Democracy Quotes - Page 61

For all their talk about the virtues of democracy, many incumbent politicians really don't like it when voters have a voice-not if that voice is effective.

A country in which 42% of the population is totally misinformed is not a country where democracy is safe.

Democracy is the current industry standard political system, but unfortunately it is ill-suited for a libertarian state.

When a democracy reaches a point where the politicians cannot say no to the people, and both parties are competing for votes by promising even more spending or even lower taxes, or both, the experiment is about over.

We should be supportive of the president and supportive of rights of all in a pluralistic democracy that we're called to love. And we live our faith; we don't legislate our faith.

In brief, Western democracy, as other political models, is not exportable to all regions of the world.

Anarcho-syndic alism took for granted that working people ought to control their own work, its conditions, the enterprises in which they work, along with communities, so they should be associated with one another in free associations, and democracy of that kind should be the foundational elements of a more general free society.

Bolivia is a striking example. The mostly white, Europeanized elite, which is a minority, happens to be sitting on most of the hydrocarbon reserves. For the first time Bolivia is becoming democratic. So it's therefore bitterly hated by the West, which despises democracy, because it's much too dangerous.

In the 1960s, various parts of the population became energized and began to enter the public arena to call for the rights of women, students, young people, old people, farmers and workers. What are called "special interests" - meaning the whole population - they began to press to enter the public arena. And they said that puts too much pressure on the state and therefore we have to have more moderation in democracy and they should go back and be quiet and obedient.

If an individual agrees with everybody, he lacks conviction; if he likes everybody and is everybody's friend, he is indifferent to one and all.

But the moment the politicians start saying they are in denial of what the scientists are telling them, of what the consensus of scientific experiments demonstrates, that is the beginning of the end of an informed democracy.

More often than not "fair" and "balanced" may be mutually exclusive

In a democracy, dynasty politics is wrong. We need to free the state and nation from it.

Democracy requires a certain relish for confusion

Europeans used to be proud to be the advanced form of democracy. Now they're definitely a little bit ashamed because we are seeing that finally, the bond that we had, it was money.

Few things are more damaging to our democracy than a military officer who doesn't have the moral courage to stand up for what's right or the moral fiber to step aside when circumstances dictate.

Liberty of the people is not my liberty!

There are a lot of things that I really question - the legality of the drone strikes, these NSA revelations. Jimmy Carter came out and said we don’t live in a democracy. That’s a little intense when an ex-president says that. So you know, he’s got some explaining to do, particularly for a constitutional law professor.

A fatal defect in majority rule is that by its very nature it abolishes itself. Majority rule must inevitably become minority rule: the majority is too big to handle itself; it organizes itself into committees ... which in their turn resolve themselves into a committee of one.

In the small group then is where we shall find the inner meaning of democracy, its very heart and core.

stop spying on the lawful citizenry. Democracy and dossiers go ill together. It is all right for God but all wrong for the State to keep its eye on sparrows.

The problem is that the things demanded by an empire, which is staying power, ruthlessness, the ability and the willingness to use its power around the world, it's something that democracies tend to be quite skeptical about.

No democracy is born perfect, and none ever gets to be perfect. Yet democracy is superior to authoritarian and totalitarian regimes because, unlike them, democracy is perfectible.

All attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail. It must be business as usual.

The cloud services companies of all sizes; the cloud is for everyone. The cloud is a democracy.