Alas, De Toqueville never actually said that about the bribe. Thoroughly de-authenticated long ago. Which doesn’t make it any less true!
I’m starting to think that Greece may be invoking a democratic “safety device” against an autocratic and undemocratic European government.
To start with, the EU government has behaved in an irrational manner, with idealistic philosophical motives not underpinned with reason. Leftists do this far too often in all sorts of ways.
In many ways, Greece was like a reasonably happy, if alcoholic, street bum. He would ask others for spare change, or work as a day laborer, use it to buy cheap liquor, dumpster dive to eat and sleep under a bush.
Enter the leftist, convinced beyond argument that the bum’s *real* problem is that he is not paid enough money to afford nice clothes, an apartment to live in, and all else his heart desires. So they give him “other people’s money”.
This does not make the bum any happier. He shuns living indoors, he uses the extra money to buy liquor for his bum friends, and he neither bathes nor washes his clothes so they soon look like bum clothes.
“But you promised to turn your life around!”, says the confused and unhappy leftist. “All that money I gave you was a loan, and I expect you to repay it!”
The leftist has no way out of this conundrum, and they will never, ever admit that they were wrong. So they try to change the subject with some equally unrealistic, idealistic scheme about something else.
Greece, for its part, is likely so disgusted with the leftist fool that it intends to leave the free apartment and go back to happily sleeping under a bush.