Best 3411 quotes in «democracy quotes» category

As to the 'Left' I'll say briefly why this was the finish for me. Here is American society, attacked under open skies in broad daylight by the most reactionary and vicious force in the contemporary world, a force which treats Afghans and Algerians and Egyptians far worse than it has yet been able to treat us. The vaunted CIA and FBI are asleep, at best. The working-class heroes move, without orders and at risk to their lives, to fill the moral and political vacuum. The moral idiots, meanwhile, like Falwell and Robertson and Rabbi Lapin, announce that this clerical aggression is a punishment for our secularism. And the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, hitherto considered allies on our 'national security' calculus, prove to be the most friendly to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Here was a time for the Left to demand a top-to-bottom house-cleaning of the state and of our covert alliances, a full inquiry into the origins of the defeat, and a resolute declaration in favor of a fight to the end for secular and humanist values: a fight which would make friends of the democratic and secular forces in the Muslim world. And instead, the near-majority of 'Left' intellectuals started sounding like Falwell, and bleating that the main problem was Bush's legitimacy. So I don't even muster a hollow laugh when this pathetic faction says that I, and not they, are in bed with the forces of reaction.

A system is corrupt when it is strictly profit-driven, not driven to serve the best interests of its people, but those of multinational corporations.

A system is corrupt when it is strictly profit-driven, not driven to serve the best interests of its people.

Athènes devint à partir de 450 avant Jésus-Christ la capitale culturelle du monde grec. La philosophie aussi prit un nouveau tournant. Les philosophes de la nature étaient avant tout des hommes de science qui s'intéressaient à l'analyse physique du monde et, à ce titre, ils tiennent une place importante dans l'histoire de la science. Mais, à Athènes, l'étude de la nature fut supplantée par celle de l'homme et sa place dans la société. Petit à petit, une démocratie avec des assemblées du peuple et des juges populaires vit le jour. Une condition sine qua non pour l'établissement de la démocratie était que le peuple fût assez éclairé pour pouvoir participer au processus démocratique. Qu'une jeune démocratie exige une certaine éducation du peuple, nous l'avons bien vu de nos jours.

At its root, the logic is that of the Grand Inquisitor, who bitterly assailed Christ for offering people freedom and thus condemning them to misery. The Church must correct the evil work of Christ by offering the miserable mass of humanity the gift they most desire and need: absolute submission. It must “vanquish freedom” so as “to make men happy” and provide the total “community of worship” that they avidly seek. In the modern secular age, this means worship of the state religion, which in the Western democracies incorporates the doctrine of submission to the masters of the system of public subsidy, private profit, called free enterprise. The people must be kept in ignorance, reduced to jingoist incantations, for their own good. And like the Grand Inquisitor, who employs the forces of miracle, mystery, and authority “to conquer and hold captive for ever the conscience of these impotent rebels for their happiness” and to deny them the freedom of choice they so fear and despise, so the “cool observers” must create the “necessary illusions” and “emotionally potent oversimplifications” that keep the ignorant and stupid masses disciplined and content.

A totally befuddled voter may look at a Vote for McGovern sign and do just that.

A true leader will make sacrifices and enhance conditions for the well being of their followers.

A true democratic society is supposed to serve its people, not big businesses. The welfare of its citizens, not corporate pockets. But when you have corporations buying the seats of our political leaders, who do you think they will serve?

Attempts to thwart or muzzle the media continued as well. At a conservative caucus meeting in Charlottetown in August 2007, journalists assembled in the lobby of the hotel, as they usually do at such gatherings, to talk to caucus members as they passed by. The [Prime Minister's Office] communications team, however, was not prepared to allow it. Taking their cue, or so it appeared, from a police state, they had the RCMP remove the reporters from the hotel.

At the current mental maturity of the human species, democracy is as barbarian and degrading as dictatorship - it just doesn’t feel that way, because of the illusory sense of control.

At the core of this nostalgia stands a double desire for control: Citizens want their nation to be able to make its own decisions, unencumbered by the constraints of the global economy.

At the heart of the struggle of women, people of color, the disabled, the poor, organized workers, immigrants, religious minorities, atheists,and sexual minorities is the radical belief that we are all created equal and deserve the right to life, liberty and pursuits of happiness.

Authoritarian politicians cast their rivals as criminal, subversive, unpatriotic, or a threat to national security or the existing way of life.

A voter always knows how much to vote for.

...Bad behavior is bipartisan, but the Left seems to have an instinct for violence. This makes perfect sense for a worldview with revolutionary underpinnings....But yet, they claim oppression due to their inability to control the words and minds of others. That is why the Left is a threat to both freedom and democracy: Because at the end of the day, they don't really believe in either.

Bazen demokrasi adı altında ileriye sürülen talepler, o kadar tehlike saçıyor ki, her aklı başında insan demokrasiye karşı tepki gösteriyor asıl tehlike budur.

Because of democracy humanity still have faith in human beings.

Because we live in a democracy, and the people can't govern themselves well if they don't know the truth about the world we live in. What if our rich citizens never hear of the poverty and suffering of the rest of the city? Why should they ever give to charity or vote for reform?

Because taxpaying is seen as an emblem of civic worthiness, denying the poor the status of taxpayers has the effect of denying their political standing. Classing a large percentage of the populace as a kind of second-class citizenry is genuinely toxic for democratic norms.

Because widespread participation is so central to popular sovereignty, we can say that the less political participation there is in a society, the weaker the democracy.

Being called a murderer: fine, I have no objection to that. It's a fact: I am a sinner, a fallen human. But to be called a murderer by the police!

Before continuing further, it is important to gain an understanding of how democracy is perceived by the ordinary people of the Middle East. Democracy, as a secular entity, is unlikely t be favorably received by the vast majority of Middle Easterners who are devout followers of the Islamic faith. Traditionally, there is tension among the Muslim countries with respect to the establishment of a democratic form of government. On the one hand, there are those who believe that democratic rule can co-exist with the religious nature of the Middle Easter societies; however, on the other hand there are those who believe that the tribal structure of the Middle Eastern countries may not be suitable for democratic rule as too many factions will emerge. The result will be a "fractured" society that cannot effectively unite and there is also the risk that this could impact the cohesion produced by the Muslim faith. Although concerns exist, for the most part, the spirit of democracy, or self rule, is viewed as a positive endeavor so long as it builds up the country and sustains the religious base versus devaluing religion and creating instability. Creating this balance will be the challenge as most Western democracies have attempted to maintain a separation of church and state. What this suggests is that as democracy grows in the Middle East, it is not necessarily going to evolve upon a Western template—it will have its own shape or form coupled with stronger religious ties.

Being an absolute ruler today was not as simple as people thought. At least, it was not simple if your ambitions included being an absolute ruler tomorrow. There were subtleties. Oh, you could order men to smash down doors and drag people off the dungeons without trial, but too much of that sort of thing lacked style and anyway was bad for business, habit-forming and very, very dangerous for your health. A thinking tyrant, it seemed to Vetinari, had a much harder job than a ruler raised to power by some idiot vote-yourself-rich system like democracy. At least they could tell the people he was their fault.

Between the black box proprietary code, barebones computers we call voting machines and a mass of completely unqualified election officials, our election system is up for grabs to anybody with even a modest interest and some script kiddie capability. The cyber-kinetic attack surface here is wide open.

Better to live under one tyrant a thousand miles away, than a thousand tyrants one mile away.

Bersikap netral karena tak paham adalah suatu sikap yang terhormat. Bersikap netral karena tak mau tahu adalah wujud nyata ketakpedulian. Bersikap netral saat memahami kenyataan adalah suatu sikap pembiaran. Bersikap netral saat nurani ingin berpihak adalah pembohongan diri sendiri.

Bill C-9 was supposed to be a budget bill, but it came with innumerable measures that had little or nothing to do with the nation's finances. It was, as critics put it, the advance of the Harper agenda by stealth, yet another abuse of the democratic process. The bill was a behemoth. It was 904 pages, with 23 separate sections and 2,208 individual clauses.... As a Reform MP, [Stephen Harper] .... said of one piece of legislation that 'the subject matter of the bill is so diverse that a single vote on the content would put members in conflict with their own principles.' The bill he referred to was 21 page long -- or 883 pages shorter than the one he was now putting before Parliament.

But Mather's smile faded as he thought of what other provisions the charter contained. What would the godly say when they learned that the electorate was no longer to be limited to members of the Covenant but broadened to include propertied members of every Christian sect this side of papistry? This was a revolutionary innovation, whose consequences would be incalculable. Hitherto the limitation of the privilege of voting to the elect had been the very corner-stone of theocracy. It had been a wise and human provision designed to keep the faithful in control even when, as had long ago become the case, they were heavily outnumbered by lesser men without the Covenant. God who had not designated the majority of men to salvation surely never intended for the damned to rule. Yet now, under the new charter, it very much looked as if they might.

Both groups [of pundits] were critics, and that is the heart of the problem. If you are a pundit, you seem so smart when you are telling the President what he did wrong… This [is] mostly BS.

But as the views of the people are trending illiberal and the preferences of the elites are turning undemocratic, liberalism and democracy are starting to clash. Liberal democracy, the unique mix of individual rights and popular rule that has long characterized most governments in North America and Western Europe, is coming apart at its seams. In its stead, we are seeing the rise of illiberal democracy, or democracy without rights, and undemocratic liberalism, or rights without democracy.

Business is boss, politics is servant.

British democracy was not given by the elite. It was largely taken by the masses.

Bureaucrats and Politicians are different people, work of Bureaucrats makes us hate Politicians.

But democrats are seldom welcome on planets run by totalitarian governments, and scarcely more welcome on planets where anarchy prevails--this is due to the very nature of democracy, the only practical compromise between totalitarianism and anarchy.

But the heart weakens without democracy, and there was no democracy within the Tigers. They antagonized their own brothers by killing them.

But we must accept one central truth and responsibility as participants in a democracy: Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.

But this tacit understanding (admitting it to exist) cannot at all justify the conclusion drawn from it. A tacit understanding between A, B, and C, that they will, by ballot, depute D as their agent, to deprive me of my property, liberty, or life, cannot at all authorize D to do so. He is none the less a robber, tyrant, and murderer, because he claims to act as their agent, than he would be if he avowedly acted on his own responsibility alone.

But of all the things which I have mentioned that which most contributes to the permanence of constitutions is the adaptation of education to the form of government, and yet in our own day this principle is universally neglected. The best laws, though sanctioned by every citizen of the state, will be of no avail unless the young are trained by habit and education in the spirit of the constitution, if the laws are democratical, democratically or oligarchically, if the laws are oligarchical. For there may be a want of self-discipline in states as well as in individuals. Now, to have been educated in the spirit of the constitution is not to perform the actions in which oligarchs or democrats delight, but those by which the existence of an oligarchy or of a democracy is made possible. Whereas among ourselves the sons of the ruling class in an oligarchy live in luxury, but the sons of the poor are hardened by exercise and toil, and hence they are both more inclined and better able to make a revolution. And in democracies of the more extreme type there has arisen a false idea of freedom which is contradictory to the true interests of the state. For two principles are characteristic of democracy, the government of the majority and freedom. Men think that what is just is equal; and that equality is the supremacy of the popular will; and that freedom means the doing what a man likes. In such democracies every one lives as he pleases, or in the words of Euripides, 'according to his fancy.' But this is all wrong; men should not think it slavery to live according to the rule of the constitution; for it is their salvation.

But Yatrayavalkya! He strutted on his wheels, cursing the acharya for hogging all the limelight and holding the three chiefs of the confederacy ransom to his way of lok tantra. What do people know about running a country? Even the Greek kingdom is a city state and is ruled by priests.

By creating a society in which all people, of all colors, were granted freedom and citizenship, the Haitian Revolution forever transformed the world. It was a central part of the destruction of slavery in the Americas, and therefore a crucial moment in the history of democracy, one that laid the foundation for the continuing struggles for human rights everywhere. In this sense we are all descendents of the Haitain Revolution, and responsible to these ancestors.

But you can live in the most democratic country on earth, and if you're lazy, obtuse or servile within yourself, you're not free.

By entering into the arena of argument and counter-argument, of technical feasibility and tactics, of footnotes and citations, by accepting the presumption of legitimacy of debate on certain issues, one has already lost one’s humanity. This is the feeling I find almost impossible to repress when going through the motions of building a case against the American war in Vietnam. Anyone who puts a fraction of his mind to the task can construct a case that is overwhelming: surely this is now obvious. In a way, by doing so he degrades himself, and insults beyond measure the victims of our violence and our moral blindness. There may have been a time when American policy in Vietnam was a debatable matter. This time is long past. It is no more debatable than the Italian war in Abyssinia or the Russian suppression of Hungarian freedom. The war is simply an obscenity, a depraved act by weak and miserable men, including all of us, who have allowed it to go on and on with endless fury and destruction – all of us who would have remained silent had stability and order been secured. It is not pleasant to use such words, but candour permits no less.

By nature, we are a cabal.

Cameroon is not a country of slaves that no man can free.

[C]apitalism--democracy's sidekick

But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people. If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty, soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular. Suspicions will be raised of his fidelity to his cause. Moderation will be stigmatized as the virtue of cowards; and compromise as the prudence of traitors; until, in hopes of preserving the credit which may enable him to temper, and moderate, on some occasions, the popular leader is obliged to become active in propagating doctrines, and establishing powers, that will afterwards defeat any sober purpose at which he ultimately might have aimed.

Changing entrenched systems is daunting; the odds against reshaping the nation's police forces are high. But there are few things more important than making sure their profession is the brave, honorable service it should be. We have to do it, or watch our communities and our democracy disintegrate.

census: (n.) being counted so we can be discounted.

Change represents the real spirit of democracy and the real America.

Choose a leader who will invest in building bridges, not walls. Books, not weapons. Morality, not corruption. Intellectualism and wisdom, not ignorance.