America has an identity crisis. This is a relatively new country compared to the rest of the world, yet it’s the bully that fronts to know war and democracy like none other, therefore leading the global arbitration on both fronts.
I can’t think of a single example of two mature democracies going to war with each other in the 20th century. It’s where there was an absence of democracy and a breakdown of democracy that we finish up with these wars.
In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself.
137 years later, Memorial Day remains one of America’s most cherished patriotic observances. The spirit of this day has not changed – it remains a day to honor those who died defending our freedom and democracy.
In Egypt today most people are concerned with getting bread to eat. Only some of the educated understand how democracy works.
In emerging democracies like Russia, in authoritarian states like Iran or even Yugoslavia, journalists play a vital role in civil society. In fact, they form the very basis of those new democracies and civil societies.
We’re not a democracy.
In a democracy there are only two types of power: there’s organized people and organized money, and organized money only wins when people aren’t organized.
Acts of anti-Semitism in countries throughout the world, including some of the world’s strongest democracies, have increased significantly in frequency and scope over the last several years.
This dullness of vision regarding the importance of the general welfare to the individual is the measure of the failure of our schools and churches to teach the spiritual significance of genuine democracy.
But the Western countries that link their partnership with the poorest countries with respect for democracy also have to consider that they have obligations towards these countries.
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
If you can’t put your values into your vote, we don’t have a democracy.
I even believed in a third way; I thought it was possible to put a human face on capitalism. But I was wrong. The only way to save the world is through socialism, but a socialism that exists within a democracy; there’s no dictatorship here.
We can’t have democracy if we’re having to protect you and our users from the government over stuff we’ve never had a conversation about. We need to know what the parameters are, what kind of surveillance the government is going to do, and how and why.
Democracy is too good to share with just anybody.
We have to realize that science is a double-edged sword. One edge of the sword can cut against poverty, illness, disease and give us more democracies, and democracies never war with other democracies, but the other side of the sword could give us nuclear proliferation, biogerms and even forces of darkness.
The beauty of our democracy lies in the American value of equality: if you vote, you have a seat at the table. If you speak, you have a chance to persuade others. A billionaire and a minimum wage earner have the same power at the ballot box.
I’ve used the prestige and influence of having been a president of the United States as effectively as possible. And secondly, I’ve still been able to carry out my commitments to peace and human rights and environmental quality and freedom and democracy and so forth.
In politics, you have to compromise from morning to evening. Democracy is the art of compromise.
Democracy is a revelation, but it’s complicated. There are elections to hold, politics to create, rights to assert, grievances to settle and institutions to build. To many, it’s exhilarating. For others, it can be disappointing when it turns out that democracy doesn’t immediately make life better.
America is a country ready to be taken, in fact, longing to be taken by political leaders ready to restore democracy and trust to the political process.
We’re going to have to forgive a great deal of the Soviet era debt. There’s no question about that. Let’s face up to that. We’re going to have to put in money if Russia is really going to consolidate a democracy.
I am no historian, but Hungary is a country which has never known democracy – and by that, I mean not a democratic political system, but an organic process which has mobilised the entire country’s society. In the case of Hungary, this development was blocked by the growth of the Ottoman empire in the 16th century.
The American flag is an enduring symbol of liberty, democracy, and justice. It is fitting that the House act to protect it as we approach our nation’s birthday, and as our men and women in uniform rally behind it in Iraq’s battlefields.
A free and truly independent press – fiercely independent when necessary – is the red beating heart of freedom and democracy.
Our Founding Fathers crafted a constitutional Republic for the first time in the history of the world because they were shaping a form of government that would not have the failures of a democracy in it, but had the representation of democracy in it.
From my time at the CIA to my time in the House, I’ve dedicated my career to protecting our democracy and ensuring it works for all of us.
America is not just a democracy, it represents a certain culture of competitive mobility and personality aspirations, politics is not merely a clash of interests, but a clash of dreams.
If I stop or moderate my voice, people who use or threaten violence against democracies would win. I will never let them win.
A vibrant civil society can challenge those in power by documenting corruption or uncovering activities like the murder of political enemies. In democracies, this function is mostly performed by the media, NGOs or opposition parties.
The American flag is the most recognized symbol of freedom and democracy in the world.
No amount of charters, direct primaries, or short ballots will make a democracy out of an illiterate people.
In a few decades, the relationship between the environment, resources and conflict may seem almost as obvious as the connection we see today between human rights, democracy and peace.
I would like to say to my friends in Poland: Let’s make good choices, vote for democracy.
So, two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism.
Peace should be understood in a human way – in a broad social, political and economic way. Peace is threatened by unjust economic, social and political order, absence of democracy, environmental degradation and absence of human rights.
Once you don’t vote your ideals… that has serious undermining affects. It erodes the moral basis of our democracy.
While democracy in the long run is the most stable form of government, in the short run, it is among the most fragile.
Democracy is a process by which people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.
In a democracy, supposedly we hold power by what we do at the ballot box, so therefore the more we know about political power the better our choices should be and the better, in theory, our democracy should be.
Organized religion, wielding power over the community, is antithetical to the process of what modern democracy should define as liberty. The sooner we are without it, the better.
You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.
Democracy is something that you must learn each generation. It has to be taught.
Unrestrained zeal to make the world better could make it worse. Promoting democracy must be undertaken with humility, care, and wisdom.
Bureaucracy is not an obstacle to democracy but an inevitable complement to it.
It’s a relief to hear the rain. It’s the sound of billions of drops, all equal, all equally committed to falling, like a sudden outbreak of democracy. Water, when it hits the ground, instantly becomes a puddle or rivulet or flood.
We are losing the democracy that we’re trying to sell in the Mideast and everywhere else right here in our own nation.
No matter how many troops we have in place or how long they stay, we cannot impose a parliamentary democracy there any more than the insurgents can impose a theocracy.
We’re a robust democracy here. That’s the wonderful thing about this country.
No single solution or actor can deal with the complex and interrelated challenges to electoral integrity arising from manipulated data, hate speech, and fake news. These phenomena are not new; they have been part of electoral cycles since the advent of democracy.
Similarly, it is argued that the culture of Islam is incompatible with democracy. Basically, this conventional perspective of the Middle East thus contends that democracy in that region is neither possible nor even desirable.
We are a democracy, and there is only one way to get a democracy on its feet in the matter of its individual, its social, its municipal, its State, its national conduct, and that is by keeping the public informed about what is going on.
The American polity is infected with a serious imbalance of power between elites and masses, a power which is the principal threat to our democracy.
America has never seen itself as a national state like all others, but rather as an experiment in human freedom and democracy.
