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Do you support a democratic or a republic form of government? There's a vast difference between the two. Lately, the line between democracy and republic has been blurred - some say erased.

Most people call America a democracy, but the Pledge of Allegiance tells us the United States is a republic. So what has this country become?

I found an enlightening discussion about this on a Web site created by William R. Thornton, a California lawyer, while searching for the definition of habeas corpus.

The site points out that the Constitution gives the United Sates the form of a republic. The U.S. republic is supposed to be based on liberty and justice for all - meaning minority and individual rights are a priority, because people have natural rights that are protected, under the Bill of Rights, from the majority.

In a pure democracy, the majority rules. There is no such thing as minority rights, except for rights granted by the majority. In short, a democracy is a dictatorship of the majority.

President Bush uses the word democracy in connection with the war in Iraq. America is a republic. But for the past five years, it has morphed dangerously into a democracy, as defined above. For example, the latest military bill passed by Congress gives the president wide latitude in the interpretation of cruel and unusual punishment and eliminates the right of habeas corpus for government detainees.

Habeas corpus - which generally requires that a detained person be brought before a court to decide the legality of the detention - can involve one court (say, a federal court) questioning another court's (say, a military one's) jurisdiction.

If a person believes one court exceeds its jurisdiction, that person could go to the court that should have had jurisdiction and ask for an order directing the errant court to stop its proceedings and release the case to the proper court. Habeas corpus literally means "you have the body." It demands that the errant court produce the body for the proper court.

If one successfully uses habeas corpus to order the errant court to produce the injured party, and the errant court fails to produce, then the proper court can issue an order to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction. The proper court is a court of record and takes precedence over the statutory court.

The United States is a mixture of governments: republican under common law and democratic under statutory law. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights must be the bedrocks of U.S. government that they were meant to be.

To find our way back to what America is supposed to be, we the people need to learn what our founding fathers wanted our nation to be - and fight for it.

McKee is a freelance disability writer and producer. E-mail her at chairgrrl@chairgrrl.com