Douglas Wilder Quotes

It's for scientists to lay out the data and lay out what they think, and then it's for the public to make up its own mind. We don't live in a priesthood where some small group imposes its views on other people - that's not the way that science works, and it's not the way a democratic society should work.

Talk radio is an asset to our nation because it encourages strong and healthy debate about public policy, and there is no reason to affect that debate with government legislation.

A mature society understands that at the heart of democracy is argument.

In a democratic society, we politicians have to accept criticism, especially when it is founded.

Television has given Pakistan a truly open national forum for the first time in its history. Ideas are debated, leaders are assessed and criticised, and a nation of 170 million people is finally discovering, together, what it thinks.

Some people believe giving more people a voice is driving division rather than bringing us together. More people across the spectrum believe that achieving the political outcomes they think matter is more important than every person having a voice.

I believe that politicians have a public trust to further debates about important issues. I firmly believe that every public debate holds the prospect of enlightenment.

The best thing, on 'Question Time,' is when the reality confronts the rhetoric.

In democratic republics such as ours, citizens rely on public criticism of ideas and people to determine national policy.

Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.

Democracy makes us articulate our views, defend them, and refine them.

That's the heart of it: My shows were not that controversial with the American people. They were controversial with the people who think for the American people.

Propaganda in the ordinary sense of the term plays a less important part in a consumer society, where people greet all official pronouncements with suspicion.

Palin, Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and others have made an art form of convincing far too many Americans to suspend their disbelief, and they have severely damaged the ability of our country to have serious discussions about serious challenges.

The debates of that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed, seeming to be dragged rather than to march, to the intended goal. Something of this sort must, I think, always happen in public democratic assemblies.

Political debate with liberals is basically impossible in America today because liberals are calling names while conservatives are trying to make arguments.

What's different now is that while political leaders used to give talking points to talk radio, now talk-radio hosts are giving talking points to political leaders. It's all part of the suffocating spin cycle we're in. In media, politics and publishing, the conventional wisdom is to play to this base.

Informed opponents of Obama's healthcare initiative have expressed dismay at the low level of discourse.

I allowed Rick Santorum to express views and ideas that the American people never would have had expressed.

I love disagreements. I love the democratic process. If I'm in a room where everybody agrees, I start to nod off.

We are in a democratic society. It's our job to question.

We have an open society. No one will come and take me away for saying what I am saying. But they don't have to, if they can control how many people hear it. And that's how they do it.

It is precisely the purpose of the public opinion generated by the press to make the public incapable of judging, to insinuate into it the attitude of someone irresponsible, uninformed.

And if that's what the American people want, then that's what the policy should be, of course. But the idea that anything in the United States is too sensitive to discuss or too dangerous to discuss is really, I think, absurd.

There is a continuous stream of opinions on governance issues expressed daily, not only in our Parliament and in the print media, but also on talk-radio and social media.