We are having an election here right now and the politicians are making promises right, left and center.
Promises that everyone knows they will never keep. (and politicians wonder why they are about as popular as a dose of clap) So to make things a little less cynical, or maybe to prove I ain't the only cynic here, here are some quotes on the the subject of democracy.
Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. WINSTON CHURCHILL, speech, Nov. 11, 1947Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote! BENJAMIN FRANKLINDemocracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear, ALAN COREN Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. OSCAR WILDE, The Soul of Man Under SocialismIt's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting. TOM STOPPARD, Jumpers (Ah those hangin' chads and electronic voting machines) 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 The ballot is stronger than the bullet. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech, May 19, 1856
The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter. WINSTON CHURCHILL Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, Maxims for Revolutionists It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny. JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, The American Democrat Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors. RALPH WALDO EMERSON In every well-governed state, wealth is a sacred thing; in democracies it is the only sacred thing. ANATOLE FRANCE, Penguin Island The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment. ROBERT HUTCHINSDemocracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time. E.B. WHITE Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. H.L. MENCKEN Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. HELEN KELLER (a very wise woman) Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers. ARISTOTLE Democracy is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequal alike. PLATO Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage. H.L. MENCKEN Democracy is the road to socialism. KARL MARX
We are having an election here right now and the politicians are making promises right, left and center. Promises that everyone knows they will never keep. (and politicians wonder why they are about as popular as a dose of clap) So to make things a little less cynical, or maybe to prove I ain't the only cynic here, here are some quotes on the the subject of democracy.
4 comments:
The ballot is stronger than the bullet. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech, May 19, 1856
Um... well, actually...
Funny that struck me also since he was the president who kept the union together by the bullet.
I always vote 'against' in any case. I did actually interview M. Charest many years ago when he was with the feds, and I quite liked him at a personal level, despite the perm. Good quotes.
Ian
I think you are a cynic, the important thing is that people go out and vote.
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