Rudolph Rummel: Trending quotes (page 3)

“Quite simply, a free press promotes peace; creating a universally free press would promote universal peace. The bridge between the two is democracy.”

Rudolph Rummel

“Freedom of the press—a way to peace,” ASNE Bulletin (February 1989), p. 27. ASNE stands for the American Association of Newspaper Editors

Peace , Democracy , Universe

“Democracy is a metasolution to the problem of diversity.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War (2007), p. 22

Democracy , Problem

“Power kills, absolute Power kills absolutely. This new Power Principle is the message emerging from my previous work on the causes of war and this book on genocide and government mass murder—what I call democide—in this century. The more power a government has, the more it can act arbitrarily according to the whims and desires of the elite, the more it will make war on others and murder its foreign and domestic subjects.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: Death by Government (1994), pp. 1-2

War , Books

“The way to virtually eliminate genocide and mass murder appears to be through restricting and checking Power, i. e., through fostering democratic freedom.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: Death by Government (1994), p. 27

Way , Freedom , Appearance

“Increasing freedom in the world decreases the death toll of its wars. Surely, whatever reduces and then finally ends the scourge of war in our history, without causing a greater evil, must be the greatest moral good. And this is freedom.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War (2007), p. 15

Death , War , World , History

“What is the democratic peace? In the literature on or referring to the democratic peace, this means the idea or fact that democracies do not (or virtually never) make war on each other.”

Rudolph Rummel

“What Is The Democratic Peace?” https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DP.IS_WHAT.HTM

War , Peace , Democracy , Literature

“Democracies don’t murder their citizens.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: Power Kills: Democracy as a Method of Nonviolence(1997), p. 95

Democracy

“Democracy says, ‘Govern yourself, but do so in a manner consistent with the same right of others.’ Democracy does not lay down a template for each person’s life, as do dictatorships.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War (2007), p. 22

Life , Democracy , Personality

“Libertarian states are by theory not only less violence prone, but when foreign relations includes the perception of other libertarian states, this inhibition becomes a mutual barrier to violence. Their mutual domestic diversity and pluralism, their free and competitive press, their people-to-people and elite-to-elite bonds and relationships, and their mutual identification and sympathy will foreclose on any expectation or occurrence of war between them; violence may occur only in the most extraordinary and unusual circumstances, or at the margins of what it means to be libertarian.”

Rudolph Rummel

“Libertarianism and International Violence”, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 27, Sage Publications, March 1, 1983, p. 27-71

War , People

“Well-established democracies do not make war on each other.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War (2007), p. 106

War , Democracy

“Aside from anarcho-libertarianism, there are two contending ideas of libertarianism. In its broad sense, libertarianism is equated with civil liberties and political rights—what we usually mean by democracy. Sweden, Japan, and the United States would thus be almost equally libertarian. In its narrow sense, libertarianism is equivalent to classical liberal democracy, adding to democracy the requirement of a free market. India would then be less libertarian than Japan; Israel less libertarian than West Germany. Theoretically, liberal democracies should have significantly less violence than socialist democracies, but both should have significantly less than nondemocracies.”

Rudolph Rummel

“Libertarian Propositions on Violence Within and Between Nations: A Test Against Published Research Results," The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 29, Sage Publications, (September, 1985): pp. 419-455. https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DP85.HTM

Democracy , Idea , Sense

“Free people never have famine.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War (2007), p. 13

People

“The less free the people within any two nations are, the bloodier and more destructive the war between them; the greater their freedom, the less likely such wars occur. Free people do not make war on each other.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War (2007), p. 14

War , People , Freedom

“Recall that democratic regimes in an exchange society are at one corner of the political triangle while totalitarian regimes with the coercive society they have constructed are at another. They therefore are at opposing ends of one side of the triangle, which is a continuum ranging from Freedom to Power.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: Power Kills: Democracy as a Method of Nonviolence(1997), p. 204

Freedom

“People should not be free only because it is good for them. They should be free because it is their right as human beings.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War (2007), p. 116

People

“Democide is a government’s murder of people for any reason or no reason at all. Genocide is the murder of people because of their race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, or language.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War (2007), p. 76

People , Religion

“The social structure of a free, democratic society creates the psychological conditions for its greater internal peace.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War (2007), p. 64

Peace