A Quote by Tariq Ali

Western enthusiasm for democracy stops when those opposed to its policies are elected to office.

Tariq Ali

Quote Topics

Democracy Elected Enthusiasm Office Opposed Policies Stops Those Western

Quote Author

Tariq Ali
Pakistani - Historian
Born: October 21, 1943

I have ever been opposed to banks, - opposed to internal improvements by the general government, - opposed to distribution of public lands among the states, - opposed to taking the power from the hands of the people, - opposed to special monopolies, - opposed to a protective tariff, - opposed to a latitudinal construction of the constitution, - opposed to slavery agitation and disunion. This is my democracy. Point to a single act of my public career not in keeping with these principles.

Sam Houston

I was first elected to public office when the Reagan revolution was in full swing. Maximizing freedom guided the policies of that era, with tremendous success.

Jon Kyl

In the US, there is basically one party - the business party. It has two factions, called Democrats and Republicans, which are somewhat different but carry out variations on the same policies. By and large, I am opposed to those policies. As is most of the population.

Noam Chomsky

In a democracy, someone who fails to get elected to office can always console himself with the thought that there was something not quite fair about it.

Thucydides

In a democracy the responsibility for the Government's economic policies, which so affect the economy, normally rests with the elected representative of the people: in our case, with the President and the Congress. If these two follow economic policies inimical to the general welfare, they are accountable to the people for their actions on election day. With Federal Reserve independence, however, a body of men exist who control one of the most powerful levers moving the economy and who are responsible to no one.

Wright Patman

There is a tendency of the American people to give those who are elected an opportunity to carry out their policies and programs.

John Dingell

In a democracy, if a government creates bad policies, it can be voted out of office. Competition in the private sector, however, can easily work to encourage phishing rather than stifle it.

Richard Thaler

The perception of the West as mostly a "knight of democracy" has been replaced with the disappointed belief that pragmatism, often cynical and selfish, lies at the core of Western policies. For many Russians it was a grave disillusion, a crushing of ideals.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

What free-market economists are not telling us is that the politics they want to get rid of are none other than those of democracy itself. When they say we need to insulate economic policies from politics, they are in effect advocating the castration of democracy.

Ha-Joon Chang

The major western democracies are moving towards corporatism. Democracy has become a business plan, with a bottom line for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope. The main parliamentary parties are now devoted to the same economic policies - socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor - and the same foreign policy of servility to endless war. This is not democracy. It is to politics what McDonalds is to food.

John Pilger

The personal qualities necessary for attaining office are practically the opposite of those demanded by the office itself. The trouble with the damn system is that it selects for the skills needed to get elected, and nothing else. A test that you can only pass by cheating can't possibly select honest people.

James P. Hogan

According to the people who dearly would love to throw him out of office, Barack Obama was elected to be 'above politics.' He wasn't elected to be president, after all. He was elected as an avatar of American tolerance. His attempts to get himself reelected imply a certain, well, ingratitude.

Charlie Pierce

I don't think I could ever reach the giddy heights of the inspired comedy and tragedy that's happening now in Washington. I mean, it's mesmerizing to watch but it's also scary. For me, the scariest thing about it is all those people who were so absolutely opposed to Donald Trump before he got elected, and then have just drifted away and kept quiet. It goes back to: We've always got to be vigilant about democracy because it can go wrong.

Armando Iannucci

All things being equal, if we could simulate the same scenario, he has a lot more difficult task. He's elected to swim six individual events, as opposed to what I elected to do, which was four.

Mark Spitz

We have to fundamentally change the way people are elected to political office in this country, as well as the types of people that are going into political office. It's dysfunctional because people on each side are only talking to themselves - they're not talking to each other and that is a function of how they get elected.