Burası da tüm iyi ailelerde olduğu gibi anarşi ve tiranlığın bir karışımıdır, demokrasiye yer yoktur.

The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens… which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it… which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses.’

‘Bread and Circuses’ is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter Rome.

Demokrasi en iyi niyetli yaklaşımla bile zavallı bir sistemdir; onunla ilgili söylenebilecek tek iyi şey, insan ırkının denemiş olduğu diğer sistemlerden yaklaşık sekiz kat daha iyi olmasıdır. Demokrasinin en büyük kusuru, liderlerinin oy aldıkları seçmenlerin erdemlerini de kusurlarını da taşımalarıdır; moral bozucu derecede düşük bir düzey ama başka ne bekleyebilirsin?

There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.

If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for ... but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong.

Secrecy begets tyranny.