Quotes on Politics & Democracy

  Politics sets the parameters of how you live your life ; what choices you have or do not have; how free or not free you are in your country. So, it is silly to not be involved in politics. Every citizen where democracy still exists should at least be minimally engaged in politics by making educated votes that ensure their country at least maintains the foundations of Human Rights and freedoms, and so does not eventually become a totalitarian State. This voter’s vigilance is necessary because, as shown in DEMOCRACY 101, some form of totalitarianism, wherein the government legislates human life and death instead of understanding itself as obligated to protect human lives, and in which the government decides the range of things which citizens may or may not believe, was the norm and default for governments before The Foundational Principles of Human Rights and Democracy identified in DEMOCRACY 101 started to transform Western governments in the 4th Century - and such totalitarianism is still the norm today, outside of the sphere of Traditional Western influence . . . DEMOCRACY 101 (like the educational organization Human Rights and Freedoms Forever! which first published it) is utterly non-partisan, and does not care which party governs as long as democracy’s foundations are intact, and so is not inclined to vilify any particular party of “Left” or “Right” in any country but simply calls ALL political parties worldwide to get back to their democracy’s historical and logical foundations if they have forgotten them and strayed . . . Remember that in democracies “of the people, by the people, for the people,” citizens govern themselves, through their elected representatives. This means the responsibility of governing well ultimately rests with each citizen voter. And they cannot possibly govern themselves well and democratically, through intelligently elected representatives who govern well and avoid totalitarianism, if neither the citizen voters nor their elected representatives even know the Foundational Principles of Human Rights and Democracy, nor are even held constitutionally accountable to uphold them.

—William Baptiste, DEMOCRACY 101

  Human Life Issues are Non-Partisan. In healthy democracies, the “Progressive Left” and the “Conservative Right” complement each other, because both at least implicitly hold the same underlying foundations as they did at the formation of our modern democracies. Within a common human-life-protecting democratic foundation, the “Progressive Left” ideally helps prevent the “Conservative Right” from “conserving” too much of the way things were done before; from ossifying or stagnating, holding on too long to outdated ways and structures which may not even anymore serve their original good purpose in the new context of changing times and technology and so on. And ideally the “Conservative Right” helps prevent the “Progressive Left” from “progressing” too quickly to change without thinking through all the consequences and “throwing out the baby with the bathwater;” from failing to conserve what was essential or foundational from before which remains necessary even with changing times and technology and so on. In a healthy democracy, at election time the “Progressive Left” and “Conservative Right” vie with each other to convince voters to vote for their particular party’s platform of ideas how to approach the policy issues and questions of the day, while voters feel secure that whichever party they vote for, they live in a safe democracy that guards their freedom, and not a “DINO” – “Democracy In Name Only” - in danger of becoming a totalitarian State under extremist political parties . . .

In healthy democracies, political parties of both political Left and political Right share in common and do not compromise The Foundational Principles of Human Rights and Democracy like Equal Human Preciousness Governments are Obligated to Protect. Principles which were at least implicitly assumed by both “Left” and “Right” at the foundation of our modern democracies. Extremist political parties of both Left and Right, the Extreme Left Soviet Communist Party and the Extreme Right German Nazi Party, were the first modern political parties to reject the West’s democracy-grounding underlying Traditional Biblical, Judeo-Christian, “Pro-Life” Foundational Principles of Human Rights and Democracy including Equal Human Preciousness and the Inherent Human Right to Live that means Killing Humans Is Wrong (originally from the Biblical Commandment, “You shall not kill”). The extremist Left Soviet Communist and Extremist Right Nazi Parties specifically rejected the West’s human-protecting democratic foundations by legalizing human-killing by abortion (the Communists legalized abortion in 1920 and the Nazis in 1934, near the beginning of their totalitarian regimes and before committing the two biggest genocides of born humans in history). Legal Abortion is inherently an extremist totalitarian political position which denies the Inherent Human Right to Live which is essential to democratic thinking and was effectively condemned as such by the Free West at Nuremberg and Geneva in 1948.

Human societies have thrived and prospered under both Left-Wing “bigger governments” and Right-Wing “smaller governments,” and even under the pre-democratic traditional monarchical government of “a good King,” as long as that government was guided by or felt obligated to uphold the Traditional Western (Christian) Values which include and support The Foundational Principles of Human Rights and Democracy like equal human preciousness without exception and the Inherent Human Right to Live. The current bifurcation or polarization of Western societies actually has nothing to do with either political “Left” or “Right,” and has everything to do with either the fundamentally democratic (loving) acceptance of Equal Human Preciousness Without Exception or the fundamentally totalitarian (bigoted and extremist) rejection of Equal Human Preciousness Without Exception which was first embraced by the West back in the 4thCentury with the original criminalization of human-killing abortion and infanticide. This 318 AD first legal recognition of Inherent Human Rights (due to Christian influence) started a long but logical process of development which in the end logically resulted in modern Human Rights and democratic freedoms built on essentially “Pro-Life” principles, given magnificent mature expression also in 1948, with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. “Pro-Choice” vs. “Pro-Life” is NOT an issue of political “Left” vs. “Right” but an issue of Fundamentally Totalitarian Thinking that supports Human-Killing vs. Fundamentally Democratic Thinking that supports Human Protection.

—William Baptiste, Pro-Life Equals Pro-Democracy

The “Real Left” Is Exemplified by U.S. Democrat Eleanor Roosevelt Who Headed the UN’s Original Human Rights Commission Which Produced The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (in Response to Extremist Left And Extremist Right Human Rights Abuses Which Included Both Political Extremes Legalizing Human-Killing Abortion, which was Described as “A Crime Against Humanity” at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials the Same Year). The “Extremist Left” is Exemplified by the Totalitarian Soviet Communist Party Which was the First Political Party to Legalize Human-Killing Abortion – and by Any Political Party Since (Following This Extremist Precedent) That Has Made Human-Killing by Abortion a “Party Value.” “Left” or “Right,” Officially Pro-Choice Political Parties are Extremist Political Parties. Of Course Legal Human-Killing is Inherently Extremist.

. . . There is hope to restore the Left in the U.S. and Canada (etc.) as long as most on the “Pro-Choice Left” are merely uneducated, rather than actually evil, even though all this time they with great bigotry denied equal Human Rights for all humans and the democracy-grounding Inherent Human Right to Live by supporting extremist positions like legal abortion, which was condemned as a “crime against humanity” the year the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was produced. There is hope to restore the Left and cure its current Pro-Choice extremism, because the real Left does not kill humans and it may just be that the current Pro-Choice Left is just too uneducated in Human Rights History (and in logical, scientific thinking) to know any better (although technically they really should know that humans are killed in abortions, and that killing humans is wrong, we can charitably give many on the Left the benefit of the doubt that they really just did not know any better. In any case their response to the overwhelming evidence that Pro-Life = Pro-Democracy presented in [William Baptiste's books] will reveal whether they are merely uneducated or actually evil).

The Extreme Left was the first to legalize human-killing abortion, followed by the Extreme Right (the Soviets followed by the Nazis). In response, a member of the real Left (U.S. Democrat Eleanor Roosevelt) oversaw the production of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, probably the greatest accomplishment for lasting Human Rights and Democratic Freedoms of any politician of the last 100 years, “Left” or “Right.” This is why this author stressed in the Introduction that [his books] (and the author’s non-profit Human Rights Education organization Human Rights and Freedoms Forever!) are non-partisan, and merely call all political parties of Left or Right to get back to their party’s roots if they have strayed. Party roots which at the beginning of our modern democracies at least implicitly recognized the Pro-Life Foundational Principles of Human Rights and Democracy.

- William Baptiste, Pro-Life Equals Pro-Democracy

  Logic needs to be compulsory in high schools to ensure future voters and future politicians both know how to think clearly, logically and with intellectual honesty, so they can vote and govern intelligently and not be so easily fooled (even by textbook logical fallacies) into destroying the foundations of their own Freedom. When citizen voters and politicians know neither The Foundational Principles of Human Rights and Democracy, nor how to think clearly, consistently, and logically (nor how to avoid logical fallacies of reasoning), Free Democracy is sure to fail and not last.

- William Baptiste, Founder, Human Rights and Freedoms Forever!

It is important to an educated understanding of government to know the Greek root and history of certain political terms. The original organized State government was the government of the city, or City-State, the Greek word for city being polis. Thus, from this Greek root word polis or city, we get the words policy; politics; politicians; and police. Politics is the action of the politicians setting the policies by which the polis/city/State will be governed, and these policies (many made into formal laws) are enforced by police. Still today most police forces are hired by the local polis/city government, though this level of local city government is now known as the municipal government which operates within the jurisdiction of a larger regional government of a province or state etc. which operates within the jurisdiction of a federal or national government which is now the highest level of government in a sovereign State or country. These higher levels of government also often hire police forces to enforce the policies adopted into law by the State, such as the Canadian Mounties (Royal Canadian Mounted Police/RCMP) or the American FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigations), which are national level police forces (the Mounties also functioning as provincial police in the younger Western Canadian provinces where they were first formed). 

It is entirely appropriate that we sometimes call a totalitarian State that is oppressive to human life and/or freedom a “Police State.” This is because it is the political norm for the police to enforce the policies/laws of the State government (originally the polis or City-State) which is run by the politicians, whether those politicians and their policies are totalitarian or democratic. Note that even the ancient Greeks had only “democracy experiments” by the standards of modern democracy. Only upper-class, aristocratic / land-owning Athenian men could vote, and people could own slaves, because there was no principle of human equality or rights; and the Greek Draco, the first legislator of “democratic” Athens, made such harsh laws – including the death penalty for most criminal offenses – that to this day the word Draconian is used to describe harsh or oppressive laws, strictly enforced, as in totalitarian States.  

This reveals an important point: The only reason we in the West have come into the habit of thinking that “the police are our friends” or that “the police are here to help” or “the police are here to protect and serve the citizens” is because for many centuries in the West our State governments were guided in their policy-making by Traditional Western (Judeo-Christian) Pro-Life Family Values including the Foundational Principles of Human Rights and Democracy which say the government is obligated to protect (and ultimately serve) every human without exception as equally precious. Thus, the policies (some made into formal laws) made by the governing politicians to guide the State, which the police are responsible to the State government to enforce, have for a very long time in the West tended to be Human Rights and Democracy-supporting policies and laws. But this is no longer the case since democracy-grounding Traditional Western Values have been abandoned by the West as its “guiding principles.”

The mere force of habit of many centuries have for decades so far kept Western citizens used to trusting their governments (and police) to protect and serve their precious humanity, and has generally kept Western politicians from actually oppressing their citizens or telling them what to believe and do (and from using police to enforce the government’s will on the governed people). But unfortunately, without the solid grounding in the traditional Western, Judeo-Christian “Pro-Human-Right-to-Live” or “Pro-Life” Foundational Principles of Human Rights and Democracy for decades now, since Western countries started de-criminalizing the abortion-killing of preborn humans, eliminating the legally recognized Inherent Human Right to Live, following the precedent of totalitarian States (totalitarian Soviet Russia in 1920 and totalitarian Nazi Germany in 1934 were the first two modern nations to de-criminalize abortion), Western governments are now naturally more and more acting like totalitarian States, by now starting to tell citizens what to believe and do and speak (or not speak) – and legalizing the killing of more and more humans. And they are even starting to arrest Christians and other Pro-Life Human Rights Advocates merely for expressing their democracy-grounding beliefs that killing humans is wrong because Human Rights are for all humans.

In some places Western governments are already (totalitarian belief-control-style) forcefully teaching “the people’s” children radically anti-traditional values with no history in the culture (and pseudo-science with no grounding in real science), while ignoring the loud and wide protests of “the people” whose democratic self-rule the government is supposed to represent (and even taking away parental rights to opt out of this radical new State-set “education,” as is typical in totalitarian States). In many places Western governments are, like all totalitarian States, once more legislating human life and death, deciding just which humans can be killed, when and how (such as ever-increasing reasons for legal euthanasia; and taking away doctors’ freedom of conscience to not be involved in human-killing abortion and euthanasia), instead of understanding that democratic governments “of the people, by the people, for the people” are obligated to protect all the people from death (see DEMOCRACY 101’s “Pledge of Allegiance to Democracy” PLEDGE ARTICLE 17: Government Control of The Medical Profession is at the Forefront of ‘Creeping Totalitarianism.’ Government once again controls human life and death, today mainly through government regulation of the previously self-regulating medical profession, which for 2500 years kept itself in line with the Foundational Principles of Human Rights and Democracy through the Hippocratic Medical Tradition that doctors do not kill patients by euthanasia or any other means, the oldest form of the Doctors’ Hippocratic Oath specifically prohibiting human-killing abortion) 

—William Baptiste, adapted from DEMOCRACY 101