Zephyr Teachout Quotes

The Iranian regime doesn't express the wishes and values of the Iranian people.

In some countries that are darlings of the West, like Egypt, everyone knows the result of national elections years in advance: The man in power always wins. In others, like Saudi Arabia, the very idea of an election is unthinkable.

It is very difficult for any dictator or any incumbent to falsify the results of an election and just get away with it.

On my travels around the world, I've met people in countries where democracy doesn't exist and if it does, they are intimidated into voting in a certain way.

If you look at weak democracies, the oligarchies that have taken undue control of them always seek to tamper with the vote. It is important for oligarchs to have elections to give their guy a veneer of legitimacy - and important for the vote always to turn out 'their way.'

Our tribunals — unlike those in the United States — have been traditionally subordinated to political power. Mexico has a history of corrupt elections where the will of the people has been subverted by the wealthy and powerful.

America simply prefers to deal with dictators.

It is certainly not the most democratic way to proceed.

Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.

In the majority of African countries, the electoral bodies have been the personal choice of the imperial president….these bodies are not strong enough to withstand executive pressure to manipulate the results.

Not a single Arab ruler is a willing participant in democratic reform. Their regimes are festooned with opportunists attached to their financial and political privileges.

Democracy cannot consist solely of elections that are nearly always fictitious and managed by rich landowners and professional politicians.

Where annual elections end, there tyranny begins..

Problems in our country haven't been caused by Donald Trump, America and its ambitions or CIA spies. Our problems are rooted in a bad government system, the lack of free elections, independent courts and freedom of speech.

A 97-percent win is the kind of result you get in a one-party regime.

I do not want to be recorded in history as the man who bequeathed a tyranny.

Zaire's one-party system is the most elaborate form of democracy

Socio-economic hardship breeds not only repression to force people to live with hardship, but also resistance, often in turn provoking repression in initial rounds, but in subsequent rounds quite possibly forcing dictatorial regimes to give in, partially or thoroughly, and to concede democratic reforms. This is another way, twisted as it may look, in which structural adjustment may indeed lead up to democratization.

Democracy is always a threat to the powerful.

It was a transition of power, not by the ballot box…. The people who lost the election are now in power. The people who won the election are now in jail.

The non-democratic governments of petro-states, … use the wealth of at their disposal to resist pressure for more democratic government. In effect, they bribe the people they rule, persuading these citizens to forgo political liberty and the right to decide who governs them.

The revolutionary government is the despotism of liberty

You can choose whatever name you like for the two types of government. I personally call the type of government which can be removed without violence democracy, and the other tyranny.

The good government of one man is the bad government of another

The subjection of individuals will increase amongst democratic nations, not only in the same proportion as their equality, but in the same proportion as their ignorance.