tdgeek:
Rikkitic:
Those principles are laid down in the Constitution. That is what it is for.
Fair enough. I've seen the Constitution at the Lincoln Memorial, didn't read it though. But thats the US, democracy is a general term of election by the people. The world does exist outside of the US, and that will certainly grow in the next 4 years.
Nearly every country has a constitution. Not all try to live up to it. A diplomatic joke in the Cold War era was that some of the most repressive Communist regimes in Eastern Europe had the most liberal, enlightened constitutions. A bit like Animal Farm, actually.