One wonders when the Wisconsin Public Employee Union and its supporters clamor for “Power to the People” and “Democracy Now!” if these people are unaware that America is not a democracy, but a republic.

Do they know that the word “democracy” is not mentioned anywhere in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, or that the Founding Fathers purposely set up a republican form of government with a rule of law instead of a rule by people? As educated men with wisdom and common sense, these early leaders knew that democracies are doomed to fail because of unrestrained majorities and mob rule—a fate they desperately wanted to avoid for a young, fledgling America.

John Adams said, “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Alexander Hamilton said, “We are now forming a republican form of government. Real liberty is not found in the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy, or some other form of dictatorship.”

Union demonstrators need to put away their angry, profane, sexually vulgar signs and let the Wisconsin lawmakers do their jobs, as they’re doing in Ohio, Indiana, and all the other states who are trying to balance budgets that have been emasculated by union demands in the first place.