One of the most interesting reactions to come out of 1968 was in the first publication of the Trilateral Commission, which believed there was a 'crisis of democracy' from too much participation of the masses.
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
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 the EU you have half a billion people who share a common belief in democracy, in rights, in the kind of economic life we want.
People cannot be free unless they are willing to sacrifice some of their interests to guarantee the freedom of others. The price of democracy is the ongoing pursuit of the common good by all of the people.
If we want to preserve the foundation of our democracy, it's vital that we find common ground that allows us to work for the greater good of this nation. This does not mean giving up our values. This does not mean swallowing a bitter compromise.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
If you believe in democracy, you accept, by definition, the existence and triumph of opposing ideas. The people who believe deeply in the Internet's force as a commons operate on that kind of premise.
The Paris Commune was first and foremost a democracy. The government was a body elected by universal suffrage.
The fact that free men persist in the search for the truth is the essential difference between Communism and Democracy.
There is not Communism or Marxism, but representative democracy and social justice in a well-planned economy.
The principle of democracy is all about delegation of power by the vast majority of citizens through a few chosen representatives chosen on merit and competence.
I have absolutely no idea what my generation did to enrich our democracy. We dropped the ball. We entered a period of complacency and closed our eyes to the public corruption of our democracy.
When you start to look at completing the development of a modern professional army, when you talk about maturing a democracy, when you talk about development and the economic conditions that have to be addressed, a decade is not too short a period of time to talk about.
We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.
The advantage of the internet is that it has taken away the charade of politics. China has heard of democracy and people know about certain concepts they wouldn't have previously.
Democracy demands that judges confine themselves to a narrow sphere of influence - that is why the late Alexander Bickel called the judiciary the 'Least Dangerous Branch.' In a world governed by a proper conception of their role, judges don't play at being legislators - they leave that job to our elected representatives.
When people understand that they are constantly monitored, they are more conformist - they are less willing to take up controversial positions - and that kind of mass conformity is incompatible with democracy.
Democracy is still a radical idea in a world where we often confuse images with realities, words with actions.
The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.
