Aaron McGruder Quotes

I am not running for mayor yet. But if it comes to be true that people cannot voice an opinion unless they have been elected, then we are no longer in a democracy.

We're going to make sure that the people who run for office and get elected are the ones who are going to work for the American people.

In our democracy officers of the government are the servants, and never the masters of the people.

Somebody once said that the ideal size of a country for democracy to work is around 10 million people - and that kind of makes sense if you think of it in very crude terms. In a smaller country, I guess it's easier to maintain some kind of common ground.I do think the Swedish system of government works really well. Obviously, everything doesn't work perfectly, but I like the principle of it.

Bosses are no more inevitable in state and local governments than dictators are in national governments. They will arise and prosper, nevertheless, if true believers of democracy - citizens devoted to the democratic ideals - do not constantly oppose them.

The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the people against usurpation of power, or corruption by their agents is the right of suffrage; and this when used with calmness and deliberation will prove strong enough.

Party domination and State leadership are concepts incompatible with one another.

Legislatures represent people, not acres or trees.

If you're a politician and all you care about is staying in office, you're worried about a small group of voters in your district who vote in the primary. If you're a corporation, you need to be much more in synch with public opinion, because you're appealing to people across the spectrum. Ironically, a lot of corporations have to be far more democratic than democratically elected officials.

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

The government and people are inseparable under our system. We could not separate the government from the people if we would, and we would not if we could. This unity is the strength of our political structure.

Members of Congress are people too.

Political positions do not belong to the officeholder; they belong to the people that place us in office.

We can either have a free Parliament or a free people. Personal freedom requires that all authority is restrained by long-run principles which the opinion of the people approves.

The greater the share the people have in government, the less liberty, civil or religious, does a nation enjoy.

Even if you assume presidents were democratically elected they still have no right to keep secrets from the American people.

It must be a source of great chagrin to those in charge to think of so many people being able to stick a stamp on a letter and drop it in a mail box without any trouble or suffering at all. They are probably working on a system this very minute, trying to devise some way in which the public can be made to fill out a blank, stand in line, consult some underling who will refer him to a superior, and then be made to black up with burned cork before they can mail a letter.

The people who cast the votes decide nothing; the people who count the votes decide everything.

You can't always say what's popular and you ought to go with it. I think that's why the founders were concerned about direct democracy. That's why we have a republic and that's why we have representatives who who are supposed to look at the issues and to look out for the next generation as well.

There are a lot of ways to serve, and being president is not the only one, and I would hope that someone else would run.

I did publish a Bill once called "Common Sense" with a new constitution for Europe called the "Commonwealth of Europe," setting it all out - what it's rights were, how it would work. And I think that that will be where is has to go. But I'm not anti-European, I'm just a democrat, a very committed democrat. I don't see why the hell I should obey a law made by someone I didn't elect and can't remove.

Democracy is an awful way to run a country, but it's the best system we have.

A silent majority and government by the people is incompatible.

I think it's time for the Army to understand that power should be enshrined in the people if we are to be a genuine democracy and not in any particular institution or organisation.

The trouble with government as it is, is that it doesn't represent the people. It controls them.