Democratic Quotes - page 62
In response to criticism from Democratic mayoral candidates for appearing at a 2004 event for the Independence Party: "To all the critics who are rushing out to criticize me tonight, criticize me for being here tonight, let me point out that this night is about the one million New Yorkers who are denied the most basic rights by the two major political parties."
Michael Bloomberg
Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U. S. economy. [Senate Minority Leader] Harry Reid was talking about soup lines. And [Senator] Hillary Clinton was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet in the same breath they say that Social Security is rock solid and there's no crisis there. How are you going to work – you've said you are going to reach out to these people – how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?
Jeff Gannon
It is a terrible mistake for conservatives to abandon our Iraqi allies now. A U.S. victory will establish a vibrant, modern democracy in the heart of the Arab world that will serve as an infectious model for the oppressed peoples in the region. A prosperous, democratic Iraq will become a catalyst for reform percolating within the ossified, conservative dictatorships of its neighbors. This change may be messy. In the long-run, however, Arab nations will be modernized. This will create a more stable and secure Middle East and thereby, a more stable and secure world for the United States.
Jeffrey T. Kuhner
Though the words "personal" and "personality" date to the 1380s, "responsibility" emerged only in the 1640s, as England began its great democratic ferment. This linguistic lag marked an arrested moral development. Our civilization developed personality early and responsibility late. Only the duties of democratic governance required a word to express the abstract principle, "a state of being responsible."
Mark Riebling
The Pentagon's judgments about the world have generally proved sounder than the CIA's. In the 1960s, the CIA said that the Soviets wouldn't put missiles in Cuba; in the 1970s, that their missiles weren't accurate; in the 1980s, that the missile budget wouldn't bankrupt Moscow; and in the 1990s, that Russia's democratic reforms were irreversible. In each case, the Pentagon argued the opposite case, and turned out to be right. Similarly, in the 1980s, the CIA said that the Soviets weren't sponsoring terrorism, and then, in the 1990s, that Sunni and Shiite terrorists wouldn't cooperate. In each case, again, the Pentagon rightly claimed otherwise.
Mark Riebling
The Alabama Democratic convention [instructed] its delegates to walk out of the national convention if the party refused to adopt a platform pledging a federal slave code for the territories. Other lower-South Democratic organizations followed suit. In February, Jefferson Davis presented the substance of southern demands to the Senate in resolutions affirming that neither Congress nor a territorial legislature could impair the constitutional right of any citizen of the United States to take his slave property into the common territories.
James M. McPherson
[Committees are] a tool of the democratic, knowledge-pooling, and desire-harmonizing process which cannot be otherwise forwarded. And when committees fail, as they sometimes do, it is because the limits to their role are not clearly understood or because they have not benefited by proper leadership from the chairman.
Ordway Tead
To many, our democratic system seems so broken that they have simply lost faith that their participation could really matter. The politics of self-interest and catering to narrow special interests is so dominant that so many ask themselves: Why vote? ... The political discourse is so formulaic, so tailored into poll-driven, focus-group-approved slogans that don't really say anything substantive or strike at the core of our lived experience.
Cornel West
The techniques for making art thus morally acceptable, of drawing its fangs, are endless; and each generation finds its own. Just now the democratic machinery for rendering art safe is so efficient that it seems that the system can absorb anything. It would be exciting to think that somewhere in Europe there was a man making art which was so violent and true that the system could not take it.
Patrick Swift
This much is certain. If the present Democratic leadership is right, then Calhoun and Jefferson Davis were wrong. If the present Democratic leadership is right, then Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner were right, and Lee, Forrest, and Wade Hampton were wrong. If the President's civil-rights program is right, then reconstruction was right. If this program is right, the carpetbaggers were right.
James Eastland
Scholars, journalists, activists, and others have an almost knee-jerk tendency to praise Bangladesh's beginnings as a secular nation and trace its slide into Islamist domination from the 1975 assassination of its founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. That praise is warranted - but only to a limited extent, for secularism and any semblance of democratic ideals were in their death throes long before Sheikh Mujib was.
Richard Benkin
As Americans, we can take enormous pride in the fact that courage has been inspired by our own struggle for freedom, by the tradition of democratic law secured by our forefathers and enshrined in our Constitution. It is a tradition that says all men are created equal under the law and that no one is above it.
Barack Obama
I believe that every person should be equal under the law. Every child deserves the dignity that comes with education, and health care and food on the table and a roof over their heads. I believe citizens should be free to speak their mind without fear to organize, and to criticize their government, and to protest peacefully, and that the rule of law should not include arbitrary detentions of people who exercise those rights. I believe that every person should have the freedom to practice their faith peacefully and publicly. And, yes, I believe voters should be able to choose their governments in free and democratic elections. Not everybody agrees with me on this.
Barack Obama
