Tag: parliamentary democracy

Walter Lippmann, whose anti-democratic skepticism changed the course of American politics in the twentieth century.

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Part 4 of 9 (Chapter 1 here, Chapter 3 here, Chapter 4 Part 2 here)

Politically, democracy means the sovereignty, not of the average man — who is a rather narrow, short-sighted, muddle-headed creature — but of a matured public opinion, a very different thing . . . In the forming of this opinion the sage has a million times the weight of the field hand. With modern facilities for mind influencing mind, democracy, at its best, substitutes the direction of the recognized moral and intellectual élite for the rule of the strong, the rich, or the privileged. — Edward Alsworth Ross, Changing America (1912) (more…)

The Founding Fathers were not what they are often seen as today.

6,140 words

Part 3 of 9 (Chapter 1 here, Chapter 2 here, Chapter 4 Part 1 here)

Of the things for which I summoned the people to assemble,
was there one I compassed not? . . .
This is how the people will best follow their leaders:
If they are neither unleashed nor restrained too much. — Solon, circa sixth century BC (more…)

3,552 words

Part 2 of 9 (Chapter 1 here)

In all countries the rights of the majority take care of themselves, but it is only in countries like England, enjoying constitutional liberty, and safe from the tyranny of a single despot, or of an unbridled democracy, that the rights of minorities are regarded. — Sir John A. MacDonald (more…)

24,021 words

The following text is being presented in commemoration of Sir Oswald Mosley’s 136th birthday. — Ed. (more…)

3,648 words

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn et al.
From Under the Rubble
Boston: Little, Brown & Company (1975)

Shortly before being deported from the Soviet Union in 1974, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn contributed three essays to a volume that was later published in the West as From Under the Rubble. (more…)