I realize you have preferences. I, too, wish the world were as perfect as I imagine it could be. But that doesn't actually provide any ground on which we can communicate and build from.

You only have to compromise your definition of democracy if you are starting from the assumption that we must necessarily be included in that definition. In normal conversation untainted by prejudices of patriotism we are perfectly capable of using terminology that represents a state never realized in reality.

"I don't know" would have been acceptably mature response, but hey, I can appreciate bland rhetoric, too.

Bland rhetoric? You are just accusing me of redefining a word beyond usefulness for refusing to compromise standards for the sake of historic revisionism. How is "I don't know" even a response to what you wrote? You didn't ask a question...

I asked you what a functioning democracy was.

You said it's any democracy at all. And then you dropped a bunch of irrelevant drivel about patriotism because it furthered the pedantic argument you had with rayiner.

You never answered the question. Indeed, you refused to answer it.