Wednesday, April 21

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

4 comments:

An Gabhar Ban said...

so sad, yet so true.

Unknown said...

I may not think much of the man, but he has some good quotes.

Unknown said...

As an aside, they, meaning the Great Biritsh Public - i.e. your average voters - voted him the greatest Briton of all time, over Newton (and others, including Princess Di, but I'm not too bothered about that one), hmph.

Metamatician said...

Whatever one's politics, that's completely absurd, especially when such choices as Newton, Shakespeare, Darwin, and Bowie are available! :)

I think of Churchill the way I think of Reagan - a stirring speaker, a great motivator... in other words a good actor, which in some cases is just what a country needs to pull together (say, during war time - real or "cold" wars). But these people have more concern for their own place in history and their own glory than sympathy or even understanding of the common citizen. In fact, both seemed to have quite a bit of contempt for the worker bees at the bottom of the pyramid, the people who after all form the foundation of society. They were surrounded by rich elites and idealists all their lives.

So, while I believe Churchill was probably a good fit for Britain during the darkest days of WW2, and Reagan and his hawks did speed up the bankruptcy of the USSR and thus contributed to its fall a bit sooner, neither one deserves to be on a list of all-time greats, much less topping such a list. I'd put doctors, scientists, humanitarians, and other real benefactors far ahead of politicians of any stripe.

I suppose it only proves Churchill's point about the average voter that he can say something like that and they will still vote him the greatest Briton. Sigh... At the risk of sounding like an elite myself (a penniless elite, lol), my faith in humanity is not very high I'm afraid.

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