To all the revolutionaries fighting to throw off the yoke of tyranny around the world: look at British democracy. Is that what you want?
Andy ZaltzmanTags: democracy tyranny revolution britain 2011 arab-spring news-international-phone-hacking
It is truth, in the old saying, that is 'the daughter of time,' and the lapse of half a century has not left us many of our illusions. Churchill tried and failed to preserve one empire. He failed to preserve his own empire, but succeeded in aggrandizing two much larger ones. He seems to have used crisis after crisis as an excuse to extend his own power. His petulant refusal to relinquish the leadership was the despair of postwar British Conservatives; in my opinion this refusal had to do with his yearning to accomplish something that 'history' had so far denied him—the winning of a democratic election.
Christopher HitchensTags: truth power history democracy time united-states crisis elections imperialism russia soviet-union britain cold-war british-empire winston-churchill american-imperialism conservative-party-uk
If political rights are necessary to set social rights in place, social rights are indispensable to make political rights 'real' and keep them in operation. The two rights need each other for their survival; that survival can only be their joint achievement.
Zygmunt BaumanTags: social democracy social-rights
The rich run a global system that allows them to accumulate capital and pay the lowest possible price for labour. The freedom that results applies only to them. The many simply have to work harder, in conditions that grow ever more insecure, to enrich the few. Democratic politics, which purports to enrich the many, is actually in the pocket of those bankers, media barons and other moguls who run and own everything.
Charles MooreTags: politics wealth freedom democracy capitalism economics media banks labour united-kingdom 2011 economic-inequality social-class rupert-murdoch
People use democracy as a free-floating abstraction disconnected from reality. Democracy in and of itself is not necessarily good. Gang rape, after all, is democracy in action.
All men have the right to live their own life. Democracy must be rooted in a rational philosophy that first and foremost recognizes the right of an individual. A few million Imperial Order men screaming for the lives of a much smaller number of people in the New World may win a democratic vote, but it does not give them the right to those lives, or make their calls for such killing right.
Democracy is not a synonym for justice or for freedom. Democracy is not a sacred right sanctifying mob rule. Democracy is a principle that is subordinate to the inalienable rights of the individual.
Tags: democracy human-rights
In a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.
Matt TaibbiTags: democracy capitalism elections government greed wall-street
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 WestTags: democracy poverty culture race
Of course, the aim of a constitutional democracy is to safeguard the rights of the minority and avoid the tyranny of the majority. (p. 102)
Cornel WestTags: majority minority democracy
Both groups [of pundits] were critics, and that is the heart of the problem. If you are a pundit, you seem so smart when you are telling the President what he did wrong… This [is] mostly BS.
Jeffrey A. MillerTags: democracy free-speech media elections political-science politics-observation democrats republicans democracy-freedom democracy-voting democracy-fascism politics-science politicsics
Zweifellos kommt keine demokratische Republik ohne Vertrauen in ihre gewählten Repräsentanten und in das Funktionieren ihrer Institutionen aus. Vertrauen aber wird im Selbstverständnis eines republikanischen Staatswesens stets komplementär zu Partizipation gedacht; sobald es an deren Stelle tritt, gerät die Architektur jeder Demokratie aus den Fugen. […] Macht voraussetzungslos und im Vertrauen auf die guten Absichten der Machthaber zu delegieren, lässt dem Ehrgeiz weniger auf Kosten aller freie Bahn.
Bernd GreinerTags: democracy political-theory
« first previous
Page 23 of 44.
next last »
Data privacy
Imprint
Contact
Diese Website verwendet Cookies, um Ihnen die bestmögliche Funktionalität bieten zu können.