Mark McKinnon Quotes

In other words, the bar should be maintained at the level of a pluralistic and participatory democracy.

The people must know that from this day on, we want their opinions.

The Western media tends to place a lot of emphasis on official institutions in Ukraine such as its supreme court, the central election commission, and the parliament. In reality, the people of Ukraine now control their destiny.

The government must give men and women without power a real say over what happens to them, and the means of engaging in a participative, invigorated and living democracy.

Increased town size hurts real democracy in two ways. First… it dramatically reduces the percentage of citizens who attend town meetings. Second, town size increases the number of citizens who attend, which dramatically reduces the percentage of these attendees who participate.”

Democracy is not a result. Democracy is a process.

What I was excited about was the opportunity for punters to be part of politics. The whole idea was to allow the voices of people outside this weirdo palace of Westminster to be heard. I thought the whole social media thing might be really positive.

Democracy is a life, and involves continual struggle.

I'm all for experimenting with sortition - randomly selected representative bodies of citizens. But I don't favor direct democracy. We're busy. We have lives. There is reddit. Who has time to work out the right answer to the thousand policy choices a gov't must make all the time?

One of the best ways to stop the failed policies coming out of Congress is to bring in the ideas and the involvement of the American people, which the America Speaking Out project is designed to do.

When the three branches of government have failed to represent the citizenry and the mass of the media has failed to represent the citizenry, then the citizenry better represent the citizenry.

Democracy is a daring concept - a hope that we'll be best governed if all of us participate in the act of government. It is meant to be a conversation, a place where the intelligence and local knowledge of the electorate sums together to arrive at actions that reflect the participation of the largest possible number of people.

The Paris Commune was first and foremost a democracy. The government was a body elected by universal suffrage.

I believe that everyone should participate in democracy and enjoy doing it.

On the show, we are not trying to get people to eat their vegetables; we are not trying to get people to become Democrats. We are basically trying to encourage people to get involved with public life so that politics isn't left to the wealthy and privileged.

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

Political development should start at the grassroots.

The problem with the West is that they start with political reform going towards democracy. If you want to go towards democracy, the first thing is to involve the people in decision making, not to make it.

The problem is there is no such thing as a viable democracy made up of experts, zealots, politicians and spectators.

I think, in the longer view of things, there is a very powerful pull in the direction of participatory government.

Logically, in a society ostensibly grounded on representative government, it would seem reasonable that a majority of the people in a State would elect a majority of that State’s legislators.

One of the chief principles for which I have stood is the genuine rule of the people. I hope that the people may be given the chance, through direct primaries, to express their preference as to who shall be the nominee.

People now do not want a constitution framed for them by their representatives—they want to pass on each section of it themselves.

The government is just us.

Public participation in the process of government is the essence of democracy.