[yongjik]

The idea was exceptional (and revolutionary) in 1776, but it's 2022 now. Practically every country has a constitution stating that its power derives from the people, and a number of countries do make good on that promise.

If anything, what's exceptional about America is how its citizens are treating fossilized details of a 246-year-old system as critically important, conveniently ignoring that America's founding fathers couldn't foresee everything, and that dozens of other democratic countries function without these details just fine.

[ghufran_syed]

“ Practically every country has a constitution stating that its power derives from the people, and a number of countries do make good on that promise.”

Interesting claim - how would you square that with, say, the fact that majorities of “the people” in the UK support the death penalty for child murderers, and yet both main political parties have conspired to ban the death penalty? Does “power deriving” from the people differ somehow from actually implementing policies that they want?

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/0...

[Tainnor]

That's a pretty ridiculous take on what "power derived from the people" means. Neither the UK nor the US are direct democracies. In fact, unlike the Ancient world, there are almost no direct democracies today (even federal Swiss democracy has representative elements).

You can find in any representative democracy positions which, at some time, are majority positions yet not implemented in law. In the US, you have a recent example with the legality of abortions.