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"That change did not come about overnight, nor even rapidly enough for most people to notice. But it is obvious in retrospect that, sometime during the past century, the basic ideas and language of American democracy – most of which were inherited from the previous two centuries – just became irrelevant, and are now heard only in nostalgic, ritual incantations."
"For most students and teachers today, the very idea of people "making up" their own minds probably seems perverse or old-fashioned, when it is so much easier and less expensive to buy one "off the shelf" at some political supermarket or fashionable ideological boutique."
"Hostile groups may try to avoid the high cost and risk of physical combat by negotiating a temporary "truce." That kind of negotiation is called "politics" and that kind of truce is called a political "compromise." But a political compromise never restores good social relationships. At best, a compromise may produce neutral, non-negative relationships based on some kind of social stalemate."
"(Social equality means) the most successful societies, like the most successful chess clubs, have the greatest personal inequality. And, while members of unsuccessful societies, like unsuccessful chess clubs, may seem to be less unequal, that is usually because none of their members has accomplished much of anything."
"Democratic politicians, on the other hand, only need the support of the dumbest or most gullible 51 per cent of members – and often much less than that – to "take over" an association. And, to acquire such support, they only need to be "popular." But popularity is not real legitimacy because it is usually acquired by chicanery, and is always controversial and ephemeral."
"We said an association is a purposive, voluntary group of socially equal members. So let's say a community is a purposive, voluntary association of the owners of several equal, nondependent groups, both voluntary and involuntary. And I do realize that definition may seem strange to many Americans because their purposeless "green" communities don't fit that description very well."
"Perhaps the real problem is that Americans have not yet become cynical enough. If they were to become sufficiently disillusioned with their own negativism, they might start seeking rational social solutions which are more positive and constructive. But negativism is irrational, and America's only "positive" alternative seems to be even more irrational."
"That's why the application of American power abroad has always been so incoherent, sporadic and capricious – like a "loose cannon" smashing around all over the world, causing all kinds of damage to other nations, for reasons which don't even seem to make much sense to most Americans."
"The human need for freedom – which Americans did not invent – is merely a desire which, together with the need for security, is the contradiction that creates the human dilemma. Americans may seem to be much more concerned about freedom, which is a personal issue, than about security, which is a social issue, but that is because Americans tend to define all social issues as if they were personal issues."
"(American) laws, piling compromise upon compromise, from the top down, have become a gargantuan maze of incomprehensible nonsense that offers no guidance to anyone about the right things to do – which is why Americans today are frequently confronted with situations where they find that doing the "right" thing is not "legal" and vice versa."
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