Democratic Process Quotes

The real world of American society is one which it is very misleading to call simply a democracy. Of course, it is in a sense a democracy, but it is one in which there are enormous inequities in the distribution of power and force. For example, the entire commercial and industrial system is in principle excluded from the democratic process, including everything that goes on within it ~ Noam Chomsky

If I am wrong and you are right then the democratic process of the Australian community will vindicate you and condemn me. ~ John Howard

A fraternity is an association of men, selected in their college days by democratic processes, because of their adherence to common ideals and aspirations. ~ Newton D. Baker

Those of us who actually were working in the region at the time will point out how strongly committed we were to supporting the democratic process and encouraging elections, in spite of the fact that a war was going on in several of these countries. ~ John Negroponte

Unlimited campaign spending eats at the heart of the democratic process. ~ Barry Goldwater

If everybody is happy, then something is wrong with the democratic process. ~ Abdallah II Of Jordan

It is important for us to be able to meet and greet the people that we serve. And if we start having police presence everywhere we go, it's going to create a chilling effect on discourse, and it creates an incredible assault on the democratic process. ~ Jackie Speier

The democratic process is only as great as the people who participate in it. ~ Jeff Miller

I've actually thought very little about solo work up until just very recently. Most of it is because in my band, Incubus, it is very much a collaborative effort. I do what I do in the band, and everyone plays their respective parts, but in the end, we are sort of a democratic process. ~ Brandon Boyd

I like to let them talk things out, but fact isn't a democratic process; if a thing isn't true it isn't true, even if everybody votes that it is. ~ K.J. Parker

(Terrorists) are planning to disrupt our democratic process. It's scary I know, but we're not going to let al Qaeda tell us what to do. In fact, our government has decided that if al Qaeda attempts to disrupt our democratic process, we are going to respond by disrupting it first. ~ Jon Stewart

The engineering of consent is the very essence of the democratic process, the freedom to persuade and suggest. ~ Edward Bernays

If man will not recognize the inequalities around him and voluntarily, through the gospel plan, come to the aid of his brother, he will find that through 'a democratic process' he will be forced to come to the aid of his brother. The government will take from the 'haves' and give to the 'have nots.' Both have lost their freedom. Those who 'have,' lost their freedom to give voluntarily of their own free will and in the way they desire. Those who 'have not,' lost their freedom because they did not earn what they received. They got 'something for nothing,' and they will neither appreciate the gift nor the giver of the gift. ~ Howard W. Hunter

I think in the world we live in where television is the principal source of information for most people, it really affects the balance of the democratic process. The fairness of the democratic process. ~ Alexander Stille

The Senate has unlimited debate; in the House, debate is ruthlessly circumscribed. There is frequent discussion as to which technique most effectively frustrates democratic process. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith

Traffic in Joburg is like the democratic process. Every time you think it's going to get moving and take you somewhere, you hit another jam. ~ Lauren Beukes

If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny. Legal process is an essential part of the democratic process. ~ Felix Frankfurter

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was indeed a vital instrument of democracy, ensuring the integrity and reliability of a democratic process that we as a Country hold so dear. ~ Charles B. Rangel

Few businessmen are capable of being in politics, they don't understand the democratic process, they have neither the tolerance or the depth it takes. Democracy isn't a business. ~ Malcolm Forbes

I am happy to note that the BJP as an organization is looking to creatively harness Power of Social Media. We have to ensure our Youth stays engaged in our Democratic process. We have to make our Democratic process accessible to them. Social media is an important tool for this. ~ Narendra Modi

One of the notable aspects of the democratic process is that one need not know anything about a subject in order to pass laws about it. ~ Jeff Cooper

Nothing else will ever capture the democratic process in sound as perfectly as Jazz. ~ Wynton Marsalis

The machinery of the democratic process is really no different today from what it was 150 years ago. ~ Steven Spielberg

The Chief Whip's job is trying to make sure that the Government - and MPs elected as part of the governing party - deliver the promises that they were elected on. That's a healthy part of the democratic process. ~ Geoff Hoon

We have new developing ties with Japan whom always supports our democratic process and economic development. ~ Ali Abdullah Saleh

The freedom to own and carry the weapon of your choice is a natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right - subject neither to the democratic process nor to arguments grounded in social utility. ~ L. Neil Smith

The democratic process will always favor small, well-organized groups at the expense of large, diffuse groups. ~ Charles Wheelan

All opinions are not equal, as far as running a people is concerned. ~ Abhijit Naskar

If we could shut down all sport hunting in a moment, we would. [ ... ] Only 7% of Americans are hunters. That means there are more of us than there are of them. It is simply a matter of democracy. The majority rules in a democracy. We are going to use the ballot box and the democratic process to stop all hunting in the United States ... We will take it species by species until all hunting is stopped in California. Then we will take it state by state. ~ Wayne Pacelle

The problem is that the economy isn't growing fast enough to accommodate the level of spending produced through the democratic process. ~ Jack Kemp

No candidate dares to look for a new campaign model that could really enhance the democratic process. Instead we are left with the current one which makes our candidates look like hucksters. ~ Greta Van Susteren

This leads to a question - if a great many people are for a certain project, is it necessarily right? If the vast majority is for it, is it even more certainly right? This, to be sure, is one of the tricky points of democracy. The minority often turns out to be right, and though one believes in the efficacy of the democratic process, one has also to recognize that the demand of the many for a particular project at a particular time may mean only disaster. ~ Frances Perkins

When pundits and strategists claim "attack ads work," they mean it in the most cynical of terms. As Ipsos Reid researcher Andrew Grenville told the Vancouver Sun: "Attacks ads can often work in the short term. They can give you a short boost. But they reduce the number of people who want to vote. They reduce participation in the democratic process. They poison the system. ~ Elizabeth May

I love disagreements. I love the democratic process. If I'm in a room where everybody agrees, I start to nod off. ~ Gina McCarthy

Because the democratic process operates apart from the Church, it possesses no corrective against corrupted human nature beyond its own equally corrupt judiciary, which ends by judging not only points of law but morality itself. ~ Solange Hertz

A normal woman, indeed, no more believes in democracy in the nation than she believes in democracy at her own fireside; she knows that there must be a class to order and a class to obey, and that the two can never coalesce. Nor is she, susceptible to the stock sentimentalities upon which the whole democratic process is based. This was shown very dramatically in them United States at the national election of 1920, in which the late Woodrow Wilson was brought down to colossal and ignominious defeat - The first general election in which all American women could vote. All the sentimentality of the situation was on the side of Wilson, and yet fully three-fourths of the newly-enfranchised women voters voted against him. ~ H.L. Mencken

Apocalypse could not be repealed by the democratic process. ~ Greg Bear

If you believe in democracy, are you not thereby obliged to accept, without discrimination, the fall-outs that come with a democratic choice, even if this means the termination of the democratic process itself? ~ Wole Soyinka

Democracy is about voting and it's about a majority vote. And it's time that we started exercising the Democratic process. ~ Debbie Stabenow

I would have a democratic process for people to get together and talk about the way they want the government to conduct business with China. ~ Tsai Ing-wen

Well what are you looking at me for? If this is a democratic process, I've been outvoted," he said in exasperation. "This is why democracy doesn't work. The crazy people always outnumber the sane people. ~ Joseph R. Lallo

I think there is more creative freedom as a solo artist by far because you might get a group push back on an idea because it's more of a democratic process. You can sink or swim on your own ideas on a solo project. ~ Myka 9

Without free speech one cannot claim other liberties, or defend them when they are attacked. Without free speech one cannot have a democratic process, which requires the statement and testing of policy proposals and party platforms. Without free speech one cannot have a due process at law, in which one can defend oneself, accuse, collect and examine evidence, make a case or refute one. Without free speech there cannot be genuine education and research, enquiry, debate, exchange of information, challenges to falsehood, questioning of governments, proposal and examination of opinion. Without free speech there cannot be a free press, which...is necessary...as one of the two essential estates of a free society (the other being an independent judiciary). ~ A.C. Grayling

In accordance with the prevailing conceptions in the U.S., there is no infringement on democracy if a few corporations control the information system: in fact, that is the essence of democracy. In the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the leading figure of the public relations industry, Edward Bernays, explains that "the very essence of the democratic process" is "the freedom to persuade and suggest," what he calls "the engineering of consent." "A leader," he continues, "frequently cannot wait for the people to arrive at even general understanding … Democratic leaders must play their part in … engineering … consent to socially constructive goals and values," applying "scientific principles and tried practices to the task of getting people to support ideas and programs"; and although it remains unsaid, it is evident enough that those who control resources will be in a position to judge what is "socially constructive," to engineer consent through the media, and to implement policy through the mechanisms of the state. If the freedom to persuade happens to be concentrated in a few hands, we must recognize that such is the nature of a free society. ~ Noam Chomsky

To make it hard, to make it difficult almost impossible for people to cast a vote is not in keeping with the democratic process. ~ John Lewis

Introducing a technology is not a neutral act
it is profoundly revolutionary. If you present a new technology to the world you are effectively legislating a change in the way we all live. You are changing society, not some vague democratic process. The individuals who are driven to use that technology by the disparities of wealth and power it creates do not have a real choice in the matter. So the idea that we are giving people more freedom by developing technologies and then simply making them available is a dangerous illusion. ~ Karl Schroeder

No emergency was ever dealt with effectively by democratic process. ~ Ian McEwan

Rights are either God-given or evolve out of the democratic process. Most rights are based on the ability of people to agree on a social contract, the ability to make and keep agreements. ~ Rush Limbaugh

For more than a century, states have sought to protect the integrity of the democratic process at the state and local level by regulating corporate spending in elections. ~ Eric Schneiderman

Growing up, when we would get dragged to these events, I didn't want to be there. Over time, as we got older, I developed a real appreciation of the importance of being involved in the democratic process. ~ Julian Castro

This is the democratic process at work, What you're seeing with this process is the Iraqi people embracing American-style democracy. ~ Condoleezza Rice

It's really Democrats who are fighting for working families and small businesses and trying to address the biggest problems that we have, which are huge disparities in incomes and wealth and money influencing the Democratic process. ~ Cynthia Dill

I am a conservative Republican, a firm believer in free market capitalism. A free market system allows all parties to compete, which ensures the best and most competitive project emerges, and ensures a fair, democratic process. ~ Sarah Palin

Even though I grew up and I didn't always like getting dragged to the meetings or the rallies or the speeches, I developed a very strong respect for participating in a democratic process. ~ Julian Castro

Languages are something of a mess. They evolve over centuries through an unplanned, democratic process that leaves them teeming with irregularities, quirks, and words like 'knight.' ~ Joshua Foer

He'd [Cork] learned early not to invest a lot of emotion in thinking about the truth in a crime. As a cop, he'd gathered evidfence that had been used to guess at the truth, but in the end responsibility for assembling the pieces and nailing truth to the wall was in the hands of others - lawyers, judges, and juries. Truth became a democratic process, the will of twelve. He'd been burned when he cared too deeply. As a result, he'd trained himself to remain a little distant in his emotional involvement on a case. In the end, the outcome was out of his hands, and to allow himself to believe too strongly in the absoluteness of a thing he couldn't control was useless. He felt different now. Desperate in a way. This time he had to hold the truth in his own hands like a beating heart. ~ William Kent Krueger

You cannot use the democratic process for the procurement of excellence. ~ Kevin McCloud

We love your adherence to democratic principles. ~ William F. Buckley, Jr.

As artists, we have an opportunity to help the public evolve, raise consciousness and awareness, teach, heal, enlighten and inspire in ways the democratic process may not be able to touch. So we keep it moving. ~ Lauryn Hill

Education brings sustainability to all the development goals, and literacy is the foundation of all learning. It provides individuals with the skills to understand the world and shape it, to participate in democratic processes and have a voice, and also to strengthen their cultural identity. ~ Irina Bokova

It is not enough to profess faith in the democratic process; we must do something about it. ~ Ella T. Grasso

If you want the best things to happen in corporate life you have to find ways to be hospitable to the unusual person. You don't get innovation as a democratic process. You almost get it as an anti-democratic process. Certainly you get it as an antithetical process, so you have to have an environment where the body of people are really amenable to change and can deal with the conflicts that arise out of change an innovation. ~ Max De Pree

Bill C-9 was supposed to be a budget bill, but it came with innumerable measures that had little or nothing to do with the nation's finances. It was, as critics put it, the advance of the Harper agenda by stealth, yet another abuse of the democratic process. The bill was a behemoth. It was 904 pages, with 23 separate sections and 2,208 individual clauses ...
As a Reform MP, [Stephen Harper] ... said of one piece of legislation that 'the subject matter of the bill is so diverse that a single vote on the content would put members in conflict with their own principles.' The bill he referred to was 21 page long
or 883 pages shorter than the one he was now putting before Parliament. ~ Lawrence Martin

There was a time in the United States when most of our financial institutions were local. Which essentially meant that local communities were able to create their own credit, or their own money, in response to their own needs. We still depended on banks, but it was a much more democratic process. ~ David Korten

Even political systems follow a form of rational tinkering, when people are rational hence take the better option: the Romans got their political system by tinkering, not by "reason." Polybius in his Histories compares the Greek legislator Lycurgus, who constructed his political system while "untaught by adversity," to the more experiential Romans, who, a few centuries later, "have not reached it by any process of reasoning [emphasis mine], but by the discipline of many struggles and troubles, and always choosing the best by the light of the experience gained in disaster. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

While I respect my cousin Annette Sykes' commitment in engaging in the political process, I do not endorse or support any political party. ~ Cliff Curtis

First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice. ~ Octavia E. Butler

Justice has taken its course and the authority and legitimacy of the legal process must be respected. ~ Kofi Annan

Nowadays, the process of growth and development almost never seems to manage to create this subtle balance between the importance of the individual parts, and the coherence of the environment as a whole. One or the other always dominates. ~ Christopher Alexander

Of course I believe in free enterprise but in my system of free enterprise, the democratic principle is that there never was, never has been, never will be, room for the ruthless exploitation of the many for the benefit of the few. ~ Harry S. Truman

I don't use recurring characters. I do get very interested in my characters while I'm working with them, and I find the process of fitting them into a story, and allowing them to create the story around themselves, fascinating. But no, I don't imagine they have a life outside of what I make for them. ~ Jessica Abel

Life is an endless process of self-discovery. ~ John W. Gardner

The organizational architecture is really that a centipede walks on hundred legs and one or two don't count. So if I lose one or two legs, the process will go on, the organization will go on, the growth will go on. ~ Mukesh Ambani

I have been clear in my position for quite a while, but the Chinese have not responded. Therefore, we are now in the process of holding a referendum on our policy among all the Tibetan community in exile and even inside Tibet, to check whether the majority thinks we are on the right track. ~ Dalai Lama

I didn't come in as a writer that found producers, I came in under producers. So I've always respected the actual production process and producers in general. ~ Pusha T

Majority rule must stop at our unalienable rights. Without that, pure democratic rule is a terrible thing. It's like two wolves and a lamb voting to see what's for dinner. ~ LaVoy Finicum

in our democratic societies, there is nothing that is not regulated. Arab jurists taught me something that I liked very much. They represent law as a sort of tree, with at one extreme what is forbidden and, at the other, what is obligatory. For them, the jurist's role is situated between these two extremes: that is, addressing everything that one can do without juridical sanction. This zone of freedom never stops narrowing, whereas it ought to be expanded. ~ Anonymous

I've realized that with each novel I seem to set out a kind of puzzle for myself. And I am never sure in the process of writing a first draft how it's all going to turn out. ~ Laurie Foos

I don't have confidence in my instincts, and I feel like I have to go through a very right-brain and left-brain process. ~ Tom Kenny

The artist is a collector of things imaginary or real. He accumulates things with the same enthusiasm that a little boy stuffs his pockets. The scrap heap and the museum are embraced with equal curiosity. He takes snapshots, makes notes and records impressions on tablecloths or newspapers, on backs of envelopes or matchbooks. Why one thing and not another is part of the mystery, but he is omnivorous. ~ Paul Rand

Incorporating in their colorful, slashing, superbly readable pages, the major themes of the "left" opposition under Walpole, these libertarian tracts, emerging first in the form of denunciations of standing armies in the reign of William III, left an indelible imprint on the "country" mind everywhere in the English-speaking world. ~ Bernard Bailyn

In my more than 60 years as a member of the American scientific community, including service as president of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Physical Society, I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer-review process than the events that led to this IPCC report. ~ Frederick Seitz

Too much concentration belittles life. Concentration is a narrowing down of the mind - but we are concerned with the total process of living, and to concentrate exclusively on any particular aspect of life, belittles life. ~ Bruce Lee

We urgently need a paradigm shift in our concept of the purposes and practices of education. We need to leave behind the concept of education as a passport to more money and higher status in the future and replace it with a concept of education as an ongoing process that enlists the tremendous energies and creativity of schoolchildren in rebuilding and respiriting our communities and our cities now, in the present. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

Zimbardo and Boyd Time perspective is the often nonconscious personal attitude that each of us holds toward time and the process whereby the continual flow of existence is bundled into time categories that help to give order, coherence, and meaning to our lives. ~ Philip G. Zimbardo

Years later, the writer Malcolm Harris will articulate the ways in which people of your generation were taught to value work as an end in itself, rather than a process through which something tangible is gained. ~ Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman

During the civilisation and development process of more than 5,000 years, the Chinese nation has made an indelible contribution to the civilisation and advancement of mankind. ~ Xi Jinping

Some of you may feel that if you don't do something soon to change your life, you will be left by the roadside, alone, homeless and in despair. But is the despair not there as you reach and grapple to create or manifest your desires through your own effort and will? What happens if or when those things appear in your life? Joy? Peace? Or a temporary sense of relief?

What if it is relief from the wanting you have been craving for so long, not the outcome, but the relief from the constant wanting. ~ Kelly Martin

Even if you never, ever ride the bike it will still age. So you might as well ride it while it's pretty and enjoy the process of making it ugly. ~ BikeSnobNYC

She'd noticed before how middle-aged women were obsessed with the topic of age, always laughing about it, moaning about it, going on and on about it, as if the process of aging were a tricky puzzle they were trying to solve. Why were they so mystified by it? Jane's mother's friends seemed to literally have no other topic of conversation, or they didn't when they spoke to Jane. "Oh, you're so young and beautiful, Jane." (When she clearly wasn't; it was like they thought one followed the other: If you were young, you were automatically beautiful!) "Oh, you're so young, Jane, you'll be able to fix my phone/computer/camera." (When in fact a lot of her mother's friends were more technologically savvy than Jane.) "Oh, you're so young, Jane, you have so much energy." (When she was so tired, so very, very tired.) "And ~ Liane Moriarty

Science is not infallible, but it has something religion lacks: a process of testing claims against real-world observations. ~ PZ Myers

As Einstein's quote suggests, the framing of the question is an outsized portion of the solution-finding process. And as Clay Christensen told us, when you ask the right question, the answer becomes mechanical. Clearly, we need to be privileging that question-framing process, which has a rhythm of introspection and collaboration, throughout our processes. ~ Faisal Hoque

The application process changes the list of who applies. Your applicants reflect your methods. ~ Seth Godin

We have seen that a myth could never approached in a purely profane setting. It was only comprehensible in a liturgical context that set it apart from everyday life; it must be experienced as part of a process of personal transformation. None, of this surely applies to the novel, which can be read anywhere at all witout ritual trappings, and must, if it is any good, eschew the overtly didactic. Yet the experience of reading a novel has certain qualities that remind us of the mythology. It can be seen as a form of mediation. Readers have to live with a novel for days or even weeks. It prljects them into another worl, parallel to but apart from their ordinary lives. They know perfectly well that this fictional realm is not 'real' and yet while they are reading it becomes compelling. A powerful novel bcomes part of the backdrop of lives long after we have laid the book aside. It is an excercise of make-believe, that like yoga or a religious festival breaks down barriers of space and time and extends our sympathies to empathise with others lives and sorrows. It teaches compassion, the ability to 'feel with' others. And, like mythology , an important novel is transformative. If we allow it do so, can change us forever. ~ Karen Armstrong

Here is a paradox for the creator: if you love your work, let it go.15 Because if you grip it too tightly, you will strangle it. If you hold it in open hands, you may actually find that the work has a life of its own. Creativity is more about listening and following than it is about forcing or manipulating. The truth for the creator is that you have a very limited control over anything in the world, even your own creation. You can work on it. You can help mold and shape its form. But there will come a point in the creative process where your creation is what it is. There comes a point where there is nothing left to do but to rest. To open your hands and let it go. You cannot control how others will receive it. They ~ Michael Gungor

But, when Scripture makes a clear distinction between the act of creation and the process of preservation, we cannot accept the idea of a progressive creation process. ~ Walter Lang

Many CEOs and leaders think that silence is indeed golden, that consensus is bliss. It is - sometimes. But more often what it signifies is that there are no respected processes for surfacing concerns and dissent. ~ Margaret Heffernan

Happiness and success are not something that we can attain
or possibly loose, but rather inside qualities that we have forgotten about
during the very process of reaching them. ~ G. Gyarmati

When distinction of any kind, even intellectual distinction, is somehow resented as a betrayal of the American spirit of equal opportunity for all, the result must be just this terror of individualistic impulses setting us apart, either above or below our neighbours; just this determination to obey without questioning and to subscribe with passion to the conventions and traditions. The dilemma becomes a very real one: How can this sense of democratic equality be made compatible with respect for exceptional personalities or great minds? How can democracy, as we understand it today, with its iron repression of the free spirit, its monotonous standardisation of everything, learn to cherish an intellectual aristocracy without which any nation runs the risk of becoming a civilisation of the commonplace and the second-rate? ~ Harold Edmund Stearns

The war we now face is a fundamental one. Democracy is a product of Western societal values that prize the individual and individual freedom. The very idea of a form of government in which power is vested in the people, who rule through their freely chosen representatives, is at odds with Middle Eastern and Islamic cultures in which the only sovereign is Allah. Because Allah alone is sovereign, man may not change Allah's rules. There can be no room left for religious liberty or pluralism. Contrary man-made laws have no place in such a society. Accordingly, only one ruler is needed to enforce divine law, law that may not be questioned. Democracy, on the other hand, by its very nature gives people the room to enact new laws to meet with the changing needs - whether real or merely perceived - of a given society. Thus from the Islamic perspective, a democratic system of government is a direct affront to Allah's supremacy. ~ Jay Sekulow