instance, it's harder to be more democratic with appointed upper house members). I should point out that I am talking generally here and not with respect to the specific elements of the US system because, frankly, I'm not too interested in learning about something that neither effects me directly nor presents anything other than a "do not imitate" example for other reasons.
Exelia wrote:Anyways, if the US is not a democracy, than no nation really is.
Bollocks. Tosh and nonsense.
There are plenty of nations which have far more democratic systems than that in the US. For instance, electoral systems are designed with the mindset that the objective is to get as close as possible to representing the actual views of the voting public (who are, in point of fact, not the arbitrarily defined citizens... see Ancient Athens... either, and people born outside, if citizens, can actually achieve all the important positions)*.
If you mean to say that "if the US, as a representative democracy, is not a democracy, than no nation really is" you'd at least have a defensible position. As is, the slope that we're imagining allows us to point at several important characteristics that the US simply doesn't have (and seems to have no interest in having).
*Note, I am ambivalent on whether or not heads of state should exist and if they are to exist they should definitely not be elected nor have any particular influence in ruling a given state.
Not really. Your logic is flawed.
