"Democratic governments may become violent, and even cruel, at certain periods of extreme effervescence or of great danger; but these crises will be rare and brief. When I consider the petty passions of our contemporaries, the mildness of their manners, the extent of their education, the purity of their religion, the gentleness of their morality, their regular and industrious habits, and the restraint which they almost all observe in their vices no less than their virtues, I have no fear that they will meet with tyrants in their rulers, but rather with guardians. I think, then, that the species of oppression by which democratic nations are menaced is unlike anything which ever before existed in the world; our contemporaries will find no prototype in their memories. I seek in vain for an expression which will accurately convey the whole of the idea I have formed of it; the old words despotism and tyranny are inappropriate: the thing itself is new, and since I cannot name, I must attempt to define it.
I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world. The first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest,&ndash his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind; as for the rest of his fellow citizens, he is close to them but he sees them not; he touches them, but he feels them not; he exist but in himself and for himself alone; and if his kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have lost his country. (((Ask someone where they are from and they are puzzled by the question&ndash they know not where they are from or where they are going, only where they are today. They have lost all sense of history and family and are living a vicarious life of what is perceived as pleasure, but it is only instant gratification as a lion filled to capacity after a kill, basking in the flow of juices that numbs the brain and makes neither defense or escape possible.)))
Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing (((A news commentator in reflecting on the attitude of the public, used the old cliche; let the good times roll. This, regarding the stock market as it burst above 11000. No concern for the future, only the present!))) For their happiness such a government willingly labours, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking (((George Greishiemer said of his employees, "when you think, you hurt the team."))) and all the trouble of living?
Thus, it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range, and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things; it has predisposed men to endure them, and oftentimes to look on them as benefits.
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned him at will, the supreme power that extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, ut softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting: such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."
From: The Influence of Political Society, pp391, vol. 2, Democracy in America. The Century Co. 1898.
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Voluntarily truckle to his caprices
Befits the temper of a lakey
attracted by vociferation
vol.1/p.341
Few men who display that manly candor and masculine independence of a despot 1/342
Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has and ever will be, pursued until it be obtained or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. Federalist Papers by Madison 1/345
Differences between French and US/English law. [The French seek to settle differences by reason, compassion for one and justice for the other. English law on which U.S. law is based instead, as Henry Hyde was wont to say, "The Rule of Law", seeks precedence and make judgement using that past decision as the guideline. For those who can&rsquot make a decision, this is an easy out. You have justification for your actions and are not accountable for them. So Tocqueville said, "
Lawyers resemble the hierophants of Egypt.... sole interpreter of occult science."1/354
...swerve on tittle from the law ... That is, the lawyers deviate not one iota from the law, so no thought is necessary or required, only that they find a precedent. 1/355
From this sampler of De Tocqueville's writings one gets a sense that here was an individual. He sought out a topic on which he could express his views and no better one was the current (at that time) emerging country of United States. How unfortunate that we have to reach far into the past to find such brilliance. With "today's educational environment", were are the thinkers, the writers, the statesmen, &C,. ****
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