"You keep using that word."

It's one of moviedom's best lines, infinitely reusable in many situations.

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Today, that word is DEMOCRACY.

When Wisconsin Democrats fled the state in order to keep their Senate from voting on legislation, we were told that was what DEMOCRACY looks like.

When protesters in Wisconsin stormed their capitol and started screaming about their precious benefits, we were told that was what DEMOCRACY looks like.

When a mob in Wisconsin surrounded a Republican lawmaker trying to make a phone call, intimidating him and forcing a Democrat to extricate him from their clutches, well, they were telling us that is what DEMOCRACY looks like.

And today, on the front page of the Times Union, there's a story and photos of protesters at the capitol in Albany yesterday, where people showed up to try to convince lawmakers not to cut their particular piece of the taxpayer-funded pie, well the headline screams "Democracy in action at Capitol".

They keep using that word. I am positive that word does not mean what they think it means.

We do not have a democracy in the United States, nor in the state governments of Wisconsin or New York. If we did, when we saw DEMOCRACY we would be seeing people going to the polls to vote on everything. We would see the people voting themselves on what to fund, what to cut, who gets collective bargaining.

We have representative democracies in these places. These people have clearly forgotten what REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY looks like. That's when people go to the polls on regular bases and elect representatives to do the peoples' work for a set amount of time. If a majority of people want something, they elect people that will do that thing. When not enough people want something, they do not have enough representatives to do that thing. That is what REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY looks like, elected leaders putting into place the policies on which they campaigned by voting on and enacting legislation...what they were elected to do.

Mobs chanting about Hitler and people physically shutting down debate and votes...that is NOT what DEMOCRACY looks like. Throwing a temper tantrum when you lose an election or a vote and trying to take your ball and go home is NOT what a DEMOCRACY looks like.

When TEA parties were organized in a attempt to sway elected leaders' votes and tell them what people actually elected them to do - that is, what the majority wanted, no one was screaming that that was what DEMOCRACY looks like. It was just people petitioning the government and peaceably assembling. Democrats should take some notes.