Quotes about democrat (1713 quotes, page 9)

“The engineering of consent is the very essence of the democratic process, the freedom to persuade and suggest.”

Edward Bernays (1891–1995) American public relations consultant, marketing pioneer

"The Engineering of Consent", Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science No. 250 (March 1947), p. 113; Reprinted in Edward L. Bernays, Howard Walden Cutler, The Engineering of Consent, University of Oklahoma Press, 1955

Freedom

“Because intelligent choices of public policies require both technical understanding and sensitivity to the values involved, in modern democratic countries a form of specialized intellectual activity has evolved that tends to combine both aspects of policy.”

Robert A. Dahl (1915–2014) American political scientist

After the Revolution? (1970; 1990), Ch. 3 : Democracy and Markets

Intelligence , Understanding , Country

“I am defending the Jews to prevent them from becoming extinct, because they are doomed to become extinct if they continue this way.… I am convinced that the solution is to establish a democratic state for the Jews and the Palestinians, a state that will be called Palestine, Isratine, or whatever they want. This is the fundamental solution, or else the Jews will be annihilated in the future, because the Palestinians have [strategic] depth.”

Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist

Interview with Al Jazeera (27 March 2007)
Interviews

Way , Future

“When Europeans put millions of their brothers (Jews) into ovens under the Nazis, the chickens were coming home to roost. Such behavior inside of “democratic” Europe was not as strange as it is sometimes made out to be. There was always a contradiction between the elaboration of democratic ideas inside Europe and the elaboration of authoritarian and thuggish practices by Europeans with respect to Africans.”

Walter Rodney book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Source: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 139.

Behavior , Home , Idea

“It’s early in the process for me, but my infatuation with fame is waning, my need for external approval and the control of other people’s opinions is expiring. Practically I’ve decided that profits from this book will go towards creating a place where recovering addicts like me can run a business based on the ideas in this book. A café and production company run to create community, not money, democratically managed by the workforce. No bosses. No profit. No bullshit. Selling food sourced ethically, grown locally, and served by people who have had a Revolution in their own lives and are now able to learn and give back. Supporting modest creative projects, building a community of people who want to be part of something other than the toxic hegemony. We will start small but we will grow quickly because we have a limitless resource and we are providing an alternative to a dying system. There are no limits to what we can achieve if we behave collectively, responsibly, and humanely.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Money , People , Books , Food

“It seems obvious, then, that the search for solutions to the problems generated by a predominantly privately owned market-oriented society has been and will continue to be a major element in the political agenda of every democratic country.”

Robert A. Dahl (1915–2014) American political scientist

After the Revolution? (1970; 1990), Ch. 3 : Democracy and Markets

Search , Problem , Country

“The Democratic party of the nation ain’t dead, though it’s been givin’ a lifelike imitation of a corpse for several years. p. 88”

George Washington Plunkitt (1842–1924) New York State Senator

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Chapter 22, A Parting Word on the Future of the Democratic Party in America

Dead

“As we've been a good friend to other countries in moments of shared perils, so we have good reason to expect their solidarity with us in this struggle. That is what the President believes.
And, thanks to his efforts we have received valuable assistance from many good friends around the globe, even if we have, at times, been disappointed with the reactions of some. I don't doubt the sincerity of my Democratic friends. And they should not doubt ours.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

2000s, 2004, Speech at the Republican National Convention (2004)

Disappointment , Effort , Time , Sincerity

“Well, they’re going to elect that Stupid Hoover, and he’s going to have some trouble. He’s going to have to spend money, but it won’t be enough. Then the Democrats will come in. But they don’t know anything about money.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

To Secret Service agent Edmund Starling, as quoted in The Forgotten Depression: 1921: The Crash That Cured Itself https://books.google.com/books?id=1PdtAwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22+Well,+they%E2%80%99re+going+to+elect+that+Superman+Hoover,+and+he%E2%80%99s+going+to+have+some+trouble.+He%E2%80%99s+going+to+have+to+spend+money,+but+it+won%E2%80%99t+be+enough.+Then+the+Democrats+will+come+in.+But+they+don%E2%80%99t+know+anything+about+money.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiz78rvs-3MAhVG8j4KHYm9AxAQ6AEIKjAC#v=onepage&q=%22know%20anything%20about%20money%22&f=false (2014), by James Grant

Money , Stupidity

“The time is coming that we have to abolish the concept of separation between church and state. We need a political party centered upon religious ideology. The world of democracy is based upon the ideology of brotherhood. That is why Cain and Abel struggle exists there. Changes of power always head towards the satanic side. This democratic period in human history is passing away. Soon the heavenly sovereignty will be established to lead the world.”

Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader

True God's Day Midnight Address, Reverend Sun Myung Moon, World Mission Center http://www.tparents.org/Moon-Talks/sunmyungmoon96/960101md.htm (1996-01-01)

World , Democracy , History , Change

“Pat, did you notice yesterday the ACLU, and all the Christ-haters, People For the American Way, NOW, etc. were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress as they went out on the steps and called out on to God in prayer and sang "God Bless America" and said "let the ACLU be hanged"? In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time — calling upon God.”

Jerry Falwell (1933–2007) American evangelical pastor, televangelist, and conservative political commentator

On responses to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, as quoted in AANEWS #958 (14 September 2001)

God , People , Way , Nature

“The democratic ideal springs from the ideas of liberty, equality, majority rule through free elections, protection of the rights of minorities, and freedom to subscribe to multiple loyalties in matters of religion, economics, and politics rather than to a total loyalty to the state. The spirit of democracy is the idea of importance and worth in the individual, and faith in the kind of world where the individual can achieve as much of his potential as possible.”

Saul D. Alinsky (1909–1972) American community organizer and writer

Source: Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals (1971), p. xxiv

World , Faith , Religion , Democracy

“The American, if he has a spark of national feeling, will be humiliated by the very prospect of a foreigner's visit to Congress — these, for the most part, illiterate hacks whose fancy vests are spotted with gravy, and whose speeches, hypocritical, unctuous and slovenly, are spotted also with the gravy of political patronage, these persons are a reflection on the democratic process rather than of it; they expose it in its underwear.”

Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) American writer

"America the Beautiful: The Humanist in the Bathtub", p. 8. First published in Commentary (September 1947)
On the Contrary: Articles of Belief 1946–1961 (1961)

Feeling , Parting , Personality

“At length a force of three million S. A. men was pushing on behind him [Röhm], and God knew whither they were pushing. There were large numbers of Communists and Social Democrats among them; many of the storm troopers were called ‘beefsteaks—brown and red within. Jest were retailed such as the following: one S. A. man says to another: ‘In our storm troop there are three Nazis, but we shall soon have spewed them out.”

Konrad Heiden (1901–1966) German journalist and historian

Source: Hitler: A Biography (1936), p. 390

Men , God

“The project of organizing a democratic political movement entails the hope that one's ideas and beliefs are not merely idiosyncratic but speak to vital human needs, interests and desires, and therefore will be persuasive to many and ultimately most people. But this is a very different matter from deciding to put forward only those ideas presumed (accurately or not) to be compatible with what most people already believe.”

Ellen Willis (1941–2006) writer, activist

"We Need a Radical Left", The Nation (29 June 1998) http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Political/Radical_Left.html

People , Hope , Idea

“[ John Rawls's] Theory of Justice begins with this assertion: “Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust …. Truth and justice are uncompromising” (p. 3). How, one might ask. do we know that justice has this preeminence? Rawls’s second basic claim is that we have a particular kind of access to this preeminence: we have an “intuitive conviction of the primacy of justice” (p. 4) over all other considerations including welfare, efficiency, democratic choice, transparency, dignity, international competitiveness, or freedom, and, of course, over any rooted moral, philosophical, or religious conceptions. There is no account of where these intuitions came from, whether they might be in any way historically or sociologically variable, or what role they play in society.”

Raymond Geuss book Philosophy and Real Politics

Source: Philosophy and Real Politics (2008), pp. 70-71.

Truth , Justice , Law , Way

“No matter how close and familiar the temple or cathedral were to the people who lived around them, they remained in terrifying or elevating contrast to the daily life of the slave, the peasant, and the artisan—and perhaps even to that of their masters. Whether ritualized or not, art contains the rationality of negation. In its advanced positions, it is the Great Refusal—the protest against that which is. The modes in which man and things are made to appear, to sing and sound and speak, are modes of refuting, breaking, and recreating their factual existence. But these modes of negation pay tribute to the antagonistic society to which they are linked. Separated from the sphere of labor where society reproduces itself and its misery, the world of art which they create remains, with all its truth, a privilege and an illusion. In this form it continues, in spite of all democratization and popularization, through the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. The “high culture” in which this alienation is celebrated has its own rites and its own style. The salon, the concert, opera. theater are designed to create and invoke another dimension of reality. Their attendance requires festive-like preparation; they cut off and transcend everyday experience. Now this essential gap between the arts and the order of the day, kept open in the artistic alienation, is progressively closed by the advancing technological society. And with its closing, the Great Refusal is in turn refused; the “other dimension” is absorbed into the prevailing state of affairs. The works of alienation are themselves incorporated into this society and circulate as part and parcel of the equipment which adorns and psychoanalyzes the prevailing state of affairs.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), pp. 63-64

Life , People , Truth , World

“Tomorrow morning, I will suspend my campaign and return to Washington. I have spoken to Senator Obama and informed him of my decision and have asked him to join me. We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and we must meet until this crisis is resolved. I am directing my campaign to work with the Obama campaign and the Commission on Presidential Debates to delay Friday night's debate until we have taken action to address this crisis.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

Speaking to reporters in New York, regarding the need to pass legislation concerning the economic crisis, 24 September 2008 http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-campaign25-2008sep25,0,766973.story
2000s, 2008

Decision , Night

“The general election of 1983 has produced one important result that has passed virtually without comment in the media. It is that, for the first time since 1945, a political party with an openly socialist policy has received the support of over eight and a half million people. This is a remarkable development by any standards and it deserves some analysis … the 1983 Labour manifesto commanded the loyalty of millions of voters and a democratic socialist bridge-head in public understanding and support can be made.”

Tony Benn (1925–2014) British Labour Party politician

The Guardian (20 June 1983).
1980s

People , Understanding , Support , Time

“The recently passed law to "end welfare as we know it" came about because a lethargic public has been aroused at last, not by the failure of the welfare system but by its success. The public indignation, however, would have been of no effect had we not elected a Republican Congress. No Democratic Congress would ever have passed such a law. Just as welfare reform may help end the poverty industry, the California Civil Rights Initiative on the November ballot may lead to the demise of another 1960s product, the racism and sexism industry. The 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawed discrimination based upon race, sex, color, religion or ethnic origin. The act was based on the premise that the only race to which a person must belong is the human race. With respect to God-given natural rights, "all men are created equal."”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

1990s, The Party of Lincoln vs. The Party of Bureaucrats (1996)

Men , God , Religion , Law

“Experience has shown that the mass-armies of “democratic” states fight with greater zeal when they are animated by hatred and supported by a hate-crazed populace that fancies it is fighting a holy war. Lies have therefore become military equipment, a kind of mental logistics; but it is the essence of such propaganda that its spuriousness is known only to the persons who manufacture it. The model of such operations is the famous lie-factory managed by Lord Bryce during the First World War, in which a corps of expert technicians forged photographs, while expert liars, including Arnold Toynbee, concocted stories, of “atrocities,” to inspire the emotionally overwrought British with a fanatical hatred of the incredibly bestial Germans and with a noble Christian ardor to kill them.”

Revilo P. Oliver (1908–1994) American philologist

"Revised Historiography", Liberty Bell magazine (April 1980)
1970s, 1980s

Hate , War , Lie , World

“"We have a president right now who doesn't consider himself a socialist but people call him a socialist as an insult. Are you concerned at all about framing yourself as this?"…
"Not if we have the opportunity to describe what democratic socialism means…. You have countries like Denmark, Sweden, Norway… which have had social democratic governments…. In those countries, healthcare is a right for all people…. Tuition is free…. In those countries, governments are working for the middle class, rather than the billionaire class."”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Late Night with Seth Meyers (2 June 2015) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFAq-4Vv5c0
2010s, 2015

People , Country

“The widespread abuse of prisoners is a virtually foolproof indication that politicians are trying to impose a system--whether political, religious or economic--that is rejected by large numbers of the people they are ruling. Just as ecologists define ecosystems by the presence of certain "indicator species" of plants and birds, torture is an indicator species of a regime that is engaged in a deeply anti-democratic project, even if that regime happens to have come to power through elections.”

Naomi Klein (1970) Canadian author and activist

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007)

People , Bird

“During the final months of the campaign, as polls indicated that I had a real chance of becoming the next leader, opposition from the supply management lobby gathered speed. Radio-Canada reported on dairy farmers who were busy selling Conservative Party memberships across Quebec. A Facebook page called Les amis de la gestion de l’offre et des régions (Friends of supply management and regions) was set up and had gathered more than 10,500 members by early May. As members started receiving their ballots by mail from the party, its creator, Jacques Roy, asked them to vote for Andrew Scheer.
Andrew, along with several other candidates, was then busy touring Quebec’s agricultural belt, including my own riding of Beauce, to pick up support from these fake Conservatives, only interested in blocking my candidacy and protecting their privileges. Interestingly, one year later, most of them have not renewed their memberships and are not members of the party anymore. During these last months of the campaign, the number of members in Quebec had increased considerably, from about 6,000 to more than 16,000. In April 2018, according to my estimates, we are down to about 6,000 again.
A few days after the vote, Éric Grenier, a political analyst at the CBC, calculated that if only 66 voters in a few key ridings had voted differently, I could have won. The points system, by which every riding in the country represented 100 points regardless of the number of members they had, gave outsized importance in the vote to a handful of ridings with few members. Of course, a lot more than 66 supply management farmers voted, likely thousands of them in Quebec, Ontario, and the other provinces. I even lost my riding of Beauce by 51% to 49%, the same proportion as the national vote.
At the annual press gallery dinner in Ottawa a few days after the vote, a gala where personalities make fun of political events of the past year, Andrew was said to have gotten the most laughs when he declared: “I certainly don’t owe my leadership victory to anybody…”, stopping in mid-sentence to take a swig of 2% milk from the carton. “It’s a high quality drink and it’s affordable too.” Of course, it was so funny because everybody in the room knew that was precisely why he got elected. He did what he thought he had to do to get the most votes, and that is fair game in a democratic system. But this also helps explain why so many people are so cynical about politics, and with good reason.”

Maxime Bernier (1963) Canadian politician

page 23 in "Live or die with supply management", chapter 5 previewed April 2018 http://www.maximebernier.com/my_chapter_on_supply_management of "Doing Politics Differently: My Vision for Canada"

People , Game , Drink , Business

“While the Democratic-led congress hits a record low nine percent approval rating despite high pre-election hopes, the even further left-leaning embodiment of that epic failure is now shuffling around the globe, sending crowds into frenzies through speeches pimped out with eminently forgettable rhetoric that would make great political speechmakers like Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill scratch their heads.”

Rachel Marsden (1974) journalist

On Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama's candidacy
Barack Obama Has Little In Common With Europe http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=27669

Hope , Failure

“The U. S. alleges it wants to democratize [the Middle East] whilst it seeks to reverse election results not legally or through polls, but by force, fostering chaos and supporting, financing and arming the corrupt.”

Khaled Mashal (1956) Palestinian terrorist

Al Jazeera Talk to Jazeera - Khaled Meshaal http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8TTjb54GzM March 5, 2008.
2008

Support

“The Liberal party is very much your northern Democrat, or mainstream Democratic party, a party that is less concessionary to the secessionists than the PCs, but still somewhat concessionary. And they still occupy the mainstream of public opinion in Ontario, which is the big and powerful province, politically and economically, alongside Quebec.”

Stephen Harper (1959) 22nd Prime Minister of Canada

1990s, Speech to the Council for National Policy (1997)

“I am a democrat because I believe that no man or group of men is good enough to be trusted with uncontrolled power over others. And the higher the pretensions of such power, the more dangerous I think it both to the rulers and to the subjects. Hence Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated, and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations. And since Theocracy is the worst, the nearer any government approaches to Theocracy the worse it will be. A metaphysic, held by the rulers with the force of a religion, is a bad sign. It forbids them, like the inquisitor, to admit any grain of truth or good in their opponents, it abrogates the ordinary rules of morality, and it gives a seemingly high, super-personal sanction to all the very ordinary human passions by which, like other men, the rulers will frequently be actuated. In other words, it forbids wholesome doubt. […]
This false certainty comes out in Professor Haldane's article. […] It is breaking Aristotle's canon—to demand in every enquiry that the degree of certainty which the subject matter allows. And not on your life to pretend that you see further than you do.
Being a democrat, I am opposed to all very drastic and sudden changes of society (in whatever direction) because they never in fact take place except by a particular technique. That technique involves the seizure of power by a small, highly disciplined group of people; the terror and the secret police follow, it would seem, automatically. I do not think any group good enough to have such power. They are men of like passions with ourselves. The secrecy and discipline of their organisation will have already inflamed in them that passion for the inner ring which I think at least as corrupting as avarice; and their high ideological pretensions will have lent all their passions the dangerous prestige of the Cause. Hence, in whatever direction the change is made, it is for me damned by its modus operandi.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

The worst of all public dangers is the committee of public safety.
"A Reply to Professor Haldane" (1946), published posthumously in Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (1966)
Some of these ideas were included in the essay "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment" (1949) (see below).

Life , Men , People , Truth

“The U. S. stock market was now a class system, rooted in speed, of haves and have-nots. The haves paid for nanoseconds; the have-nots had no idea that a nanosecond had value. The haves enjoyed a perfect view of the market; the have-nots never saw the market at all. What had once been the world’s most public, most democratic, financial market had become, in spirit, something like a private viewing of a stolen work of art.”

Michael Lewis book Flash Boys

Source: Flash Boys (2014), p. 69

World , Art , Idea , Speed

“No Party is so divided as mine. I have done my utmost to keep it together, but it ranges from Imperialists of the Second Jubilee to young advanced Democrats who are all for Irwin's policy. I am for that policy myself, and mean to say so.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Conversation with Thomas Jones (11 March 1931) about Indian Home Rule, quoted in Thomas Jones, A Diary with Letters. 1931-1950 (Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 5.
1931

“In ancient and medieval India, no Hindu priest would subjugate himself to the rule of law. That was the basic reason why no Hindu institution could evolve a spiritual democratic culture within the religion. We are now living in a borrowed system of political democracy.”

Kancha Ilaiah (1952) Indian scholar, activist and writer

"Hinduism And Its Moral Dilemma" in Tehelka (29 January 2005) http://www.tehelka.com/2005/01/hinduism-and-its-moral-dilemma/.

Religion , Law , Democracy

“Only Communists and Social Democrats who acted against the state were incarcerated. Most of the Communists and Social Democrats I had known became Nazis later. Only those who were doing anything against the state were thrown in concentration camps.”

Fritz Sauckel (1894–1946) German general

To Leon Goldensohn, February 9, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.

“The freedoms which had been so hard won from colonial domination were being crushed by Soviet-inspired and funded military and political forces. Their clear intention was to deprive the people of their democratic freedoms. As history shows, this is what had happened in the Soviet Union and in Cuba, and continues to be the case in other parts of the world.”

Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006) Former dictator of the republic of Chile

Statement (8 November 1998)
1990s

People , World , History , Freedom

“I have become post facto a representative of the country. So if you ask, "Is Mermaids a Canadian film?" — it has become one. It has become a means whereby people characterize Canadian film. I think in the creation of Mermaids, I did see it in political terms. I thought of the underdog. Canada is not a superpower by any means. It's very quietly, comfortably democratic, but it's plagued by a sense of inferiority.”

Patricia Rozema (1958) Canadian film director

As quoted in "Patricia Rozema : I've Heard the Mermaids Singing" (1997) in Film Fatales : Independent Women Directors by Victoria A. Brownworth, and Judith M. Redding, p. 208

People , Thinking , Sense , Country

“Difficult days lie ahead, but Britain will face them in the conviction that our cause is just and in the knowledge that we have been doing everything reasonable to secure a negotiated settlement. The principles that we are defending are fundamental to everything that this Parliament and this country stand for. They are the principles of democracy and the rule of law…Britain has a responsibility towards the islanders to restore their democratic way of life. She has a duty to the whole world to show that aggression will not succeed and to uphold the cause of freedom.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech in the House of Commons (20 May 1982) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104943
First term as Prime Minister

Life , Lie , World , Law

“The foremost, or indeed the sole condition which is required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme power in a democratic community, is to love equality, or to get men to believe you love it. Thus the science of despotism, which was once so complex, is simplified, and reduced as it were to a single principle.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Book Four, Chapter IV.
Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Four

Love , Men , Communication , Science

“[The Liberal party is a] moderate Democrat, a type of Clinton-pragmatic Democrat. It's moved in the last few years very much to the right on fiscal and economic concerns, but still believes in government intrusion in the economy where possible, and does, in its majority, believe in fairly liberal social values.”

Stephen Harper (1959) 22nd Prime Minister of Canada

1990s, Speech to the Council for National Policy (1997)

“In the whole negative part, we are alike. We and the Russians are against liberals, against democrats, against parliament.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

As quoted in Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime, Richard Pipes, New York: NY, Vintage Books, 1995, p. 252, and in Yvon de Begnac, Palazzo Venezia: Storia di un Regime, Rome, 1950, p. 361.
Undated

Parting

“The rights of the individual are of no less importance to immigrants and minorities in Europe and the Americas than to women in Afghanistan or children in Africa. They are as fundamental to the poor as to the rich; they are as necessary to the security of the developed world as to that of the developing world.
From this vision of the role of the United Nations in the next century flow three key priorities for the future: eradicating poverty, preventing conflict, and promoting democracy. Only in a world that is rid of poverty can all men and women make the most of their abilities. Only where individual rights are respected can differences be channelled politically and resolved peacefully. Only in a democratic environment, based on respect for diversity and dialogue, can individual self-expression and self-government be secured, and freedom of association be upheld.”

Kofi Annan (1938–2018) 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Nobel lecture (2001)

Women , Men , Children , World

“Depression is a democratic sickness: it afflicts everyone.”

Indro Montanelli (1909–2001) Italian journalist

cited in TV Ippocrate, Rai News, 13 giugno 2010.
2000s - 2010s

Affliction

“Roe was a shock to me because even at 16 or 17 years old I understood that abortion was killing an unborn baby. I mean it was simple and straightforward and indeed it is simple and straightforward. We try to make this complicated, but it's simple and straightforward. You've got a new human life developing in the mother's womb and abortion is the business of killing that baby. Now, the Planned Parenthood videos have made that very graphic but you didn't actually need the videos, uh, at least I didn't need to the videos to know that. But even then we didn't think of abortion as something Democrats were for and Republicans were against. The division of the parties into a pro-abortion party and an anti-abortion party came a little later.”

Robert P. George (1955) American legal scholar

2016, Interview with Bill Kristol (2016)

Life , Business , Thinking , Baby

“I am not a career politician. I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. I'm a working man with commonsense ideas and goals. I describe myself politically as fiscally conservative and socially moderate-to-liberal.”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

I Ain't Got Time To Bleed (1999)

Idea

“President Obama must be defeated in the coming election … He has spent trillions of dollars to rescue the moneyed interests and left workers and homeowners to their own devices. … He has delivered the politics of democracy to the rule of money…. Unless he is defeated, there cannot be a contest for the reorientation of the Democratic Party as the vehicle of a progressive alternative in the country … Only a political reversal can allow the voice of Democratic prophesy to speak once again in American life.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician

Quoted in Meena Hart Duerson, "Obama’s former Harvard professor: ‘He must be defeated’ː Roberto Unger called for Obama’s defeat in a recent YouTube video," New York Daily News, Monday, June 18, 2012
On Barack Obama
Source: Accessed at http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/obama-harvard-professor-defeated-article-1.1097944 on December 4, 2015

Life , Money , Democracy , Country

“On March 20, 1854, the Republican Party was established in Ripon, Wisconsin. Referred to as the 'GOP' or 'Grand Old Party', it established for one reason, to break the chains of slavery and ensure the unalienable rights endowed by the Creator of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness would be for all Americans. The Republican Party was created to achieve individual freedom. Then, as now, the antagonist to the Republican Party has been the Democrats, the party of collective subjugation and individual enslavement, then physical, now economic.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, Voting Democratic for the next 200 years (2014)

Life , Freedom , Happiness

“Democrat Grover Cleveland was America’s last conservative president. He preached and practiced the maxim that ‘the people must support the government, but the government must not support the people.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“ Trump Doesn’t Need To Talk Like A Con-Servative http://www.wnd.com/2016/03/trump-doesnt-need-to-talk-like-a-conservative/,” WND.com, March 17, 2016
2010s, 2016

People , Support

“In response to criticism from Democratic mayoral candidates for appearing at a 2004 event for the Independence Party: "To all the critics who are rushing out to criticize me tonight, criticize me for being here tonight, let me point out that this night is about the one million New Yorkers who are denied the most basic rights by the two major political parties."”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

http://www.independentvoting.org/Bloomberg.html
Politics

Appearance , Night

“Today we have arrived at a point when the thre principles [of modern resistance: 1. measure of efficacy, 2. the form of political and military organization correspond to the currest forms of economic and social production, 3. democracy and freedom] coincide. The distributed network structure provides the model for an absolutely democratic organization that corresponds to the dominant forms of economic and social production and is also the most poweful weapon against the rulin power structure.”

Antonio Negri book Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

88
Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

Democracy , Freedom

“I used to be a person who wanted to believe that there were moral and democratic limits – or, failing that, pragmatic constraints - to how low the prime minister was willing to go, how far he was willing to bend to the proud proponents of apartheid, in order to bolster his power. Not any more. Not after Danny Danon.”

Bradley Burston israeli journalist

It's Time to Admit It. Israeli Policy Is What It Is: Apartheid (2015)

Personality

“The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people. I mean, they're a pretty monolithic party. They pretty much, they all behave the same, they all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party. Again, the Democrats abduct everybody you can think of. So, as this gentleman was talking about, it's a coalition, a lot of it independent. The problem is, we gotta make sure that turns into a party, which means this: I've gotta spend time in the communities, and our folks gotta spend time in the communities. I think, we're more welcoming to different folks, because that's the type of people we are. But that's not enough. We do have to deliver on things, particularly on jobs, and housing, and business opportunities and college opportunities, and so fourth. I think, there has been a lot of progress in the last 20-40 years, but the stakes keep changing. I think there's a lot of folks who vote, maybe right now, in the Asian-American communities, who don't wanna vote Democrats, but they're angry with the President on his immigration policy, the Patriot Act. But, what we need to do while this is going on, is develop a really close relationship with the Asian-American community, so later on there's gonna be a benefit, you know, more equal division. There'll be some party loyalty, as people would rememeber that we were there when it really made a difference. That's really what I'm trying to do. If I come in here 8 weeks before the elections, we're not getting anywhere. Asking if you would vote, you're still mad at the lesser of two evils. So that's why I'm here 3.5 years before the elections. We want different kind of people to run for office, too. We want a very diverse group of people running for office, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinos. I think Villaraigosa's election in Los Angeles is incredibly important for the Democratic Party. Bush can go out and talk all he wants about "this is the party of opportunity", you know, he can make his appointments, Condi Rice, or, what's this guy's name, Commerce Secretary, Gutierrez. But you can't succeed electorally if you're a person of color in then Republican Party, there're very few people who have succeeded. You can pick some out, JC Watts, I'm trying to think of an Asian-American who's been a success who's a Republican, I can't think of one off the top of my head. You know, there's always a few, but not many. Because this is the party of opportunity for people of color, and for communities of color. And we're hoping to cement that relationship so that'll always be that way. [Q: You've been very tough on the Republicans, some Democrats criticized you over the weeked for doing that, Joe Biden…] I just got off the phone with John Edwards. What happened was, John Edwards was, in a sense, set up by the reporter, "well you know, Governor Dean said this". Well what I said was, the Republican leadership didn't seem to care much about working people. That's essentially the gist of the quote, and, you know, the RNC put out a press release. I don't think there's a lot of difference between me and John Edwards right now, I haven't spoken to Senator Biden, but I'm sure that I will. Today, it's all over the wires that Durbin and Sheila Jackson Lee and all of these folks are coming to my defense. Look, we have to be tough on the Republicans; the Republicans don't represent ordinary Americans, and they don't have any understanding of what it is to have to go out and try to make ends meet. You know, the context of what I was talking about was these long lines that you have to wait in to vote. How could you design a system that sometimes causes people to vote, to stand in line for 6 or 8 hours, if you had any understanding what their lives are like: they gotta pick up the kids, they gotta work, sometimes they have two jobs. So that was the context of the remarks. [crosstalk/laughter] This is one of those flaps that comes up once in awhile when I get tough, but I think we all wanna be tougher on the Republicans.”

Howard Dean (1948) American political activist

Source: Discussion with reporters Portia Li and Carla Marinucci, in San Francisco http://web.archive.org/web/20060427191647/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/chronicle/archive/2005/06/07/MNdean07.TMP&o=1, June 6, 2005

People , Hope , Angels , Color

“The truth is that it is a culture of dependency as promulgated by the race-baiters and new plantation overseers of the inner city that has created what we’re seeing play out in Baltimore. There is where the blame lies, but there are very few who are willing to admit just that. Remember what ESPN sports commentator Stephen A. Smith said? He wished that for one voting cycle, the black community would vote Republican. Heck, they could do no worse — and look, even the people of the State of Maryland decided to try something different and elected a Republican governor. Who, when finally asked, immediately activated the National Guard to quell the violence and chaos which the Democrat Mayor of Baltimore failed to comprehend, and control. Perhaps what we’re witnessing in Baltimore is the pure definition of insanity — continuing to do the same thing and expect different results.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, Dirty little secret no one wants to admit about Baltimore (2015)

People , Truth , Communication , Sport

“Every American should take note of those candidates who stand with the economic interests of America’s citizens, and who stand with the Rule of Law, by rejecting Amnesty in all its forms. It is wrong when Democrats seek to demean the intrinsic value of American citizenship by importing the Third World to replace the millions of voters their redistributionist policies and racial grievance politics have driven away. It is also wrong when Republican leadership conveniently chooses to waive the application of the law to guarantee a supply of unskilled and low-cost workers for their corporate benefactors.”

Steve King (1949) US Representative for Iowa

Rep. Steve King: ‘DACA’ – ‘Delivering Amnesty to Central Americans’ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/26/exclusive-rep-steve-king-daca-delivering-amnesty-central-americans/ (September 26, 2017)

World , Law

“I believe that international terrorism is a modern form of warfare against liberal democracies. I believe that the ultimate but seldom stated goal of these terrorists is to destroy the very fabric of democracy. I believe that it is both wrong and foolhardy for any democratic state to consider international terrorism to be 'someone else's' problem…. Liberal democracies must acknowledge that international terrorism is a 'collective problem.”

Henry M. Jackson (1912–1983) American politician

(1979, Jerusalem) [Defending the 'Ancient Dream of Freedom', Paul, Wolfowitz, November 18, 2002, Jinsa.org, http://www.jinsa.org/articles/articles.html/function/view/categoryid/1366/documentid/1839/history/3,2359,2166,1366,1839]

Democracy , Problem

“Every riot is followed by an Inquiry Committee, but its report is never published. Take U. P. for instance. A report in the Times of India of 13.12.1990 from Lucknow says: “At least a dozen judicial inquiry reports into the genesis of communal riots in the state have never seen the light of the day. They have been buried in the secretariat-files over the past two decades. The failure of the successive state governments to publish these reports and initiate action has given credence to the belief that they are not serious about checking communal violence… There were other instances when the state government instituted an inquiry and then scuttled the commissions. In the 1982 and 1986 clashes in Meerut and in the 1986 riots in Allahabad, the judicial inquiries were ordered only as an ‘eye-wash’…” Judicial inquiries are ordered as an eye-wash because the perpetrators of riots are known but cannot be booked. In a secular state it is neither proper to name them nor political to punish them. Inquiry committee reports are left to gather dust, while those who should be punished are pampered and patronised as vote-banks in India’s democratic setup. Therefore communal riots in India as a legacy of Muslim rule may continue to persist. If these could help in partitioning the country, they could still help in achieving many other goals.”

K. S. Lal book The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India

Source: The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India (1992), Chapter 8

Books , Communication , Failure , Light

“Freedom consists not only in the absence of restraint but also in the presence of opportunity. Liberty is not a single and simple conception. It has four elements – national, political, personal and economic. The man who is fully free is one who lives in a country which is independent; in a state which is democratic; in a society where laws are equal and restrictions at a minimum; in an economic system in which national interests are protected and the citizen has the scope of secure livelihood, an assured comfort and full opportunity to rise by merit.

This freedom, so truly and courageously defined, is not ours today and until this condition is reached, India will never achieve true greatness or happiness, based on the glorious features of her past civilisation.”

Syama Prasad Mookerjee (1901–1953) Indian politician

Speech delivered at Patna University Convocation on 27th November 1937.

Law , Courage , Freedom , Past

“What are the dangers, then, involved in being a celebrity? On the one hand, there's … the true loss of the self by virtue of being over-democratized, over-saturated, over-loved, perhaps. Without an internally directed compass, an ego can drown in its own fascination, rendering the bearer unable to posit or hang anything actual onto themselves. This again is essentially the argument from commodification, which prescribes a kind of a ravenous, ecstatic feast upon a soul until it becomes defined purely in terms of its external ability to in fact be consumed.”

Jack Gleeson (1992) Irish actor

Speech at Oxford Union (2014)

Love , Soul , Loss

“The three totalitarian regimes differed in several respects… What joined them, however, was much more important than what separated them. First and foremost it was the common enemy: liberal democracy with its multiparty system, its respect for law and property, its ideal of peace and stability. Lenin’s, Mussolini’s and Hitler’s fulminations against ‘bourgeois democracy’ and the Social Democrats are entirely interchangeable.”

Richard Pipes (1923–2018) American historian

Source: Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime (1994), p. 262

Peace , Law , Democracy

“The bureaucratic, though capitalistic, spirit of our governments tends towards a state socialism which, in fact, is only state capitalism, but which is dazzling and misleading for those who are easily deceived by external similarities and catch words. The German, or more accurately the Prussian, state socialism whose ideal is a military, landlord and police state, hates democracy above everything else. … It is to them something inherently political. But all politics is diametrically opposed to what is socialist. So by this trick logic we arrive at the conclusion which has gained footing here and there, even in social democratic circles, that democracy as savoring of politics has nothing in common with socialism, but on the contrary is opposed to it. … But the truth is that democracy is not a thing that is specifically political, and we must never forget that we are not merely a socialist party, but a social democratic party because we have perceived that socialism and democracy are inseparable.”

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

Hate , Truth , Democracy , Forgetting

“What you’re seeing is the emergence of Trump Democrats – you know, Democrats who realize that Democratic policies have failed them, that Hillary Clinton and these Democrats continue to be full of hot air, and they want substance. And they know that Donald Trump is a man who has built an empire, this business empire that is just incredible. And he has hired Americans for jobs, and he has employed folks, whereas his opponent has never written a check, or signed a paycheck for anyone, you know, because she’s worked for the government, and has never really created jobs, and knows how to do that. If they want true leadership where they’ll see results, if they want true leadership where people are no longer just telling them what she thinks they want to hear, someone who’s actually going to implement the change that we need in this country–and knowing him for the last 13, 14 years, I can tell you that that right person, that person who can bring about that change, is Donald J. Trump.”

Omarosa (1974) American political aide and television personality

Omarosa on African Americans for Trump: ‘If You Want Something You’ve Never Had, You’ve Got to Do Something You’ve Never Done’ http://www.breitbart.com/radio/2016/09/23/omarosa-african-americans-for-trump-if-you-want-something-youve-never-had-youve-got-do-something-youve-never-done/ (September 23, 2016)

People , Business , Thinking , Change

“Unions are an essential part of the democratic fabric of society, but they are not necessarily desirable or acceptable `in my firm or on my property.”

Thomas A. Kochan (1947) American academic

Source: The mutual gains enterprise, 1994, p. 15

Parting

“Democratic man, dreaming eternally of Utopias, is ever a prey to shibboleths.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

1920s, Notes on Democracy (1926)

Dreams

“We must completely support the civil resistance throughout the Arab world. Corrupt secular nationalist rulers are as bad as corrupt undemocratic religious rulers. We must support the people all over the Muslim world with friendship and solidarity in support of democracy. We should be their partner in building mass popular trade unions to prevent them from exploitation in the market storm they are moving towards in their modernisation plans. Who on the left in Italy is working with the resistance to Gaddafi? I don’t know the answer to that but my suspicion is that there are not many. Again, you are on the wrong side of history on that. Support for democracy, for a democratic organised society, for resistance to capitalist domination and state despotism. That is the Blue Labour position. It goes without saying that China is the worst of all worlds, it combines market exploitation with state dictatorship. Blue Labour places unreserved solidity and support to the free democratic trade unions in China, and that is an important struggle for the Labour Movement all over the world.”

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman (1961) British philosopher

A Conversation with Maurice Glasman, Europa Quotidiano, 3 June 2011 http://europa.118.aws.dol.it/gw/producer/dettaglio.aspx?id_doc=127105

Friendship , People , World , Democracy

“But let me stress again that these are my views — for contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters — and the church does not speak for me. Whatever issue may come before me as President — on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject — I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise. But if the time should ever come — and I do not concede any conflict to be even remotely possible — when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1960, Speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association

Hope , Birth , Decision , Time

“Communists must use the democratic method of persuasion and education when working among the laboring people and must on no account resort to commandism or coercion. The Chinese Communist Party faithfully adheres to this Marxist-Leninist principle.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People

People , Education

“(Folowing a soundclip of an Obama official saying there are Christian militant groups and thus the Mid-East fighting is more complicated than Islamism) I'm going to have noise-cancellation headphones ready for when an agent of Obama or any Democrat speaks again… The idiocy in this nation…”

Michael Savage book The Savage Nation

The Savage Nation
The Savage Nation (1995- ), 2015-02-18
Radio, 00:54
2015

Fight

“Ideologically, Pelosi is a far-left talking points machine. Tactically, she knows nothing else other than how to attack. Her worldview admits of no compromise and there seems to be no space in her imagination for new ideas. She has refashioned her dwindling caucus in her image, as the moderate, red-state Democrats have been steadily decimated, leaving nothing but the bicoastal liberals representing the inner city poor and the elite suburban gentry. She feels no pressure to change or to improve.”

Joel Pollak (1977) Politician, writer

Nancy Pelosi Is Leading Her Party into Oblivion http://www.breitbart.com/california/2017/01/31/nancy-pelosi-leading-party-oblivion/ (January 31, 2017)

Feeling , Imagination , Idea , Change

“Ronald Reagan claimed that the Russian language had no word for "freedom." (The word is "svoboda"; it's quite well attested in Russian literature)… said that intercontinental ballistic missiles (not that there are any non-ballistic missiles—a corruption of language that isn't his fault) could be recalled once launched… said that he sought a "Star Wars" defense only in order to share the technology with the tyrants of the U. S. S. R… professed to be annoyed when people called it "Star Wars," even though he had ended his speech on the subject with the lame quip, "May the force be with you"… used to alarm his Soviet counterparts by saying that surely they'd both unite against an invasion from Mars… used to alarm other constituencies by speaking freely about the "End Times" foreshadowed in the Bible. In the Oval Office, Ronald Reagan told Yitzhak Shamir and Simon Wiesenthal, on two separate occasions, that he himself had assisted personally at the liberation of the Nazi death camps.There was more to Ronald Reagan than that. Reagan announced that apartheid South Africa had "stood beside us in every war we've ever fought," when the South African leadership had been on the other side in the most recent world war… allowed Alexander Haig to greenlight the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, fired him when that went too far and led to mayhem in Beirut, then ran away from Lebanon altogether when the Marine barracks were bombed, and then unbelievably accused Tip O'Neill and the Democrats of "scuttling.".. sold heavy weapons to the Iranian mullahs and lied about it, saying that all the weapons he hadn't sold them (and hadn't traded for hostages in any case) would, all the same, have fit on a small truck… then diverted the profits of this criminal trade to an illegal war in Nicaragua and lied unceasingly about that, too… then modestly let his underlings maintain that he was too dense to understand the connection between the two impeachable crimes. He then switched without any apparent strain to a policy of backing Saddam Hussein against Iran. (If Margaret Thatcher's intelligence services had not bugged Oliver North in London and become infuriated because all European nations were boycotting Iran at Reagan's request, we might still not know about this.) One could go on… This was a man never short of a cheap jibe or the sort of falsehood that would, however laughable, buy him some time.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2000s, 2004

Death , War , People , World

“I think it's time, not for the Washington Redskins to change their name but for the Democratic Party to change its name. Because all you have to do is go online and look up the history of the Democratic Party. It's one of oppressing African-Americans. It's one of supporting slavery and the horrors that occurred in the United States.”

Louie Gohmert (1953) American politician

Speech to the United States House of Representatives (July 2015)

History , Support , Thinking , Change

“I fully realize that every promise I make, the Republicans will double and the Democrats will redouble. They think this will make me vulnerable, but they don’t know I have some tricks up my sleeve, along with a box of raisins to munch on while I’m waiting for the returns to come in.”

Gracie Allen (1902–1964) American actress and comedienne

Source: How to Become President (1940), Ch. 5 : Issues and how to pick them

Thinking , Waiting , Box

“What struck me at the League was the prestige in which our Government and our Prime Minister are held. What has struck hon. Members who have listened to this Debate is the fact that public opinion in the dictator countries has conceived a profound admiration for our Prime Minister and our country. Our country, therefore, is the country which is in a priceless position for securing the future of peace…It seems to me that we have two choices either to settle our differences with Germany by consultation, or to face the inevitability of a clash between the two systems of democracy and dictatorship. In considering this, I must emphatically give my opinion as one of the younger generation. War settles nothing, and I see no alternative to the policy upon which the Prime Minister has so courageously set himself—the construction of peace, with the aid which I have described. There is no other country which can achieve this, and I ask hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite sincerely to believe that in our efforts to understand, to consult with and, if possible, to get friendship with Germany, we do not abandon by one jot or tittle the democratic beliefs which are the very core of our whole being and system. In conclusion, I must gratify the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield by quoting Shakespeare. The right hon. Gentleman will remember the little poem "Under the Greenwood Tree"—"Here shall he see" "No enemy," "But winter and rough weather."”

Rab Butler (1902–1982) British politician

We have the winter before us, and we have a great deal of political rough weather, but in that rough weather, do not let us forget the joint idea of peace which animates us all.
Speech on the Munich Agreement http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1938/oct/05/policy-of-his-majestys-government (5 October 1938).

Friendship , War , Peace , Quotes

“The vast majority of white southerners, supported vociferously by the Democratic Party of the north, were deeply opposed to any equality for the former slaves.”

Eric Foner (1943) American historian

2000s, If Lincoln Hadn't Died (2009)

Support

“The respondents in this case insist that a difficult question of public policy must be taken from the reach of the voters, and thus removed from the realm of public discussion, dialogue, and debate in an election campaign. Quite in addition to the serious First Amendment implications of that position with respect to any particular election, it is inconsistent with the underlying premises of a responsible, functioning democracy. One of those premises is that a democracy has the capacity—and the duty—to learn from its past mistakes; to discover and confront persisting biases; and by respectful, rationale deliberation to rise above those flaws and injustices. That process is impeded, not advanced, by court decrees based on the proposition that the public cannot have the requisite repose to discuss certain issues. It is demeaning to the democratic process to presume that the voters are not capable of deciding an issue of this sensitivity on decent and rational grounds. The process of public discourse and political debate should not be foreclosed even if there is a risk that during a public campaign there will be those, on both sides, who seek to use racial division and discord to their own political advantage. An informed public can, and must, rise above this. The idea of democracy is that it can, and must, mature. Freedom embraces the right, indeed the duty, to engage in a rational, civic discourse in order to determine how best to form a consensus to shape the destiny of the Nation and its people.”

Anthony Kennedy (1936) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, 572 U. S. ____, (2016), plurality opinion.

People , Democracy , Idea , Question

“There is one kind of judge. There is an independent judge under our Constitution. And the fact that they may have been a Republican or Democrat or an independent in a past life is completely irrelevant to how they conduct themselves as judges. And I think two centuries of experience has shown us that that ideal which the Founders established can be realized and has been realized and will continue to be realized.”

Brett Kavanaugh (1965) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Confirmation Hearing on the Nomination OF Brett M. Kavanaugh to be Ciruit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit https://www.congress.gov/108/chrg/shrg24853/CHRG-108shrg24853.htm (April 27, 2004)

Life , Thinking , Past

“Philosophy? I am a Christian and a Democrat. That's all.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

To a reporter who asked him to define this philosophy. Quoted in Alter, Jonathan The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope https://books.google.com/books?id=ASmlaOHQNawC&pg=PA244&dq=fdr+i+am+a+christian+and+a+democrat&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDp7WquOjaAhXqxYMKHTFBDTgQ6AEIUDAH#v=onepage&q=fdr%20i%20am%20a%20christian%20and%20a%20democrat&f=false pg. 244
1930s

“Could the Church of Work—which today has Americans aspiring to sleep deprivation the way they once aspired to a personal knowledge of God—be, at base, an anti-democratic force? Well, yes. James Russell Lowell, that nineteenth-century workhorse, summed it all up quite neatly: “There is no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its keel, and saving it from all risk of crankiness, than business.””

Mark Slouka (1958) author

Quitting the paint factory: On the virtues of idleness

God , Way , Business , Knowledge

“The reason liberals despise Clarence Thomas or caricature a Ben Carson, more so than they do white conservative justices or public figures, is the threat that they pose to the entire engine of liberal condescension — and Democratic politics. When successful blacks prove that they easily compete in the marketplace of talent and ideas without liberal racial policies and their political henchmen, then the entire architecture of liberal racial politics collapses. The disdain shown a Thomas or Carson suggests that liberal racial politics serve as private medieval penance in the abstract, and at little personal cost for assuaging guilt over liberal apartheid.”

Victor Davis Hanson (1953) American military historian, essayist, university professor

2010s, "Black Lives Matter"—a Year From Now (2015)

Justice , Idea , Success , Personality

“The Democratic Party was the party of slavery and Jim Crow, and the 'Solid South' was solidly Democratic for one hundred years. All of the racism that we associate with that region originated with and was enforced by elected Democrats. It could not have been otherwise, there were virtually no Republicans in power in the south for a century after the end of Reconstruction… Redress a larger historical imbalance in the way people perceive the two major political parties. Democrats have been effectively cleansed of their racist past, their sins implicitly transferred to the Republicans.”

Bruce Bartlett (1951) American historian

Source: 2000s, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past (2008), p. xiii

People , Way , Past

“Modern ideas have had a home in Afghanistan since the 19th century. Several Islamist reformist movements started in Afghanistan before spreading to Central Asia and beyond. Afghanistan’s social- democratic, liberal, nationalist, Marxist, Maoist and Islamist parties provided a rich tapestry of ideologies until the ’70s.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"Myths of our Afghanistan debate" http://nypost.com/2009/10/15/myths-of-our-afghanistan-debate/, New York Post (October 15, 2009).
New York Post

Home , Idea

“I did not come here [out of communist German Democratic Republic, to West-Germany] to get away from 'materialism'; here [in West –Germany] its dominance is far more total and more mindless. I came to get away from the criminal 'idealism' of the Socialists”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

quote circa 1962
Source: after 2000, Doubt and belief in painting' (2003), pp. 49-50, note 57

Quotes

“Participation is a hallmark of democratic governance.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Post-2015 Agenda should include elected UN Assembly to strengthen democratic participation http://en.unpacampaign.org/news/722.php.
2014, UNPA - World Parliamentary Assembly

“There is danger that totalitarian governments, not subject to vigorous popular debate, will underestimate the will and unity of democratic societies where vital interests are concerned.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

President Kennedy's 13th News Conferences on June 28, 1961 John Source: F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/Press-Conferences/News-Conference-13.aspx
1961

“If ‘we are the government,’ then anything a government does to an individual is not only just and untyrannical; it is also ‘voluntary’ on the part of the individual concerned… if the government conscripts a man, or throws him into jail for dissident opinion, then he is ‘doing it to himself’ and therefore nothing untoward has occurred. Under this reasoning, any Jews murdered by the Nazi government were not murdered, instead, they must have ‘committed suicide,’ since they were the government (which was democratically chosen), and therefore anything the government did to them was voluntary on their part… the overwhelming bulk of the people hold this fallacy to a greater or less degree.”

Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) American economist of the Austrian School, libertarian political theorist, and historian

As quoted in “The Anatomy of the State”, Rampart Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2 (summer 1965), reprinted in the Libertarian Alternative, Tibor R. Machan, ed., Chicago: IL, Nelson-Hall (1977) p. 69-70

People , Suicide , Parting

“The de-eroticization of the world, a companion to its disenchantment … seems to result from a combination of causes—our democratic regime and its tendencies toward leveling and self-protection, a reductionist-materialist science that inevitably interprets eros as sex, and the atmosphere generated by “the death of God” and of the subordinate god, Eros.”

Allan Bloom (1930–1992) American philosopher, classicist, and academician

Source: Love and Friendship (1993), p. 15.

Death , God , World , Sex

“Since the matter has been raised, may I say that the individual concerned is not an endorsed member of the Labour Party, and, so far as I am concerned, never will be endorsed? [Interruption. ] May I add that, as the Labour Party has played the leading part in the establishment and sustenance of parliamentary democracy, we do not need any instructions on the matter from skin-deep democrats on the Conservative Benches or defectors on this side?”

Michael Foot (1913–2010) British politician

Remark http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1981/dec/03/engagements-1 in the House of Commons (3 December 1981), referring to Peter Tatchell. Foot subsequently corrected "endorsed member" to "endorsed candidate".
1980s

Democracy , Parting

“Postmodernism will soon be confirmed as the American academic orthodoxy because it permits, ultimately, the summary dismissal of that last great inconvenience to the free and democratic intellect: the primary text.”

Don Paterson (1963) Poet

Aphorisms in Poetry, vol. 187, n. 1, October 2005

“No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion. If we seek to force, we but tear apart that which united, is invincible. There is no way whereby our labor movement may be assured sustained progress in determining its policies and its plans other than sincere democratic deliberation until a unanimous decision is reached. This may seem a cumbrous, slow method to the impatient, but the impatient are more concerned for immediate triumph than for the education of constructive development.”

Samuel Gompers (1850–1924) American Labor Leader[AFL]

Foner, Philip S. History of the Labor Movement in the United States: The T.U.E.L. to the End of the Gompers Era. New york: International Publishers Co, 1991, p. 361-362.

Education , Way , Decision , Tear

“I was watching the news reports from Baltimore and hearing all the condemnations from some about being kept down and the lack of jobs, opportunity, good schools — then why do these blacks keep voting for the same people? And this isn't a phenomenon isolated to Baltimore. Every single major urban center in America is run by Democrats — more specifically, liberal progressives, black or white. The morass that became Detroit. The killing fields of Chicago. The depravity of Washington, D. C. The shame of South Dallas. And yes, even the place that was once my home, Atlanta, even with all the successful black entertainers. Now, I remember the first black mayor of Atlanta, Maynard Jackson. That guy was a leader and even spoke at my high school Baccalaureate. But today, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed has done such a bang-up job that the Atlanta Braves are moving to Cobb County! Just do the assessment yourselves, who are the elected officials heading up the urban centers? And where does one find the most dire socio-economic statistics?”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, Dirty little secret no one wants to admit about Baltimore (2015)

People , School , Guy , Home

“Liberalism supplies at once the higher impulse and the practicable path; it appeals to persons by sentiments of generosity and humanity; it proceeds by courses of moderation. By gradual steps, by steady effort from day to day, from year to year, Liberalism enlists hundreds of thousands upon the side of progress and popular democratic reform whom militant Socialism would drive into violent Tory reaction … The cause of the Liberal Party is the cause of the left-out millions.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The People's Rights [1909] (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970), pp. 152-153
Early career years (1898–1929)

Effort , Personality

“I explained to the crowd that my voice was hoarse from a cold and that my physician had advised me not to attend. "I hope that you will not disclose to him that I have violated his instructions," I told them. I congratulated Mr. de Klerk for his strong showing. I thanked all those in the ANC and the democratic movement who had worked so hard for so long. Mrs. Coretta Scott King, the wife of the great freedom fighter Martin Luther King Jr., was on the podium that night, and I looked over to her as I made reference to her husband's immortal words.
"This is one of the most important moments in the life of our country. I stand here before you filled with deep pride and joy--pride in the ordinary, humble people of this country. You have shown such a calm, patient determination to reclaim this country as your own, and now the joy that we can loudly proclaim from the rooftops — Free at last! Free at last! I stand before you humbled by your courage, with a heart full of love for all of you."”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

1990s, Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

Love , Life , People , Hope

“I didn't come to Washington to be a 'yes man' for any president, Democrat or Republican. I didn't come to Washington to get along and win any popularity contests.”

Jesse Helms (1921–2008) American politician

In 1989, as quoted in The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/05/us/politics/00helms.html (2008)
1980s

“I assume that somewhere after he attacked Arizona; engaged in what I think was a racist dialogue to try to frighten Latinos away from the Republican Party; stood next to the president of Mexico and said, "Borders don't matter because we have strong bonds"; had the President of Mexico get a standing ovation from Democrats for attacking an American state, and has his own State Department apologize to the Chinese for the Arizona law.”

Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

On the Record
Fox News
2010-05-26
Gingrich: Obama "engaged" in "racist dialogue to try to frighten Latinos away from the Republican Party"
2010-05-26
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201005260081
2011-03-30
2010s

Law , Thinking , Strong

“In my country at present, women have no participation in the higher levels of government and none whatsoever in the judiciary. Even within the democratic movement only 14 out of the 485 MPs elected in 1990 were women -- all from my own party, the National League for Democracy. These 14 women represent less than 3 percent of the total number of successful candidates. They, like their male colleagues, have not been permitted to take office since the outcome of those elections has been totally ignored. Yet the very high performance of women in our educational system and in the management of commercial enterprises proves their enormous potential to contribute to the betterment of society in general. Meanwhile our women have yet to achieve those fundamental rights of free expression, association and security of life denied also to their menfolk.”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

Opening Keynote Address at NGO Forum on Women, Beijing China (1995)

Life , Women , Education , Democracy

“At a time in our history when the streets of the Nation's cities inspire fear and despair, rather than pride and hope, it is difficult to maintain objectivity and concern for our fellow citizens. But, the measure of a country's greatness is its ability to retain compassion in time of crisis. No nation in the recorded history of man has a greater tradition of revering justice and fair treatment for all its citizens in times of turmoil, confusion, and tension than ours. This is a country which stands tallest in troubled times, a country that clings to fundamental principles, cherishes its constitutional heritage, and rejects simple solutions that compromise the values that lie at the roots of our democratic system.”

Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993) Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court

Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, Concurring opinion (January 17, 1972)

Lie , Fear , Justice , Hope

“If democracy has become superfluous or annoying to the bourgeoisie, it is on the contrary necessary and indispensable to the working class. It is necessary to the working class because it creates the political forms (autonomous administration, electoral rights, etc.) which will serve the proletariat as fulcrums in its task of transforming bourgeois society. Democracy is indispensable to the working class because only through the exercise of its democratic rights, in the struggle for democracy, can the proletariat become aware of its class interests and its historic task.”

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) Polish Marxist theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary

Source: Reform or Revolution (1899), Ch.8

Exercises , Democracy

“Whatever one may think about democratic government, it is just as well to have practical experience of its rough and slatternly foundations. No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

In Great Contemporaries, "Lord Rosebery" (1937).
The 1930s

Education , Thinking , Fight , Parting

“Democratic experimentalism sees the core of the good of human liberation in a softening of the tension between two great competing demands upon our vitality and greatnessː the need to engage in group life and the need to diminish the price, in subjugation and loss of self-identity, that we regularly pay for such engagement.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician

Source: Democracy Realizedː The Progressive Alternative (1998), p. 165

Life , Loss

“A government that compromises its competence to defend and protect the interests of the persons living under its jurisdiction betrays its raison d’être and loses its democratic legitimacy”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order on the adverse impacts of free trade and investment agreements on a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IntOrder/Pages/Reports.aspx.
2015, Report submitted to the UN General Assembly

Personality

“I am basically a Clinton Democrat - perhaps more along the lines of how Clinton would have done things as benevolent dictator, or at least with a Dem Congress at his disposal, than how things were run in the 90s, but no flaming progressive.”

Atrios

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2002_05_12_atrios_archive.html