#democracy

Our Founding Fathers crafted a constitutional Republic for the first time in the history of the world because they were shaping a form of government that would not have the failures of a democracy in it, but had the representation of democracy in it. ↗

— Steve King

#constitutional #constitutional republic #crafted #democracy #failures

I fear you do not fully comprehend the danger of abridging the liberties of the people. Nothing but the very sternest necessity can ever justify it. A government had better go to the very extreme of toleration, than to do aught that could be construed into an interference with, or to jeopardize in any degree, the common rights of its citizens. ↗

— Abraham Lincoln

#freedom #philosophy #freedom

I also know that there have been many times in our history when the proximity of an election has induced exactly the kind of leadership and consensus-building that produce progress in our democracy. ↗

— Joe Lieberman

#been #democracy #election #exactly #history

The problem of the world today is the people talk on and on about democracy, freedom, justice. But I don't give a damn about democracy if I am worried about survival. ↗

— Imelda Marcos

#am #damn #democracy #freedom #give

Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements. ↗

— Agnes Repplier

#between #contrast #democracy #forever #heroic

We Americans have the great gifts of freedom and democracy, but it has been our education system that has fulfilled the promise of democracy. ↗

— James E. Rogers

#democracy #education #freedom #fulfilled #gifts

Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best ↗

— Otto von Bismarck

#elections #government #political-science #politics-observation #politics-science

Is it possible that we ‘hate’ politics because we have forgotten its specific and limited nature, its overwhelming value, and also its innate fragility? Could it be that our expectations are so high that politics appears almost destined to disappoint? Democratic politics cannot make ‘every sad heart glad’, as Crick argued, nor did it ever promise to do so. But not always getting what you want, an awareness that public governance is often slow and bureaucratic, a frustration that some decisions are hard to understand or have to be made in secret, disbelief and anger at the selfinterested behaviour of a small number of politicians, and an acceptance that some people will always take out more from the system than they put in—these are the prices you pay for living in a democracy. ↗

— Matthew Flinders

#participation #anger

The major western democracies are moving towards corporatism. Democracy has become a business plan, with a bottom line for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope. The main parliamentary parties are now devoted to the same economic policies — socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor — and the same foreign policy of servility to endless war. This is not democracy. It is to politics what McDonalds is to food. ↗

— John Pilger

#democracy #politics #business

The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own Government, I can not be Silent. ↗

— Martin Luther King Jr.

#democracy #freedom #marxism #radicalism #rebellion