Thread: President of the US of A

Originally Posted by puketui41

In the words of someone who's name escapes me, 'The citizens of a State are like the residents of a prison, except that every three to five years they are given the opportunity to vote on who their captors will be for the next three to five years and the decisions they make justify their imprisonment in the first place.' So, current US politics, what do you think?

You might be thinking of Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, "Despotism Democratic Nations Have To Fear", Vol. 2, Part IV, Ch. 6:

"Our contemporaries are ceaselessly agitated by two conflicting passions: they feel the need to be directed as well as the desire to remain free. Since they are unable to blot out either of these hostile feelings, they strive to satisfy both of them together. They conceive a single, protective, and all-powerful government but one elected by the citizens. They combine centralization with the sovereignty of the people. That gives them some respite. They derived consolation from being supervised by thinking that they have chosen their supervisors. Every individual tolerates being tied down because he sees that it is not another man nor a class of people holding the end of the chain but society itself. Under this system citizens leave their state of dependence just long enough to choose their masters and then they return to it."