#democracy

People are even more wary of politicians and they are realizing that democracy isn't just about putting a cross on a ballot every four years, it's about deciding what you want and fighting for it. ↗

— Mark Thomas

#ballot #cross #deciding #democracy #even

And a democracy can't exist without free speech and the right to assemble. And that's what Americans tend to forget. And they're born into a culture where they take all of their freedoms for granted. ↗

— Larry Flynt

#born #culture #democracy #exist #forget

When public men indulge themselves in abuse, when they deny others a fair trial, when they resort to innuendo and insinuation, to libel, scandal, and suspicion, then our democratic society is outraged, and democracy is baffled. ↗

— J. William Fulbright

#baffled #democracy #democratic #democratic society #deny

The US constitution's First Amendment rights only cover Americans, but I believe that in a democracy the competition of ideas and free speech should combat beliefs that it does not agree with - more speech and debate, not censorship. ↗

— Joichi Ito

#amendment #amendment rights #beliefs #believe #censorship

The Western post-Christian civilization has picked up the Christ without His Cross. But a Christ without a sacrifice that reconciles the world to God is a cheap, colorless, itinerant preacher who deserves to be popular for His great Sermon on the Mount, but also merits unpopularity for what He said about His Divinity on the one hand, and divorce, judgment, and hell on the other. This sentimental Christ is patched together with a thousand commonplaces, sustained sometimes by academic etymologists who cannot see the Word for the letters, or distorted beyond personal recognition by a dogmatic principle that anything which is Divine must necessarily be a myth. Without His Cross, He becomes nothing more than a sultry precursor of democracy or a humanitarian who taught brotherhood without tears. ↗

— Fulton J. Sheen

#democracy #jesus #secular-humanism #sermon-on-the-mount #the-cross

And every historic effort to forge a democratic project has been undermined by two fundamental realities: poverty and paranoia. The persistence of poverty generates levels of despair that deepen social conflict the escalation of paranoia produces levels of distrust that reinforce cultural division. Rae is the most explosive issue in American life precisely because it forces us to confront the tragic facts of poverty and paranoia despair, and distrust. In short, a candid examination of race matters takes us to the core of the crisis of American democracy (p. 107). ↗

— Cornel West

#democracy #poverty #race #life

Librarians consider free access to information the foundation of democracy. ↗

— Marilyn Johnson

#librarians #librarians

As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end. ↗

— Adlai E. Stevenson

#citizens #democracy #end #law-abiding #ruled

Public confidence in the integrity of the Government is indispensable to faith in democracy; and when we lose faith in the system, we have lost faith in everything we fight and spend for. ↗

— Adlai E. Stevenson

#democracy #everything #faith #fight #government

It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting. ↗

— Tom Stoppard

#counting #democracy #voting