Speaker Geeks! discussion

I'm curious as to what other people think about this. Never had this conversation in real life.

Its quite a personal question I think, it goes down to people core belief and their morals.

I think the word "republic", at least in the western context, means not only an elected head of state but also the establishment of laws & mechanisms that can defend individual liberty against popular will. imho the opposite of "direct democracy" could be better termed as "representative democracy" which a priori may or may not be a republic in a strict sense, i.e. it can also be a "tyranny of the majority".

Federalist 10 by James Madison explains all the reason's for America's republic.