Jail is just another micro-society. It just happens that here, the problems are far more out in the open, we don't live with the facades of lies that democracy or capitalism creates for us.
People coming out of jail need a path back into society: access to a job, a place to live, supportive services. We've seen what happens without it: they commit more crimes and return to jail, which is worse for everyone.
I call government that works the best for people open society, which is basically just another more general term for a democracy that is - you call it maybe a liberal democracy. It's not only majority rule but also respect for minorities and minority opinions and the rule of law. So it's really a sort of institutional democracy.
Progress can't happen just from trans people being out in the open. Society also has to truly accept transgender individuals. If society is capable of treating us equally, then we can and will live authentically.
There were free elections in Bulgaria, where the opposition has just won. In a democracy, the government is a reflection of society because people are elected. Sometimes the type of person from the old machine, who is everything but an appealing figure, happens to win an election. But democracy applies to everyone, not just the noble and the clever.
Trade creates jobs and lifts people out of poverty. And when that happens, societies stabilize and grow. And there is nothing like a stable society to fight terrorism and strengthen democracy, freedom and rule of law.
the novel is inherently a political instrument, regardless of its subject. It invites you - more than invites you, induces you - to live inside another person's skin. It creates empathy. And that's the antidote to bigotry. The novel doesn't just tell you about another life, which is what a newspaper would do. It makes you live another life, inhabit another perspective. And that's very important.
Silicon Valley tends to believe in the individual who creates a small group and does something big. Democracy is always frustrating, but it creates a society that, for example, allows us to invest in each other's kids, to have public education, to have both a greater society and individual freedom for creating businesses.
I think that capitalism has just gone too far. And it is actually not limited to the United States. The excesses of capitalism is making us suffer all over the world right now.
No one has done a study on this, as far as I can tell, but I think Facebook might be the first place where a large number of people have come out. We didn't create that - society was generally ready for that. I think this is just part of the general trend that we talked about, about society being more open, and I think that's good.
Democracy is not just voting every 5 years and watching 'Big Brother' in between and wondering why nothing happens. Democracy is what we do and say where we live and work
People think what's in the US today is capitalism. It's not even close to capitalism. Capitalism doesn't have a central bank, capitalism doesn't have taxes, it doesn't have regulations; capitalism is just voluntary transactions. What they have in the US today I call crapitalism. But it's sad that so many people are confused and they think, 'Oh that's free markets in the US', when it's one of the least free market countries on earth.
All the more reason we need to stand up for our democracy now. If we're going to solve the crises that are barreling down on us, we need democracy, and our democracy needs to start with an open and inclusive debate. That doesn't mean 20 candidates. There are four candidates who are on the ballot for just about every voter in America.
Good and just society is neither the thesis of capitalism nor the antithesis of communism, but a socially conscious democracy which reconciles the truths of individualism and collectivism.
India's future lies in being an open society, an open polity, a functioning democracy respecting all fundamental human freedoms, accepting the rule of law and, at the same time, to emerge as a successful, internationally competitive market economy.
We are members of one another. What binds us together is far greater than what separates us... because of our interconnectivity, what happens to the least of us happens to all of us. Whatever you do for the least of us, you do for all of us.
Under capitalism, we can't have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control.