Just came across these quotes by George Bernard Shaw in his Wikipedia article:

[Aristus]

"It is said that every people has the Government it deserves. It is more to the point that every Government has the electorate it deserves; for the orators of the front bench can edify or debauch an ignorant electorate at will. Thus our democracy moves in a vicious circle of reciprocal worthiness and unworthiness."

"Why appeal to the mob when ninetyfive per cent of them do not understand politics, and can do nothing but mischief without leaders? And what sort of leaders do they vote for? For Titus Oates and Lord George Gordon with their Popish plots, for Hitlers who call on them to exterminate Jews, for Mussolinis who rally them to nationalist dreams of glory and empire in which all foreigners are enemies to be subjugated."

Some things never change...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear Aristus...

He certainly was prescient, wasn't he?

:hi:

[REP]

2. "Not to read Shaw is to be as far behind the times as he was ahead of them" - Updike (I think)

[pokerfan]

3. A couple more...

An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it.

He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.


And Winston Churchill:

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.