We must remember that democracy works when given time to develop, mature and deliver. People must have access to information for informed debate. Government institutions must treat citizens fairly, and with dignity, while responding to their needs.
Democracy is not a spectator sport.
In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this country, capitalism triumphed over democracy.
The current siege on higher education, whether through defunding education, eliminating tenure, tying research to military needs, or imposing business models of efficiency and accountability, poses a dire threat not only to faculty and students who carry the mantle of university self-governance, but also to democracy itself.
He [Mencken] was an autodidact, with all the misplaced confidence and all the astonishing gaps that characterize that breed. Not many of us would venture to write a book about democracy without ever having read de Tocqueville, nor embark on a translation of Nietzsche with only a sketchy knowledge of German.
Socialist democracy is not, a luxury and its need is not limited to the most advanced industrial countries.
I've not much faith in the future of the planet and I'm not just thinking about Mr. Bush or global warming. I feel that we've lost our way and it looks as if, in so many fields, things are turning sour. Even democracy is turning sour, isn't it?
Imagine what would happen if the government were to take the wealth of 200,000 of India's richest people and redistribute it amongst 2 million of India's poorest? We would hear a lot about socialist appropriation and the death of democracy. Why should taking from the rich be called appropriation and taking from the poor be called development?
As the largest and most developed democracies of Asia (India and Japan), we have a mutual stake in each other's progress and prosperity.
The way you get democracy to function is by informing the public.
We need a new political language with broader narratives. Such a language has to unravel the pervasive ideological, pedagogical, and economic dynamics of a form of economic Darwinism that now governs much of the world. This system must be demystified, politicized, and recognized for the ways in which it has come to pose a dire threat to democracy.
Democracy, in any rational form, also imposes conditions on majority rule. That's what the Bill of Rights is about, for example.
The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.
No one can define or measure justice, democracy, security, freedom, truth, or love. No one can define or measure any value. But if no one speaks up for them, if systems aren’t designed to produce them, if we don’t speak about them and point toward their presence or absence, they will cease to exist.
Those against politics are in favor of the politics inflicted upon them.
Somebody once said that the ideal size of a country for democracy to work is around 10 million people - and that kind of makes sense if you think of it in very crude terms. In a smaller country, I guess it's easier to maintain some kind of common ground. I do think the Swedish system of government works really well. Obviously, everything doesn't work perfectly, but I like the principle of it.
Fear and destructiveness are the major emotional sources of fascism, eros belongs mainly to democracy.
For my part, in everything I do, I aim to strengthen democracy in Germany and beyond. The United States is also a strong democracy. As we are seeing in Poland, for example, and also in Hungary, it is important that we have counterweights in democratic systems, and I believe they are still strong in America.
I'd like to think that "President Obama believed deeply in this democracy and the American people. "
I would argue that in times of war, sealed lips sink entire democracies. If we don't have access to vital information, we lose everything.