"The inherent disadvantage of democracy is that it ties the hands of those who are honest about it immensely, while it allows those who do not take it seriously to do almost anything."
Václav Havel
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" ... Along with Václav Klaus, Havel was one of the two Janus-faced faces of the Czech nation: he embodied what we wanted to see ourselves as (but what we were not at all), whereas Klaus expressed what we were (but what we did not want to see ourselves as). ...
Tomáš Pecina
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"Democracy eventually results in mob rule."
Aristotle
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"Democracy is not built by the descent of the elites to the level of the mob, but by the elevation of the mob to the level of the elites."
Gustave Le Bon
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"If there is a stalemate and a frozen conflict, we must honestly say that our children will fight, or our grandchildren. We have already lost a great many people. We want to live in such a way that we raise children who will then definitely fight."
Volodymyr Zelensky
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We don't have an elite that we have liquidated ourselves. The new one likes to learn the old ways. I am reminded of other ways in Switzerland. The government has seven ministers. They elect a "media" president from among their ranks for a year. The ministers are not allowed to use their cell phones, they are not allowed to talk to each other, the meeting room is secured against eavesdropping. The deputies meet three times a year. They know the dates a year in advance (except for special sessions). They have their civic occupations and are paid only for necessary expenses. They do not appear in the media - they have to work. Citizens wouldn't care. They vote for parties based on how they make their living. I wonder how many of today's citizen legislators would practice their professions under those conditions? Recently a representative of an African country was in Switzerland and wanted to experience the popular vote (Landsgemeinde). The cantonal leadership announced that it would be a good idea to raise taxes. They were approved. The African wondered, "What, they approved higher taxes?" I would have voted for it too, but not in the Czech Republic. The Velvet Revolution only necessarily and legally continues the previous "evolution"... JŠ
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Václav Havel in November 2009:
The legal order must be preceded by an important moral order. The permanent cultivation of the moral sense of all of us, simply decency. It will not be conceivable for politicians to judge the Constitutional Court, or for politicians to pander to voters by appealing to their prejudices, or to spy on each other. Self-structure society from below. The best defence against any attempt to usurp power. In 20 years, civil society will be far more developed than it is today. The state will not be afraid of it, but will be proud of it and accommodate it. Where civil society withers, so do political parties. Parties will be the public servant of the state rather than its hidden manipulator. Politics will not serve parties but parties will serve politics. I believe that 20 years from now we will attract attention not by our power struggle with big states for relevance but by the way we are in the world, but by the extent of our co-responsibility for the whole. ...
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