Re: [lojban] "democracy" vs "representative republic" in lojban?

[Seth Gordon <sethg@ropine.com>]

Ryan Gray wrote:
> Hi, I hope someone in this forum can help me use
> lojban to clarify a point. In another forum, there is
> a debate about the difference between "democracy" and
> "representative republic." One faction seems to
> believe that any form of government that elects its
> leaders is a "democracy. Another faction (the one I am
> partial to) argues that, by definition, a democracy
> does not have any protections for individual rights
> and the "will of the people" rules the day regardless
> of whose rights are trampled upon. The argument in
> this faction is that in a democracy a majority of
> cannibals could vote to eat a minority of vegetarians.
> No ones rights would be protected. How would one make
> this distinction in lojban?

If some fluent Lojban speaker believes that a democracy is any kind of
government that elects its leaders, then he or she could come up with
some Lojban phrase literally meaning "government in which the vote of
the majority can override any rights of the minority" and say that's the
Lojban translation of "democracy".  And then another speaker can come up
with another phrase that means "any form of government that elects its
leaders" and claim that no, *that* phrase is the proper Lojban
translation of "democracy".  And then whatever debate you were having on
that other forum could repeat itself on this list.