>A democracy is a government of the masses where authority is derived through a mass meeting. Democracy is the direct rule of the people...

I don't think thats necessarily true, but it mostly rests on which defintions you accept.

The dictionary defintion is the rule of the people directly or through representatives. Obviouslly, thats just a dictionary defintion and not all that important.

The definition I actually work from is borrowed from Karl Popper: democracy is a form of government that may change itself non-violently. Under this defintion, which I think is pretty good, a republic can be seen as a type of democracy.

In any case, even if I accept that our government is not a democracy, it works through democractically elected representatives. We do elect our republic in mass, directly, and therefore, democractically. In the context of my comment about voting for representatives, the term is accurate.