So, Larry, if you found a typo in the first recipe, you'd throw out the cookbook?

The United States is a representative republic, but it uses a democratic mechanism to elect its representatives.

When I was growing up, I heard the term "Western democracies" bandied about, and it didn't refer to a town meetings in Tucson and Butte, but to the nations in NATO, some of which are republics and some of which are constitutional monarchies, but we all knew what the term meant.

This isn't a political science textbook, but a website posted for free on the Internet. If it were sold as an authoritative reference, your argument would have a whole lot more validity.

Your remark about reading reminds me of the nuns who used to tell me that everything in a book was suspect because it didn't have an impirmatur (a bishop's seal of approval) at the beginning. Guess what? I read those naughty books anyway, I found I agreed with some things and not with others, and I learned something about a way of thinking not my own. True, I had my mind polluted by foreign thoughts: I find it impossible to hate Protestants now, whereas behind the wall of Pure Thoughts, it was much easier to do that.

I maintain he provides a very good primer for the defense of evolution against the incursions of creationists. I had to fight that fight in our public schools, with others opposed to our board's policy positions, not so very long ago. This would have been handy to have.

In a war of words, sound bites are good. Pursuasive, accurate sound bites are invaluable. Because, ultimately, the election of a representative is democratically decided: the people hear the arguments and then the people speak. Sometimes they speak by staying home.

If I stop reading when something annoys me, I don't learn. Sometimes when I read it all, I know my enemy, which is important. Sometimes I find that my enemy really isn't so much of an enemy after all, which is really important. Why do you think I keep coming back here?

Regards--
Mary Anne