It is a commonplace that the history of civilisation is largely the history of weapons. In particular, the connection between the discovery of gunpowder and the overthrow of feudalism by the bourgeoisie has been pointed out over and over again. And though I have no doubt exceptions can be brought forward, I think the following rule would be found to be generally true that ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance. Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon --so long as there is no answer to it-- gives claws to the weak.
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The President, in talking about freedom and democracy, is sparking a wave of very positive democratic sentiment that might help us override both Islamic fundamentalism that has formed in that region, and also some of the hatred for our policies of invading Iraq.
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-and that 90 percent of the arrangements for an attack on the United States were complete. The color-coded warning system is not raised. The Homeland Security secretary, Tom Ridge, does not attend the announcement. Number eight. July 6, 2004. Democratic p
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The reason I became a candidate is because nobody was delivering the message of what the Democratic party was about. Nobody was out there delivering the message with any fire.
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This is the greatest honour I have ever received in my life. Peace has always been my greatest concern. Yet in my childhood I learned to love it. My mother - an exceptional, brilliant woman - used to speak to me about it when I was still a child, because in those years there were also a lot of wars. Moreover, I am Catalan. Catalonia had the first democratic Parliament much before than England. And it was in my country where there was a beginning of united nations. At that time - the eleventh Century - they met in Toluges - today in France - to speak about peace, because the Catalonian people of that time were already against war. That is why, the United Nations, which work only for the ideal of peace, are in my hearth, because everything relating to peace goes directly there. I have not played the cello in front of an audience since long years but I think I must do it this time. I am going to play a melody from the Catalonian folklore: The singing of the Birds. Birds, when in the sky, go singing: Peace, peace, peace. And this is a melody that Bach, Beethoven and all great people would have admired and loved. And, in addition, it springs up from the soul of my country: Catalonia.
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It is the American vice, the democratic disease which expresses its tyranny by reducing everything unique to the level of the herd.
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This visit underscores the United States' support for timely democratic elections in Haiti in January and solidarity with Haiti's continuing process of political transition and economic reform.
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Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.
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American foreign policy must be more than the management of crisis. It must have a great and guiding goal: to turn this time of American influence into generations of democratic peace.
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If American politics does not look to you like a joke, a tragic dance; if you have enough blindness left in you, on any plea, on any excuse, to vote for the Democratic Party or the Republican Party (for at present machine and party are one), or for any candidate who does not stand for a new era, -- then you yourself pass into the slide of the magic-lantern; you are an exhibit, a quaint product, a curiosity of the American soil. You are part of the problem.
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Predatory capitalism created a complex industrial system and an advanced technology; it permitted a considerable extension of democratic practice and fostered certain liberal values, but within limits that are now being pressed and must be overcome. It is not a fit system for the mid-twentieth century.
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At that time, the army leadership said the implementation of this agreement would allow everyone, including the IRA, to take its political objectives forward by peaceful and democratic means.
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When I examined my political faith I found that my strongest belief was in democracy according to my own definition. Democracythe essential thing as distinguished from this or that democratic governmentwas primarily an attitude of mind, a spiritual testament, and not an economic structure or a political machine. The testament involved certain basic beliefsthat the personality was sacrosanct, which was the meaning of liberty; that policy should be settled by free discussion; that normally a minority should be ready to yield to a majority, which in turn should respect a minoritys sacred things. It seemed to me that democracy had been in the past too narrowly defined and had been identified illogically with some particular economic or political system such as laissez-faire or British parliamentarism. I could imagine a democracy which economically was largely socialist and which had not our constitutional pattern.
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The family must be democratized in that sense in which each individual within its bond shall be sustained in seeking and in maintaining the conditions of personality. No one human being to live solely for other's service..., but all to seek the utmost perfection of individual life as a contribution to the common life; this is the democratic ideal. There seems to be no other inherited institution in which this spiritual essence of democracy can be so clearly and so well realized as it may be and today often is in the private monogamic family.
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When public men indulge themselves in abuse, when they deny others a fair trial, when they resort to innuendo and insinuation, to libel, scandal, and suspicion, then our democratic society is outraged, and democracy is baffled. It has no apparatus to deal with the boor, the liar, the lout, and the antidemocrat in general.
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The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through
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Democratic nations must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend
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The class distinctions proper to a democratic society are not those of rank or money, still less, as is apt to happen when these are abandoned, of race, but of age.
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You see few people here in America who really care very much about living a Christian life in a democratic world.
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I am convinced that, in view of the political and technological evolution of humanity, a major power will by necessity be democratic,
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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.
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America now is stumbling through the darkness of hatred and divisiveness. Our values, our principles, and our determination to succeed as a free and democratic people will give us a torch to light the way. And we will survive and become the strongernot only because of a patriotism that stands for love of country, but a patriotism that stands for love of people.
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The accords were fig leaves of democratic procedure to hide the nakedness of Stalinist dictatorship.
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I was resolved to sustain and preserve in my college the bite of the mind, the chance to stand face to face with truth, the good life lived in a small, various, highly articulate and democratic society.
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I absolutely share the feelings of President Clinton that there can be no economic development aid to a regime which is not democratic,
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The Democratic caucus is rich in diversity. Democratic women have excelled in Congress leading our efforts on the Rules, Intelligence, Small Business, House Administration committees and the Steering and Policy committee, and Democratic women play a prominent role in every committee.
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Also in 2004, there was a substantial aversion of the Democratic leaders to demonstrate - maybe failure is a better word than aversion - to demonstrate a compatibility with the deeply religious people in this country. I think that absence hurt a lot.
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The aim of education is to enable individuals to continue their education ... (and) the object and reward of learning is continued capacity for growth. Now this idea cannot be applied to all the members of a society except where intercourse of man with man is mutual, and except where there is adequate provision for the reconstruction of social habits and institutions by means of wide stimulation arising from equitably distributed interests. And this means a democratic society.
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If what you are claiming is true, I would have shouted it from the rooftops. I would have gone to the authorities, the FBI, the police, the Democratic (Party) anybody that would listen. I wouldn't depend on one guy with the Department of Transportation.
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The secretary-general sees the fund as an innovative and flexible mechanism for advancing the UN democracy agenda. The fund will support projects aimed at consolidating and strengthening democratic institutions and processes, such as the drafting of constitutions and the development of pluralistic media.
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