Democracies in the DevelopedCountries to be Gauged by the Degree ofMorality of their Foreign Policies.ديمقراطيّات الدول المتقدّمة تُقاس بنسبة أخلاقيّات سياستها الخارجيّة.

Appartenir à une patrie, c'est aussi s'engager pour le siècle où l'on y vit (source: émission sur la Russie sur Arte le 28/02/2012). Nos démocraties ne valent que par les hommes qui les servent. Elles ne sont donc jamais parfaites mais elles reposent sur un socle inamovible. Le passé renforce le présent et les pas hésitants qui conduisent à ce présent trouvent le chemin de l'avenir. TELL ME WHO YOUR FRIENDS ARE AND I WILL TELL YOU WHO YOU ARE

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.

It was an idea that made the crucial difference between British and Iberian America – an idea about the way people should govern themselves. Some people make the mistake of calling that idea ‘democracy’ and imagining that any country can adopt it merely by holding elections. In reality, democracy was the capstone of an edifice that had as its foundation the rule of law – to be precise, the sanctity of individual freedom and the security of private property rights, ensured by representative, constitutional government.

If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.

Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns in to universal, rather than religion-specific, values... it requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason.Now I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

Multilate. Ha Ha Ha,' said Nusswan, avuncular and willing to pretend it was a clever joke. 'Its all relative. At the best of times, democracy is a see saw between complete chaos and tolerable confusion. You see, to make a democratic omelette you have to break a few democratic eggs. To fight fascism and other evil forces threatening our country, there is nothing wrong in taking strong measures. Especially when the foreign hand is always interfering to destabilize us. Did you know the CIA is trying to sabotage the Family Planning Programme?

DiMaggio's grace came to represent more than athletic skill in those years. To the men who wrote about the game, it was a talisman, a touchstone, a symbol of the limitless potential of the human individual. That an Italian immigrant, a fisherman's son, could catch fly balls the way Keats wrote poetry or Beethoven wrote sonatas was more than just a popular marvel. It was proof positive that democracy was real. On the baseball diamond, if nowhere else, America was truly a classless society. DiMaggio's grace embodied the democracy of our dreams.

Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers' enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this apparatus and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others.

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).

What would have become of the people five hundred years ago if they had followed strictly the advice of the doctors? They would have all been dead. What would the people have been, if at any age of the world they had followed implicitly the direction of the church? They would have all been idiots. It is a splendid thing that there is always some grand man who will not mind, and who will think for himself. I believe in allowing the children to think for themselves.I believe in the democracy of the family. If in this world there is anything splendid, it is a home where all are equals.

Libertarians make no exceptions to the golden rule and provide no moral loophole, no double standard, for government. That is, libertarians believe that murder is murder and does not become sanctified by reasons of state if committed by the government. We believe that theft is theft and does not become legitimated because organized robbers call their theft "taxation." We believe that enslavement is enslavement even if the institution committing that act calls it "conscription." In short, the key to libertarian theory is that it makes no exceptions in its universal ethic for government.

If you wanted to bestow the grandiose title of "most successful organization in modern history," you would struggle to find a more obviously worthy nominee than the federal government of the United States.In its earliest stirrings, it established a lasting and influential democracy. Since then, it has helped defeat totalitarianism (more than once), established the world’s currency of choice, sent men to the moon, built the Internet, nurtured the world’s largest economy, financed medical research that saved millions of lives and welcomed eager immigrants from around the world.

Democracy is not a good by itself. It is completely dependent upon the nature of the people, both for its efficacy and for its survival. One can say that a “democratic” people, if placed under a dictatorship, would be more “democratically” ruled than a “dictatorship” people placed under a democracy and one can expect that both would very soon revert to the system that suited them. The system works for us, and it works extremely well, but to think that therefore a government should be judged by the measure of its “democracy” is sheer nonsense.

What the hell’s the matter with you men? Are you cowards as well as stupid? You boys make me sick. I’m done with you. You hear me? I want you to go back to your places now and stay with your children until I say you’re needed.“Tell your wives and your older children to bring with them dish pans and cooking pots. Tell them to bring their stirring spoons and ladles. Tell them to carry a mop over their shoulders. We’re goin’ to march on that mine and we’re going to stand guard to see that no scabs are allowed in. Do you hear me?” — Mother Jones