Another post at USS Clueless, with which I generally agree. I would point out that while the post-moderns have already declared that they've gone "beyond good and evil", a democracy always tends that way, as it struggles to become more inclusive, less judgmental. What preserves a democracy, or even a republic, is the ideals on which it was founded, and the strength with which the people clasp those ideals. In the case of the United States of America, those ideals are rather firmly enunciated.