Re:It's good to be king... (Score 3, Informative)

The word "republic" has a few more shades of meaning; from the Latin "res publica", or "public affairs", it implies that the affairs of the nation are the collective interests of its public citizens, rather than the private domain of a despotic monarch. The US system of government is basically the British parliamentary system from c. 1780, replacing the monarch with a president and with greater and more formalised democracy. Certainly you guys seem to treat your presidents with far more respect that we treat our cretinous prime ministers... :)