Jesse Ventura Quotes

A town meeting is a legislature of citizens, for citizens, and by citizens. The fact that each citizen of the town is also a legislator separates the New England town meeting from all other forms of democracy.

People now do not want a constitution framed for them by their representatives—they want to pass on each section of it themselves.

A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.

The opponents of direct legislation and the recall, however they may phrase their opposition, in reality believe the people cannot be trusted.

Democracy, in brief, requires government by parties because the citizens are too numerous, too ill-informed and too preoccupied to come together spontaneously to choose the policies and leaders they wish to prevail. Political machinery has to be worked. The parties work it.

… once you acknowledge the fact that Congress is after all made up of citizens elected to represent all of us, you must have some faith in their framing common sense laws.

One lesson of the vote for Brexit was that citizens were fed up being treated as bystanders. One of the gains of Leave was the flourishing of a sense of agency and self-determination that it afforded to many.

The Founding Fathers didn’t intend for the lawyers to run this country

A radical ... and revolutionary ... attack upon the fundamental basic principle of representative democracy for free people.

In all forms of government the people is the true legislator.

The Constitutional Convention is the only vehicle through which we can get a clear-cut and unequivocal decision of the people.

Polling can undermine the ability of officials to lay out, debate, analyze, and implement their plans. By turning to instant [electronic] polls we would eliminate the captain and the officers and leave every shipboard decision to the passengers.

To say that sovereignty vests with the people, and that they have not a right to instruct and control their representative is absurd to the last degree.

Our whole system of self-government will crumble either if officials elect what laws they will enforce or citizens elect what laws they will support.

In our system of government, nobody has the last word except the people.

A government is republican in proportion as every member composing it has his equal voice in the direction of its concerns: not indeed in person, which would be impracticable beyond the limits of a city or small township, but by representatives chosen by himself and responsible to him at short periods.

The great advantage of representatives is their capacity of discussing public affairs. For this, the people collectively are extremely unfit, which is one of the chief inconveniences of a democracy.

We hold the true republican position. In leaving the people's business in their hands, we cannot be wrong.

… courts do not substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgment of legislative bodies, who are elected to pass laws

We believe that all legislative assemblies should confine themselves to constitutional principles; and that all such laws should be implicitly obeyed by every American.

When jurisdiction lies with the populace or with the multitude, not that the whole multitude should rule at once, but that the government should be committed to different people over time, according to the offices, and according to a cycle.

Our form of government is called a democracy because instead of being controlled by a monopoly, it is controlled by the whole people.

If certain selected bodies of men, deputed on these principles, determine contrary to the wishes and expectations of their constituents, the people have an undoubted right to reject their decisions, to call for a revision of their conduct, to depute others in their room, or if they think proper, to demand further time for deliberation on matters of the greatest moment: …

The Cherokees, the only tribe I know to be contemplating the establishment of regular laws, magistrates, and government, propose a government of representatives, elected from every town. But of all things, they least think of subjecting themselves to the will of one man.

No error is more common than to confound democracy as an element in national character with democracy as a form of government.… Now the two are not only not identical, but they are not even necessarily coexistent. By the former we understand that spirit in a people which leads them to demand equality among citizens and a substantial control over their own affairs; by the latter, a system in which the people pronounce directly on all the details of government.