Democracy

“the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat [lowest social or economic class] to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.” For what purpose? To “abolish private property”; to “wrest, by degrees, capital from the bourgeoisie [middle class]”; to “centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State” (Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto)

“according to Lenin, socialism and democracy are indivisible.... The essence of perestroika [Mikhail Gorbachev's restructuring program] lies in the fact that it unites socialism with democracy and revives the Leninist concept.… We want more socialism and, therefore, more democracy.” (Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika, 1987.)

“Democracy: A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of ‘direct expression.’ Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic — negating property rights. Attitude of the law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.” (War Department Training Manual, No. 2000-25. 1928.)

“Because the United States is a democracy, the majority of the people [Emphasis in original] decide how our Government will be organized and run.” (The Soldier’s Guide, U.S. Army Field Manual, 21-13. 1952.)

“…democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they are violent in their deaths.” (James Madison, The Federalist Papers, No. 10.)

“The one prevailing evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority…” (Lord Acton)

“democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.” (American Poet James Russell Lowell)

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.” (Lord Woodhouselee Alexander Fraser Tytler)

“It has been observed that a pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.” (Alexander Hamilton, speech urging ratification of the Constitution in New York June 21, 1788.)

“For out of such an ungoverned populace one is usually chosen as leader … someone bold and unscrupulous … who curries favor with the people by giving them other men's property.” (Marcus Tullius Cicero)

“And so tyranny naturally rises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme form of liberty.… The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness.… This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears above ground he is a protector… At first, at the early days of his power, he is full of smiles, and he salutes everyone whom he meets — he to be called a tyrant, who is making promises in public and also in private liberating debtors, and distributing land to the people and his followers, and wanting to be so kind and good to everyone … then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.… Has he not also another object, which is that they may be impoverished by the payment of taxes and thus compelled to devote themselves to their daily wants and therefore less likely to conspire against him?… Thus liberty, getting out of all order and reason, passes into the harshest and bitterest form of slavery.” (Plato, The Republic, VIII.)

“A democracy is three wolves and two sheep voting on dinner.   A simple republic is three wolves and two sheep electing a committee to plan dinner.   A contitutional republic is a system of limited government in which no one has authority to plan dinner for others and in which the sheep are armed.”

“The political system of democracy, in the sense of unrestricted control by the will of the majority, militates against the fundamental requirement of a religious citizenry. This is because the underlying philosophy of democracy has deeply anti-religious overtones, since it implies that right or wrong can be determined by the will of the majority. On the other hand, the American constitutional system is based on recognition of God as the source of correct eternal principles of government, and as the source of unalienable rights.” (Jerome Horowitz, The Elders of Israel and the Constitution, p. 47. 1970.)

“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide.” (Samuel Adams)

“We are a Republican Government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy.” (Alexander Hamilton)

“Taken as a whole, the Chinese revolutionary movement led by the Communist Party embraces the two stages, i.e., the democratic and the socialist revolutions, which are essentially different revolutionary processes, and the second process can be carried through only after the first has been completed. The democratic revolution is the necessary preparation for the socialist revolution, and the socialist revolution is the inevitable sequel to the democratic revolution. The ultimate aim for which all communists strive is to bring about a socialist and communist society.” (Mao Tse-tung proclaimed this revealing statement regarding democracy a decade before consolidating control on the Chinese mainland. 1939.)

“Propaganda is to democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.” (Noam Chomsky, 1993.)

“Between a republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.” (Chief Justice John Marshall)