#democracy

To win the cause we all believe in, the spread of true democracy all over the world, we need to win by example, not just with speeches but by example; not just with military might but by gaining the respect of the world. ↗

— Barbara Boxer

#cause #democracy #example #gaining #just

I think the Iraqi people have shown extraordinary patience and courage in the last few months. They have really put a political system on the way to success, to a real democracy here. ↗

— Paul Bremer

#democracy #extraordinary #few #here #i

It's all a sham: I have seen, and I know firsthand, indeed from my own pen, how the organized Right has sabotaged not only journalism but also democracy and truth. ↗

— David Brock

#democracy #firsthand #how #i #indeed

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. ↗

— H.L. Mencken

#democracy

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule—and both commonly succeed, and are right. ↗

— H.L. Mencken

#democracy

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. ↗

— George Bernard Shaw

#democracy

Social conservatism and neoconservatism have revived authoritarian conservatism, and not for the better of conservatism or American democracy. True conservatism is cautious and prudent. Authoritarianism is rash and radical. American democracy has benefited from true conservatism, but authoritarianism offers potentially serious trouble for any democracy. ↗

— John W. Dean

#conservatism #democracy #politics #democracy

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy. ↗

— Elmer T Peterson

#misattributed-to-de-tocqueville #democracy

In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot. ↗

— Czesław Miłosz

#dissent #heroes #honesty #integrity #truth

[Lighting a cigarette] Well, I'm not here to impinge on anybody else's lifestyle. If I'm in a place where I know I'm going to harm somebody's health or somebody asks me to please not smoke, I just go outside and smoke. But I do resent the way the nonsmoking mentality has been imposed on the smoking minority. Because, first of all, in a democracy, minorities do have rights. And, second, the whole pitch about smoking has gone from being a health issue to a moral issue, and when they reduce something to a moral issue, it has no place in any kind of legislation, as far as I'm concerned. ↗

— Frank Zappa

#morality #rights #smoking #democracy