Democracy Quotes – Reflections on Political Structures

"The power structures that have emerged are not democratically legitimized, and they can no longer be voted out of office through any electoral process. The most important power structures in our society are no longer accessible to the voter at all… and one does not want the ordinary citizen to even know that they exist. They are meant to remain invisible within the framework of public debate."

Prof. Rainer Mausfeld

"The fundamental problem with our democracy is that it is not one. The people—the nominal ruler and sovereign—have, in reality, nothing to say. … Behind the democratic façade, a system has been installed in which completely different rules apply than those of the Basic Law. The system is undemocratic and corrupt; it abuses power and unscrupulously deceives citizens. … Every German is free to obey laws to which he has never consented; he may admire the majesty of the Basic Law, whose validity he has never legitimized; he is free to pay homage to politicians whom no citizen has ever elected, and to provide for them lavishly—with his tax money, about the use of which he has never been consulted. Overall, the state and politics are in a condition of which only professional optimists or hypocrites can claim it has arisen from the will of the citizens."

Prof. Dr. Hans Herbert von Arnim

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

Henry Louis Mencken

"It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and congress members. So now we’ve just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election’s over. … The incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody’s who’s already in Congress has a lot more to sell to an avid contributor than somebody who’s just a challenger."

Jimmy Carter

"By casting his vote in an election, the voter hands over his right to political participation—and in doing so legitimizes the actions that may later be taken against him."

Herbert Wehner

"True democracy knows neither rich nor poor! Only those with a truly ‘free spirit’, independent of money, possessions, servitude, and wage labor, independent of state or social constraints and positions, are truly free!"

Horst Bulla

"It’s organized crime. All you do is you call the Republicans the Genoveses and you call the Democrats the Gambinos. The people at the top, they treat it like a crap game. It’s their crap game, like they’re making lots of money. Occasionally, somebody at the table shoots each other, but the moment anything threatens their crap game, they all unite to protect it. ... They’re both controlled by the same financial, economic and corporate interests."

Michael Ruppert

"Do you want totalitarian states for the rest of your life and that of your children in order to combat a virus that, even after two years, has not managed to significantly reduce the number of people on Earth? This virus will not disappear! We have to live with it! We must now decide whether we want to do so in freedom or slavery! In peace and prosperity or in war and poverty!"

Antoine Richard

"Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule—and both commonly succeed, and are right... The United States has never developed an aristocracy really disinterested or an intelligentsia really intelligent. Its history is simply a record of vacillations between two gangs of frauds."

H. L. Mencken

"An urgent word to Mayor Keck and all current political decision-makers: There is no tyranny of the unvaccinated! Educate yourselves before proclaiming such theses. Advocate for an immediate end to discrimination and unequal treatment of the unvaccinated in public life, workplaces, schools, and daycare centers. Demand a halt to the downplaying of vaccine information and a return to scientific neutrality incorporating economics and social sciences, moving away from the lobby-aligned panic policies that deliberately ignore scientific facts and trample on fundamental democratic values."

Prof. Dr. Jörg Fuß

"Freedom can never be completely safeguarded by rules and laws. It is as much dependent on the courage, integrity, and responsibility of each of us as it is on these qualities in those who govern. Every trait in us and our leaders which points to passive submission to mere power betrays democratic freedom. In our American system of democratic government, three different powerful branches serve to check each other, the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary. Yet when there is no will to prevent encroachment of the power of one by any of the others, this system of checks, too, can degenerate."

Joost A.M. Meerloo

"Name me a country where journalists and politicians get along, and I'll tell you there's no democracy."

Hugh Carleton Greene

"The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite. It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system–ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society."

Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Out of fear for their share of the spoils, the German Republic was born in the grand ducal velvet armchairs and in the pubs of Weimar, not as a form of government, but as a COMPANY. Its statutes do not mention the PEOPLE, but PARTIES; not power, honor, and greatness, but PARTIES. We no longer have a fatherland, but PARTIES; no rights, but PARTIES; no goal, no future, but the interests of PARTIES. And these parties – once again: not sections of the people, but commercial enterprises with a paid bureaucracy, which were to American parties what a junk shop is to a department store – decided to give the ENEMY everything he wanted, to sign every demand, to awaken in him the courage to make ever greater demands, just so that they could pursue their own goals internally."

Oswald Spengler

"When we give government the power to make medical decisions for us, we in essence accept that the state owns our bodies."

Ron Paul

"Democracy is a political system that does not guarantee the rule of the people, but rather their exploitation."

Hans-Hermann Hoppe

"We hear statements such as “This is a free country” or “This is a dictatorship where there is no freedom.” However, these are vague assertions in which the meaning of freedom is not real. One person may feel very free in a totalitarian regime, while another living in a democracy may feel the chains of slavery on their shoulders, weighing down every step they take. The chains of slavery only bind our hands: it is the spirit that makes a person free or a slave."

Franz Grillparzer

"Democracy is the worship of jackals by jackasses."

Henry Louis Mencken