Posted on 08/02/2015 4:43:13 AM PDT by Sontagged
This past week was Alexis de Tocqueville’s 210th birthday. This brilliant Frenchman’s insight into our national character still rings true nearly two centuries after he wrote his famous book “Democracy in America.”
Ever insightful and prophetic, Tocqueville understood the dangers of big government. He feared that over time big government would strangle the free will of citizens, diminishing our capacity to think and act for ourselves and reducing us to “a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd.”
But he offered solutions! "He hoped that those having read his prescient book would come to understand... democracy require(s) great attention and careful management. Specifically, he hoped, we would strive ‘to preserve for the individual the little independence, force, and originality’ that remains to him. In other words, when looking at any given policy, our lawmakers might look not at the benefits for their home district, or vainly calculate attention from the next media hit, but rather look at what any given policy proposal’s long-term effect will be on securing freedom and rights. Making individuals stronger, more independent, more able to resist the tyranny of the majority and of a constantly growing administrative state is the goal."
Enjoy this wonderful article about Tocqueville:
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/born-225-years-ago-tocqueville-predicted-the-tyranny-of-the-majority-in-our-modern-world/
Her delight in Tocqueville's solutions should be our delight.
(Though didn't quite follow the cited author's argument about Tocqueville equating the rise of abstract art to democracy. Abstract art came about with the development of photography; while some cubists and/or modernists, like Kandinsky, saw abstraction as a manner of depicting the spiritual realm. And notwithstanding the fact Hitler called abstract art "degenerate".)
Some quotes:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/465.Alexis_de_Tocqueville
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville
“America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville
“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville
“Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville
“I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Tocqueville: Democracy in America
“everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
“There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville
“It is above all in the present democratic age that the true friends of liberty and human grandeur must remain constantly vigilant and ready to prevent the social power from lightly sacrificing the particular rights of a few individuals to the general execution of its designs. In such times there is no citizen so obscure that it is not very dangerous to allow him to be oppressed, and there are no individual rights so unimportant that they can be sacrificed to arbitrariness with impunity.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville
“Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
“When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
“I have always thought it rather interesting to follow the involuntary movements of fear in clever people. Fools coarsely display their cowardice in all its nakedness, but the others are able to cover it with a veil so delicate, so daintily woven with small plausible lies, that there is some pleasure to be found in contemplating this ingenious work of the human intelligence.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville
“We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville
If you need an English translation, those who have been there have high regard for Arthur Goldhammer’s version. I don’t think it’s in paperback, or in most public libraries.
Worth seeking.
Leftism controls Big Propaganda Media, Big Education & Big Entertainment...and that makes it a daunting challenge to restore America and our Constitution.
Sounds like it is worth seeking, thx
A great read but depressing. So much has come to pass. Is the tipping point behind us now?
I wonder if one day we will also hold Alistair Cooke and Dinesh D'Souza in high regard; I already do.
After reading his quotes for years I finally read the whole book. It is worth the effort. He undertook the study to determine why the American revolution seemed to work and the French did not. His conclusion was that the French adopted the bureaucratic central government from the monarchy intact and our government grew from the small town focus of self government. Our central government was weak by design and our strength was in this dispersed power.
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville
And THAT my FRiends, is how Ubama has gotten away with everything he has done.
People will sell you their soul if they get something for Free.
“People will sell their soul if they get something for free.”
They will also endure any level of horror or butchery imaginable so long as they get a one in one hundred million voice in deciding who gets to implement it.
Voting = complicity.
And THAT my FRiends, is how Ubama has gotten away with everything he has done.
People will sell you their soul if they get something for Free.
FACT.
Great summation. Some people will do just that. I hope that they, the greedy and short-sighted, are not the majority.
bttt
Now how the dickens could the fundamentally illiterate Palin possibly know that?
/s
>>Is the tipping point behind us now?<<
The tipping point was October, 2008. McCain threw the election and the rest has been 90 MPH down the mountain with no brakes.
We’ve had 3 of our 4 boxes destroyed. The regime operates outside the law and forces us to accept the “law of the land”. Time to open - and use - the last remaining box.
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