Quotes of the day 22nd January 2015

Some more quotes on democracy, starting with the response given by a great heroine of the movement for democracy to those who suggested that Democracy only works in the West:


“If ideas and beliefs are to be denied validity outside the geographical and cultural bounds of their origin, Buddhism would be confined to north India, Christianity to a narrow tract in the Middle East and Islam to Arabia.”
 
( Aung San Suu Kyi, Freedom from Fear )


“May it please your Majesty I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me whose servant I am here.”
  
( William Lenthall, Speaker of the House of Commons, to King Charles I who had come to parliament in an unsuccessful attempt to arrest several MPs)


“Democracy comes into grave danger when truth is no longer spoken to power.”
( Paul Bamikole )

Comments

Jim said…
Paul Barnikole
“Democracy comes into grave danger when truth is no longer spoken to power.”

I wonder if you see and understand this quote in the same way I do.

To me its a warning to politicans against spin, and being "economical with the acutalite" to the electorate.

think about it, democracy. DEMOS KRATOS - PEOPLE POWER

It is the people who have the power, and when politicians practice to deceive then this is truely a grave danger to a democracy
5:26 pm
Jim said…
I mean labour took it to extremes, but then to talk about deficits in terms of GDP is tripe and always was.


Yes the nation is in a better position to pay the politicans debts for them, perhaps thats the case, but its not a measure of the deficit and never has been.

its like saying "that £1000 on the credit card is not so bad pet, we just got our annual pay rise, so we can keep borrowing on it"
7:27 pm
Jim said…
well to be honest its more like saying,

" you know that £100,000 we have on the credit card bill, the one we are adding £500 to each month, well its ok we are not adding as much any more because we just got a pay rise so are in a better position to pay it off"
7:34 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
There are times when I think that telling the public the full truth about how bad a hole the economy is in and what will be necessary to fix it may be electoral suicide.

There are some voters who don't want to hear such truths and will punish those who tells them - as we may be about to see in Greece.

(Though admittedly those who vote for the left-wing "anti-austerity" party which is apparently heading for victory in Greece do have the excuse that the established parties did lie to them, mismanage the economy and tolerated an unsustainable level of corruption for years. I cannot entirely blame them if they wish to give the new guys a try, even though I think that the established parties are mostly telling the truth now.)

There was a depressing period during the run-up to the 2010 election in Britain when attempts by the treasury teams of the main political parties to manage expectations and explain how they hoped to get the deficit down appeared to invariably be followed by a drop in the polls for Labour on the occasions when Alistair Darling said something honest (unlike certain of his colleagues he did sometimes do so) and a drop in the polls for the Conservatives when George Osborne described any of the unpalatable measures which he was proposing to cut the deficit.

You are absolutely right to say that speaking truth to power includes telling the electorate - and if a country is to survive and prosper the electors as a whole have to be as willing to listen to unpalatable truths as used to be the necessary for a King who wished to be a good ruler.

We have to hope that enough electors realise this.
8:53 am
Jim said…
hypothetical question.

I am driving a train, all the controls fail, just before they did i heard on my radio that the bridge in 40 miles is out. I cant stop the train in the usual manner,

should i tell the passengers?

to me the answer is yes, ok we cant stop it in the normal manner, and we certainly cant stop it with everyone sitting comfortably and being all happy and smiley. But, perhaps there is a way to stop it I never thought of, and well, one or two of the passengers might think of a way
12:41 pm
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