Citizen Quotes - page 18
A referendum is little more than a "rumour of choice." The idea behind the mechanism, ever since its first modern manifestations two centuries ago under Napoleon, has been to replace democracy with the sensation of democracy. That is: to replace the slow, complex, eternally unclear continuity of democracy, and all the awkwardness of citizen participation, with something clear and fast which allows those in power to impose their agenda. Through an apparently simple question with a one-syllable answer, those who ask can get a blank cheque from the citizenry; that is, if they choose their moment well and come up with a winning question.
John Ralston Saul
Ever since the democratic systems permitted their various courts to give corporations the status of persons, the individual as citizen has been on the defensive. How could it be otherwise? If you are a person before the law and Exxon or Ford is also a person, it is clear that the concept of democratic legitimacy lying with the individual has been mortally wounded.
John Ralston Saul
Just as the unleashing of ideas and myths in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries cleared the way for endless changes in state and social structures, so the subsequent pinning down and splitting up of language into feudal states has now made it impossible for the citizen to participate seriously in society. The inviting humanist irony of the early days has given way to the off-putting rational cynicism and sloganeering of our time.
John Ralston Saul
Societies grow into systems. The systems require management and are therefore increasingly wielded, like a tool or a weapon, by those who have power. The rest of the population is still needed to do specific things. But the citizens are not needed to contribute to the form or direction of the society. The more "advanced" the civilization, the more irrelevant the citizen becomes.
John Ralston Saul
I don't think I am ghoulish in saying that I would like them, and every morally responsible citizen of the world, particularly my fellow Australians of the World War II period, to refresh their memories by referring regularly to the photographic record of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki happening - the rags of human flesh, the suppurating sores, the despair of families blown apart, the disturbed minds, the bleak black gritty plains where the homes of human beings like you and I once stood. Most of all, I would like every Australian couple born since Hiroshima and Nagasaki were blasted out of existence to consult these photographic records and for ever after do all in their power to prevent the children they are creating from suffering a fate similar to that thrust upon the children of those two Japanese cities. Let us rouse ourselves and realise this is what we shall have to face.
Patrick White
In the technocracy, nothing is any longer small or simple or readily apparent to the nontechnical man. Instead, the scale of intricacy or all human activities... transcends the competence of the amateurish citizen and inexorably demands the attention of specially trained experts. ...even the most seemingly personal aspects of life. ...In the absence of expertise, the great [productive} mechanism would surely break down, leaving us in the midst of chaos and poverty.
Theodore Roszak
Most people define themselves by what they do - 'I'm a musician.' Then one day it occurred to me that I'm only a musician when I'm playing music - or writing music, or talking about music. I don't do that 24 hours a day. I'm also a father, a son, a husband, a citizen - I mean, when I go to vote, I'm not thinking of myself as 'a musician.'
Herbie Hancock
No man can be judged a criminal until he be found guilty; nor can society take from him the public protection, until it have been proved that he has violated the conditions on which it was granted. What right, then, but that of power, can authorise the punishment of a citizen, so long as there remains any doubt of his guilt? The dilemma is frequent. Either he is guilty, or not guilty. If guilty, he should only suffer the punishment ordained by the laws, and torture becomes useless, as his confession is unnecessary. If he be not guilty, you torture the innocent; for, in the eye of the law, every man is innocent, whose crime has not been proved.
Cesare Beccaria
I've lived here for 20 years and I have been a citizen for 10 years. I hope I am a good one. I know I don't take it for granted. I feel I am an awfully lucky person to be an American and I think that every naturalized American and every person born in this land should kneel on his knees every morning and utter a prayer for being an American.
Bela Lugosi
The specific goals we set for ourselves are almost always subsidiary to our long range intentions. A good parent, a good neighbour, a good citizen, is not good because his specific goals are acceptable, but because his successive goals are ordered to a dependable and socially desirable set of values. (1947)
Gordon W. Allport
The renunciation of war indemnities, which has been greatly lauded in some quarters here, does not appear to me only in the shining light of the conciliation it will lead to, but, as a citizen, I also see it in the light of the colossal burdens to which Germany will be exposed if this struggle ends without war indemnities.
Gustav Stresemann
Few things infuriate the ordinary citizen more than liberal attitudes to crime and criminals. And not only infuriate, but offend against justice, common sense, and fair play. The ordinary citizen is neither a brute nor a sadist; he is humane (as most liberals are not), he is compassionate when it is called for, leans over backwards to be fair, and is ready to give a second chance. But he knows the difference between right and wrong, and has an instinctive sense of the difference between right and mere legality. He believes that wrongdoing should be punished with appropriate degrees of severity; deep in his understanding lies a feeling that eye for eye and tooth for tooth is not without merit, and that the punishment should fit the crime.
George MacDonald Fraser
