Richard Langworth

Probably never said it [0]. Those kinds of quotes are unlikely to be understood in today's cultural lense, because people don't see the world in national identities and the meaning those identities carried, like they used to 1800-1940. [0] https://richardlangworth.com/quotes-churchill-never-said-2

I don't see why (or in what) it is misleading. The sentence (which is smart) can be read either as a funny, smart one or taken seriously, if you do the latter, you need to put it in its context, Free-Trade vs. Protectionism in very early 20th century: https://richardlangworth.com/taxprosperity BTW the sentence has been paraphrased from the original one.

for actions that do not technically breach an existing law Consider the implications of what you've said here. Punishment outside of law breaks all kinds of long-developed social and democratic safeguards. It's one of those "democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others"[0] type situations. [0]: https://richardlangworth.com/worst-form-of-government

it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time https://richardlangworth.com/worst-form-of-government

You are aware that, while "Athenian democracy" was for sure a step toward more distributed political power, it was still a city where only a selected few males could pretend to be "citizen". By the way, "what happened to Athens" doesn’t mean much: it’s still a living city, although the age of city-state has long gone. So, as Churchill would quote it: "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." see: https://richardlangworth.com/worst-form-of-government

The linked manifesto doesn't seem to be especially against garbage collection. And on their web site the latest news item is a "Lisp Jam"... The only reference to GC is in this sentencs: "The deadline is approaching or the rent is due or we have taxes to fill out and a manager on our back and someone asking us why we always spend so much time at the office, and we just have to stick the library or virtual machine or garbage collector in there to cover up the places we can't think through right now. " The situation is kind of choosing-shame-but-ending-up-in-war outcome[1] and is not saying that the referenced techniques (incl gc) would be generally bad. [1] https://richardlangworth.com/war-shame

> why not attribute it to Churchill anyhow? Because it isn't true. Was the irony intentional? Apparently [0] it's from Roosevelt’s secretary of state, Cordell Hull. [0] https://richardlangworth.com/galloping-lie , also https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2017/oct/09/colin-kae…

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." https://richardlangworth.com/worst-form-of-government

>...Constitutional democracy sucks; it's just much better than any alternative. (I think Churchill said that.) He said something like that, but he didn't say he originated the thought. In the house of Commons, he once said: "...Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." https://richardlangworth.com/worst-form-of-government

> most voters don't agree with them Replace 'most' with 'a slender majority' if you want to retain the fig-leaf of objectivity and rationality that you seem to covet. Politics is littered with examples of groups who were deceived into voting against their own self-interest. This isn't some kind of bizarre conspiracy - it's business as usual. It strikes me as more bizarre to pretend that democracy is some kind of idealized machine that extracts considered, rational decisions from large aggregates of people. It never was and never has been. It's simply the "least worst"[1] way of choosing our leaders. [1] https://richardlangworth.com/worst-form-of-government

I think we all agree that open source is not the holy grail but it shines with comparative advantages. It is like democracy: Far from perfect but still the best political system: 'Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.' https://richardlangworth.com/worst-form-of-government (OK, that was slightly OT!)

For what it's worth, that's not actually Churchill, though it's frequently attributed to him[0]. Nevertheless, it's an appropriate remark. [0] https://richardlangworth.com/democracy

He is paraphrasing Winston Churchill, whom apparently was echoing an unattributed aphorism. http://richardlangworth.com/worst-form-of-government

Public comments are routine in setting administrative law. (The concept is called notice-and-comment.) Congress gives the administering agency authority to make an administrative rule, and that rule can only happen after a public notice period about the proposed rule, during which any member of the public can comment on the proposed rule. Rules are often modified during the public comment period, which will be reflected when the rule is finally published. Your point is well taken that well organized (not always well moneyed) narrow interest groups can often get their way in the legislative or administrative rule-making process simply by being organized and cohesive. That is why public-choice theory[1] suggests that representative democracy cannot always achieve disinterested action in favor of the abstract public good. But what we deal with is a system that is imperfect, but better than other systems of government that have been tried, in the comparison that Churchill popularized.[2] [1] http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PublicChoice.html [2] http://richardlangworth.com/worst-form-of-government

As you suggest, ancient Athenian democracy bore little resemblance to modern forms of representative democracy and no doubt appears very limited/odd to modern sensibilities. What you wrote doesn’t make what I stated about the derivation of the word any less true though: https://www.etymonline.com/word/democracy All forms of democracy so far have been hefty compromises in one way or another and so will all be in the future, short of some sort of technological marvel I suppose. Different countries, constitutions etc. rebalance the mechanisms in one way or another, as more or less direct/representative forms of democracy inevitably have consequent drawbacks... Parliamentary democracies, republican democracies etc./all the various voting mechanisms etc., all are compromises designed to try and strike some sort of balance or confer some practical advantage. You can argue that some are antiquated, some unfit for purpose, but most IMHO. are better than the alternative. The fundamental problem with oligarchies/tyrannies/polyarchy/plutarchies/‘pick-your-archy’ is surely that you might (and almost inevitably eventually will) get a bad apple/apples. ‘Absolute power corrupts absolutely’ etc. As I understand it, the U.S. is a kind of republic (a ‘federal presidential constitutional republic’ according to Wikipedia :) and Madison/Jefferson/the founding ‘dudes’ tried to strike some, as they viewed it, balance between representative democracy and an appointed/elected executive, as you’re no…