Democracy Quotes

In Defense of Democracy and Freedom

SJS @GreenPolicy360:

Today, July 19, 2024, marks the initiation of another of our website, global network pages, a democracy page of Green Quotes that we've been collecting over the years.

The time is ripe and we'll be posting 'democracy in the spotlight' archival lines for modern times, a collection of thoughts of freedom and liberty, rights and democracy, moments and clips, memes and graphics, pics and inspirations.

From the Green360 network we have often have spoken of the "3-Ds, discussion, debate and decision-making". We have spotlighted the importance of an open democratic decision-making process. We have expressed our belief in a human rights agenda, constitutional rights, civil rights.

On this Democracy Quotes page we'll be including many threads from democratic institutions and look to pull together, over time, a tapestry of ideas across communities that inspire democratic decision-making.

We believe in standing up for democratic values and hope our readers, visitors, educators and defenders of democracy, of all colors and stripes, find these quotations worthy of considering and sharing.

Democracy requires work. A working democracy is worth the work.

Mapping Freedom - Democracy Status

• https://freedomhouse.org/explore-the-map?type=fiw&year=2024

"A Republic, if you can keep it." -- Benjamin Franklin

The spirit of "Democracy Quotes" recalls Benjamin Franklin responding to a question in 1787 about the newly announced birth of the United States as he left Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention:

"We have "a Republic, if you can keep it."

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/12/18/republic-if-you-can-keep-it-did-ben-franklin-really-say-impeachment-days-favorite-quote/

Democracy Quotes, an Ongoing Collaborative Enterprise

Democracy quotations presented here are arranged alphabetically by author/poster/speaker

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A Working Democracy, a 'Living Democracy'

GreenPolicy360, for decades supporting and advocating for Democracy in action

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“I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future, all merited a second term. But nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition. So I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation." -- U.S. President Joseph R. Biden speaking from the White House, July 24, 2024

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Disinformation - Online - Dangerous

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Fact Checking, Facts Count

“When you don’t have facts, you can’t have truth... When you don’t have truth, you can’t have trust. When you can’t have a shared reality, you can’t have democracy. You can’t have any kind of meaningful interaction to solve the existential problems we face.” -- Maria Ressa

“When social media platforms amplify lies & recommend liars, facts are drowned in a flood of falsehoods & doubt, eroding democracy in a tide of truth decay. If facts lose in every country around the world—and that is what’s at stake—we will lose truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without these, any shared human endeavor is impossible, & that includes democracy." -- Maria Ressa, Nobel Peace Prize

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"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” –- Abraham Lincoln

-- J. Michael Luttig

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"We need to verify claims and think about them critically, but we can’t let people destroy truth by calling everything they don’t like “fake news.” Verify, then trust. To use our power as a democracy, we all must participate." -- Barb McQuade, @BarbMcQuade

“Let skepticism be your companion, not your captor.” -- Maryland Governor Wes Moore

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Author of Democracy Awakening

• https://greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Democracy_Challenged,_Democracy_Awakening.png
• https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717588/democracy-awakening-by-heather-cox-richardson/

"Once again, we are at a time of testing. How it comes out rests, as it always has, in our hands." -- Heather Cox Richardson, "Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America"

"In 1959, veteran Robert Biggs wrote to Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had led the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, asking the president to make “direct statements” that would give people the confidence to “back him completely.” Americans needed “more of the attitude of a commanding officer who knows the goal and the mission and states, without evasion, the way it is to be done.”

"Eisenhower answered that “in a democracy debate is the breath of life. This is to me what Lincoln meant by government ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people.’”

“[D]ictatorial systems make one contribution to their people which leads them to tend to support such systems — freedom from the necessity of informing themselves and making up their own minds concerning…tremendous complex and difficult questions,” Eisenhower wrote. “But while this responsibility is a taxing one to a free people it is their great strength as well—from millions of individual free minds come new ideas, new adjustments to emerging problems, and tremendous vigor, vitality and progress... . While complete success will always elude us, still it is a quest which is vital to self-government and to our way of life as free men.” -- Heather Cox Richardson, Historian & Contemporary Writer, Via "Letters from an American", July 18, 2024

[Ed: "(I)t is a quest which is vital to self-government and to our way of life as free men” ... and free women, free peoples around the world, future generations, families and our inter-generational legacy. The above Professor Robinson quote of General Eisenhower about democratic responsibilities of 'free people' carries a special relevance to me. My father was a German Republican from Kansas and lieutenant pilot of B-17s and B-29s in the 1940s fighting "against Fascism and Nazism" (as he explained to me in the 1960s]. The bravery of Eisenhower in defense of democracy was a message of the United States, my father said of Eisenhower a man who also was from the heart of the country. They saw their mission to protect and preserve democracy. My father's son sees the mission continuing...]

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