It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. But then neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a dictatorship.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
Once people sense their own power, no authoritarian government can stand against the people who are determined to be free.
I have said democracy and freedom do not work too well if you are hungry, if you are starving.
Freedom must be gained step by step, slowly. Freedom is a food which must be carefully administered when people are too hungry for it.
People demand freedom only when they have no power.
Freedom is not won by merely overthrowing a tyrannical ruler or an oppressive regime. That is usually only the prelude to a new tyranny, a new oppression.
I lived in a dictatorship in Brazil, and I was arrested three times. I felt in my flesh what it is to live under such a regime and experience deprivation of freedom.
The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.
Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear.
We know from our own history that democratic institutions take decades to mature, and we know from past conflicts that freedom is not free.
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