Good quote

"Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and those abandoned to vice are rewarded, because they flatter the people in order to betray them."

(Joseph Story - Justice of the Supreme Court, son of Elisha Story, a member of the Sons of Liberty.)

From a great book by Barry Goldwater

"The turn will come when we entrust the conduct of our affairs to the men who understand that their first duty as public officials is to divest themselves of the power that they have been given. It will come when Americans, in hundreds of communities throughout the nation, decide to put the man in office who is pledged to enforce the Constitution and restore the Republic. Who will proclaim in a campaign speech: 'I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel the old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is "needed" before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' "interests," I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.'"

Barry Goldwater, The Conscience of a Conservative, 1960: Victor Publishing Company, Shepherdsville, Ky., p. 17.

Good quote. Why I hate democracy.

Democracy is simply mob rule. A republic is not a democracy. The U.S. is not and never has been a democracy.

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch."

Benjamin Franklin