A billion here and a billion there, and soon you're talking about real money.

A billion here and a billion there, and soon you're talking about real money.

Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical read more

Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical fears and hopes.

What the public does is not to express its opinions but to align itself for or against a proposal. If read more

What the public does is not to express its opinions but to align itself for or against a proposal. If that theory is accepted, we must abandon the notion that democratic government can be the direct expression of the will of the people. We must abandon the notion that the people govern. Instead we must adopt the theory that, by their occasional mobilizations as a majority, people support or oppose the individuals who actually govern. We must say that the popular will does not direct continuously but that it intervenes occasionally.

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of congress; but I repeat myself.

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of congress; but I repeat myself.

Every device employed to bolster individual freedom must have as its chief purpose the impairment of the absoluteness of power. read more

Every device employed to bolster individual freedom must have as its chief purpose the impairment of the absoluteness of power. The indications are that such an impairment is brought about not by strengthening the individual and pitting him against the possessors of power, but by distributing and diversifying power and pitting one category or unit of power against the other. Where power is one, the defeated individual, however strong and resourceful, can have no refuge and no recourse.

El Salvador is a democracy so it's not surprising that there are many voices to be heard here. Yet in read more

El Salvador is a democracy so it's not surprising that there are many voices to be heard here. Yet in my conversations with Salvadorans... I have heard a single voice.

Of government, at least in democratic states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wholesale, and read more

Of government, at least in democratic states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wholesale, and as a matter of solemn duty, in the performance of acts which all self-respecting individuals refrain from as a matter of common decency.

CAPITAL, n. The seat of misgovernment. That which provides the fire, the pot, the dinner, the table and the knife read more

CAPITAL, n. The seat of misgovernment. That which provides the fire, the pot, the dinner, the table and the knife and fork for the anarchist; the part of the repast that himself supplies is the disgrace before meat.

Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the
systematic organization of hatreds.

Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the
systematic organization of hatreds.