This is my second attempt at a weekend blog of quotes. My first one, I changed out as Monday's blog because it was about Michelle Bachmann and quickly got pretty negative. I prefer to have a more positive blog for the weekends. But I also like reality. Democracy, it's better than most, but not exactly what we need.
What that is, I have no idea. So in the meantime, it will have to do, as it has had to do since the time of Aristotle and Plato. Thinking, however, never hurts. Here are a few things to consider, the next time you, or someone you knows, think they like someone like Michelle Bachmann, Sarah (I can't finish my term as Governor) Palin, Newt Gingrich, and so on and on and on....
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
Winston Churchill
It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. Winston Churchill.
Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.
Winston Churchill [on this one, think about that law Obama signed off on last New Year's Eve that allows detention of American Citizens (AMERICANS!) for an indefinite period of time.]
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
Mohandas Gandhi
The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.
John F. Kennedy [now think of all those ignorant people (strangely, mostly Republicans) running for the highest office in the history of the world]
Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
Oscar Wilde
In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.
Aristotle
Democracy passes into despotism.
Plato
[Despotism is a form of government in which a single entity rules with absolute power. That entity may be an individual, as in an autocracy, or it may be a group]
Plato
[Haven't we been seeing that lately? Not tyranny as a dictator, but tyranny as a process of our government. Not bad like in the Soviet Union, or as it has been elsewhere, but we are headed down a path that people should be very concerned with. Kind of downbeat, right? Well then, I will offer you one more positive quote.]
Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
And that's what I've been saying all along. But education alone doesn't work, you have to educate yourself with the right education, and the bible, ain't it. Now is the Quaran, or the Book of Mormon, or other such things. Critical thinking alone kills those all off as any kind of rational basis for thought.
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