This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Joseph Evans seems, like many of my Libertarian friends, is inexplicably agitated by the use of the word "democracy" for describing the kind of government Americans enjoy ("Not a democracy," April 30). He is right, for example, that we sometimes claim to bring democracy, not a constitutional republic, to oppressed people.

He is also right that the word "democracy" appears nowhere in the Declaration of Independence. However, "despotism" and "tyranny" do, so when Evans quotes James Madison that "Democracy is the most vile form of government," let us assume that Madison was just using overwrought hyperbole to make an argument. The Founding Fathers did not revolt against King George for operating a democracy.

In my dictionary, democracy is "a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents." A republic is "a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them." There is such slim difference between them that, at most, a republic could be said to be a form of democracy, and Joseph Evans could be said to be straining at a gnat.

William Brough

Sandy