Democracy Defense Quotes

Sure the people are stupid: the human race is stupid. Sure Congress is an inefficient instrument of government. But the people are not stupid enough to abandon representative government for any other kind, including government by the guy who knows.

I believe in defending democracy by preserving democracy, not by descending to the use of the same weapons used in dictatorships, whether of the Nazi or Communist stripe.

At the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish, nonpartisan research group, at least two people left over the way the think tank responded to Mr. Trump's election.

The tank, the B-52, the fighter-bomber, the state-controlled police and military are the weapons of dictatorship. The rifle is the weapon of democracy. Not for nothing was the revolver called an "equalizer."

As a veteran, I know firsthand the satisfaction there is in defending the democracy you so strongly believe in, but I can also attest to the trauma encountered from combat on the battlefield.

Whenever we defend democracy we find oil.

What can the schools do to defend democracy? Should they preach a specific political doctrine? I believe they should not. If they are able to teach young people to have a critical mind and a socially oriented attitude, they will have done all that is necessary.

This Senate, is a sanctuary; a citadel of law, of order, and of liberty; and it is here — it is here, in this exalted refuge; here, if anywhere, will resistance be made to the storms of political frenzy and the silent arts of corruption; and if the Constitution be destined ever to perish by the sacrilegious hands of the demagogue or the usurper, which God avert, its expiring agonies will be witnessed on this floor.

Those who try to stifle the vibrancy of our democracy and shield policies from scrutiny behind a false cloak of patriotism miss the real value of what our troops defend and how we best defend our troops. We will ask questions and we will defend our democracy.

Through the ballot, we can defend our democracy from the threat of dictatorship.

There comes a time in the affairs of men when they must prepare to defend not their homes alone but the tenets of faith and humanity on which their churches, their governments and their very foundations are set. The defense of religion, of democracy and of good faith among nations is all the same fight. To save one, we must now make up our minds to save all.

The people standing up most strongly for our democracies should be celebrated, not prosecuted - be it those countless human rights defenders who defend all our rights or the brave whistle-blowers who expose tax dodging.

Clinton, Kennedy, they all carried out mass murder, but they didn't think that that was what they were doing - nor does Bush. You know, they were defending justice and democracy from greater evils.

Today's neoliberalism has a number of byproducts. We have massive forms of inequality developing because there are no longer any concessions. There's a war being waged on democracy and all social spheres and institutions that tend to defend it.

While on the subject of burning books, I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and destroyed records rather than have to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles. So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the media. The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

If Germany be allowed to win this war—then we in America shall have to drop every other activity and devote the next twenty or thirty years to preparing for a last-ditch defense of the democratic principle.