Thursday, December 22, 2011

The Problem with Democracy

It's why we need to scrupulously limit government to the protection of non-contradictory individual rights.

"If it be admitted that a man, possessing absolute power, may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should a majority not be liable to the same reproach? Men are not apt to change their character by agglomeration; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with the consciousness of their strength. And for these reasons I can never willingly invest any number of my fellow creatures with that unlimited authority which I should refuse to any one of them."

-- Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French historian


HT Liberty Quotes