Quotes / Democracy Is Bad

Comic Books

You want to know about voting. I'm here to tell you about voting.

Imagine you're locked in a huge underground nightclub filled with sinners, whores, freaks and unnameable things that rape pitbulls for fun. And you ain't allowed out until you all vote on what you're going to do tonight.

You like to put your feet up and watch Republican Party Reservation. They like to have sex with normal people using knives, guns, and brand new sexual organs you did not even know existed.

So you vote for television, and everyone else, as far as your eye can see, votes to fuck you with switchblades.

That's voting. You're welcome.

— Spider Jerusalem, Transmetropolitan

"Democracy. Let's look at it another way. We had an election. Only 57 percent of electors even bothered to vote. Over half of them voted for candidates who did not get elected — so we're down to 28 percent. Following me? The ruling party came in with a third of what was left — that's 9 percent, give or take. They're kept in power by an assortment of fringe parties and independents — throw them a few crumbs and they'll do what they're told, so they don't count. So when you come down to it, only one citizen in ten actually wants the government they elected. And most of them don't even know what they voted for. That's the way it is. That's the way it's always been, right down through the ages. Democracy? Power to the people? Don't kid yourselves."

— Judge Dredd

"Democracy is a cancer eating at the heart of our society. Any action we have to take to stamp it out — however regrettable — is justified."

— Judge Dredd

Fan Fiction

"And so we are all equally dissatisfied. Democracy at its finest."

— Marluxia, in Ch. 70 of The Renegades

[M]ost people still thought in the liberalistic terms of democracy, rule of law, and individualism. Meanwhile, over here in the real world, a network of computers and a cabal of crotchety monarchist cyborgs were in complete control of most aspects of government and culture. Democracy was a 20th century fad.

— Shinji Ikari And The Methods Of Bioterrorism

Literature

What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.

— Going Postal

The trouble is, the Mayor has to make a lot of decisions that no one likes. Then no one will want him to be Mayor anymore, and so we'd either keep changing Mayors or we'd choose Mayors who govern very badly but never offend anybody.

— The Worthing Saga, Orson Scott Card,

"I suspect that democracy is not viable in a technologically advanced society. Free people wield too much ability to destroy."

—Daniel Suarez, Daemon

"What I want to fix your attention on is the vast, overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence—moral, cultural, social, or intellectual. And is it not pretty how "democracy" (in the incantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient Dictatorships, and by the same methods? You remember how one of the Greek Dictators (they called them "tyrants" then) sent an envoy to another Dictator to ask his advice about the principles of government. The second Dictator led the envoy into a field of corn, and there he snicked off with his cane the top of any stalk that rose an inch or so above the general level. The moral was plain. Allow no preeminence among your subjects. Let no man live who is wiser, or better, or more famous, or even handsomer than the mass. Cut them all down to a level; all slaves, all ciphers, all nobodies. All equals. Thus tyrants could practise, in a sense, "democracy". But now "democracy" can do the same work without any other tyranny than her own. No one need now go through the field with a cane. The little stalks will now of themselves bite the tops off the big ones. The big ones are beginning to bite their own in their desire to Be Like Stalks.

—Screwtape, Screwtape Proposes a Toast

"Hitherto I have seen democracy as the corner stone of my new world. But today and with the world, I see myself drifting logically and inevitably toward oligarchy."

—Matthew Downs, Dark Princess (1929)

Young Joe: What is democracy?
Father: Well, it's never bright clear on myself. Like any other kind of government, it's got something to do with young men killing each other, I believe.

— Johnny Got His Gun

"I assure you from a God’s Olympian perch that government is a shared myth. When the myth dies, the government dies."

—Leto Atreides II, God-Emperor of Dune

"Giving power to the inferior components of a nation could only produce inferior results. Those mediocre and substandard minds-uneducated, self-centred, avaricious, prejudiced, chauvinistically patriotic—would ultimately bring about the downfall of their society."

— Alizome Tor Fel-A, in Star Trek: Typhon Pact — Rough Beasts of Empire

"Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is about eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried. Democracy's worst fault is that its leaders are likely to reflect the faults and virtues of their constituents - at a depressingly low level."

— Stranger in a Strange Land

It is something lamentable to see dissolution slowly, but surely, possessing a government so splendid. The councils of China are not clogged by that palladium of British stupidity, a jury. (...) In other words China is not afflicted with a 'constitution'.

— The China magazine, 1868

Live-Action TV

"People" like Coldplay and voting for the Nazis. You can't trust "people".

— Super Hans, Peep Show

"Excuse me, can you tell us the way out of here? [everyone points in a completely different and opposite direction] Yes, well... that's democracy for you."

— The Fifth Doctor, Doctor Who, "Castrovalva"

Jack: Look, we — we don't need politicians, we've all got iPhones and computers, right? So any decision that has to be made, any policy, we just put it online. Let the people vote — thumbs up, thumbs down, the majority wins. That's a democracy. That's a — that's an actual democracy.
Jamie: So is YouTube. And I don't know if you've seen it, but the most popular video is a dog farting the theme song from Happy Days.

— Black Mirror, "The Waldo Moment"

Music

Political scientists get the same one vote
As some Arkansas inbred

—NOFX, "Idiots Are Taking Over"

Raise your glass to the hard working people
Let's drink to the uncounted heads
Let's think of the wavering millions
Who need leaders but get gamblers instead
Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter
His empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows
And a parade of the gray suited grafters
A choice of cancer or polio.

— The Rolling Stones, "Salt of the Earth"

You want to see the profits of democracy? Then go and see 'em
Across the street a bunch of freaks are playing Colosseum
Honestly? Was the world you wanted what you got to see?
When you were dropping crosses into boxes behind polling screens?
Was dropping bombs your chosen option? Did you vote for screams?
Was the apocalypse your politician's policy?
Did you put stock in their prepostering and prophecy?
A shining future built on squabble-free equality?
That every day you'd get your plate of steak and collard greens?
The human race was capable of anything but wanton greed?
But now that world is gone and what lived on belongs to me
That freedom you so wanted's now the cost of living comfortably

— The Stupendium, "The House Always Wins"

Theatre

They may sit here for years and years in Philadelphia
These indecisive grenadiers of Philadelphia
They can't agree on what is right and wrong
Or what is good or bad; I'm convinced
The only purpose this Congress ever had
Was to gather here specifically
To DRIVE JOHN ADAMS MAD!!

— John Adams, 1776

Video Games

Democracy only works when you agree with it. Then it's best to favor a totalitarian state!

—Dr. Mary Phillips, I Say, You Say (GTA Radio)

Democracy is the first cousin of anarchy.

— Chairman Shen-Ji Yang of the Human Hive, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

If you want to see the fate of democracies, look out the windows.

— Robert House, Fallout: New Vegas

They have AMAZING technology. You would not BELIEVE the stuff they can do. They could be flying around here in stylized mechanoids in a beautiful zero-g city if they wanted to, but the whole planet is paralyzed by indecision and RED TAPE. They can't get a damn thing done to save their LIVES. Everyone's an administrator. I haven't met ONE scientist or artist in six months. Look around you. Unimaginative middle-management types are EVERYWHERE. I wanna blow my BRAINS out. And no one's IN CHARGE around here. They don't even have a commander-in-CHIEF for their military. No one wants to be accountable, so they vote on everything. And if something bad happens, it's not any individual's fault. It's EVERYONE's fault. I give 'em SIX MONTHS before they self-destruct. That's why I GOTTA get outta this place."

—a Cordican ambassador, describing Democratus, Anachronox

Kotal Kahn: All democracies are doomed to fail.

Cassie Cage: So says the imperialist.

— Mortal Kombat 11

Web Original

"The problem: one who has freedom is free to take away another's freedom, and, because of man's nature, is inclined to."

—Urban Dictionary

This protection racket appears to be taxation in all but name. Sigma Iota II has built a system of government based on organised crime, and it looks a lot like representative democracy.

—Darren Mooney on Star Trek: The Original Series ("A Piece of the Action")

On the ballot paper in my region there are no less than five extremist Right-wing parties. Six if you include the Conservatives. Apart from that there are two centrist neoliberal parties: Labour and the Liberal Democrats. I know a fair few very nice, likeable and principled Lib Dems (online and in real life), but as a national political force the party is part of a coalition with the Tories and, as such, constitutes a de facto Right-wing party. So that's seven Right-wing parties...That's democracy for you.

—Jack Graham

Web Video

Voter: Hmm, I thought it would cost me money. That's why I voted for the world's end.
Jord: It's 20-50¢ cents a day if they don't take away the rebate! Why do you think that's gonna make an impact on your quality of your life?!
Voter: 'Cause I'm an idiot, and my vote counts!

—Friendlyjordies, "The Dumbest Decision Ever Made"

It really is kind of amazing how corrupt this Space Democracy is. It's quite shocking how they can't put something so big to good use. I guess size really doesn't matter.

—RedLetterMedia on Attack of the Clones

Of all my master schemes to take over the world—the thousands I killed with my army of robotic suicide squirrels, the millions I spent trying to kill you all with Push n' Eat macaroni in a tube, my even-as-of-yet uncompleted orbital death ray—and all I had to do was run for president?! NYAHAHAHAHAH!! I wasn't really even taking all this all that seriously! I even used my real name! You voted for a guy named Dr. Insano!

— Noah "The Spoony One" Antwiler as Dr. Insano

Mr. Yagami: Anytime Matsuda says over three words we slap him, all in favor?
Matsuda: Wait, that's not fair! [Slap]

—Death Note Abridged (Dogface701)

Western Animation

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Democracy simply doesn't work.

—Kent Brockman, The Simpsons, after a Congress bill to evacuate the town from impending doom was defeated because some rando attached a pornography rider to it

Real Life

"First establish a democracy in your own household."

—Lycurgus, when asked by someone to establish a democracy in Sparta (recorded in Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus)

"He who builds upon the people, builds upon mud."

— Niccolò Machiavelli ^note Although he was just quoting this as an aphorism in order to refute it.

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never."

— John Adams

"From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."

— James Madison, Federalist Paper #10

"It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity."

— Alexander Hamilton

If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know, it is that despotism can be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic. A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep.

—G. K. Chesterton

"Democracy is more vindictive than Cabinets. The wars of peoples will be more terrible than those of kings."

— Winston Churchill, speech in the House of Commons, 1901

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

— Attributed to Winston Churchill

"Envy is the basis of democracy."

— Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness, VI, 1930

"I see little hope for democracy as an effective form of government, but I admire the poetry of how it makes its victims complicit in their own destruction."

— Eliezer Yudkowsky

"As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

— H. L. Mencken

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

— also H. L. Mencken

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance."

— also H. L. Mencken

"I do not admire 'the people,' as such. No one really does. Their folk wisdom is usually false, their instincts predatory. Even their sense of survival — so highly developed in the individual — goes berserk in the mass. A crowd is a fool."

— Gore Vidal, Playboy 1969

"Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy. You in America will see that someday."

— Benito Mussolini

"Democracy is necessarily despotism, as it establishes an executive power contrary to the general will; all being able to decide against one whose opinion may differ, the will of all is therefore not that of all: which is contradictory and opposite to liberty."

— Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace, II, 1795

"Democracy is nothing but the Tyranny of Majorities, the most abominable tyranny of all, for it is not based on the authority of a religion, not upon the nobility of a race, not on the merits of talents and of riches. It merely rests upon numbers and hides behind the name of the people."

— Pierre J. Proudhon, founder of Anarchism

"One-man-one-vote combined with 'free entry' into government—democracy–-implies that every person and his personal property comes within reach of—and is up for grabs by—everyone else: a 'tragedy of the commons' is created."

— Hans-Hermann Hoppe

If Voting Changed Anything They'd Abolish It

— Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London 2000-2008, published an autobiography-cum-political tract in 1988 with this title. ISBN 9780006373353 (also attributed to Emma Goldman)

"'Democratic' decision making is a means for finding and implementing the will of the majority; it has no other function. It serves, not to encourage diversity, but to prevent it."

— David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom, 88

"Democratic law does not say, 'Thou shalt not kill'. Instead, it designates certain people who have the right to kill—soldiers and State police. Democratic law does not order, 'Thou shalt not steal'. It says that only certain people have the right to steal—tax and customs agents. What does 'power to the people' mean when the people enjoy fewer rights than their supposed servants?"

— Christian Michel

"Gang rape, after all, is democracy in action."

— Terry Goodkind

"The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid."

— Art Spander

"The United States brags about its political system, but the [American] President says one thing during the election; something else when he takes office, something else at midterm and something else when he leaves."

— Deng Xiaoping

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage."

— Alexander Fraser Tytler

"-because democracy basically means 'government by the people, of the people, for the people'... but the people are retarded. So let us then say, 'government by the retarded, of the retarded, for the retarded".

— Rajneesh Osho, Indian political speaker, guru, and spiritual leader

"The absolute ruler may be a Nero, but he is sometimes a Titus or Marc Aurelius; the people is often Nero, but never Marc Aurelius."

— Antoine Rivarol

"For monarchy to work, one man must be wise. For democracy to work, a majority of the people must be wise. Which is more likely?"

— Charles Maurras

'"I could see how 'democracy' might do very well in a society of saints and sages led by an Alfred or an Antoninus Pius. Short of that, I was unable to see how it could come to anything but an ochlocracy of mass-men led by a sagacious knave."

— Albert Jay Nock

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