By a free country I mean a country where people are allowed, so long as they do not hurt their neighbours, to do as they like. I do not mean a country where six men may make five men do exactly as they like. That is not my notion of freedom.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil
I like that way of expressing it. Similar to : “Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.”
Whatever the analogy, that is precisely the sentiment of the founders when they tried to steer the future nation away from that track. They failed, unfortunately.
In this nation at this time, six men most definitely can tell five men what to do. And imprison them if they disagree.
This guy Robert Gascoyne-Cecil was a conservative British politician during the second half of the nineteenth century. He was prime minster three different times and he lived during the time when England became a full democracy. And so he saw the people voting themselves into socialism. A lot of what he has to say goes double for us today. I have a bunch of his words coming up in the “Quote of the Day” for the next week or two.