I thought this was a democracy and I thought the democracy is based to the collective will of the people.

It's not that it guarantees peace with itself or with its neighbors.

You are right about democracy and consent of the people.

Because democracy depends on an informed citizenship.

But in my view it very well captures part of the problem that we have with democracy in Europe these days.

Turn words the right side up.

Democracy Comes Second

Do not forget that fascism, communism, capitalism or other isms are all monetary systems.

Before, revolutions used to have ideological names.

We need to rehab from the lies of these robbers of power.

A famous quotation can be found if you look on the web, you can find it in

A democrat is a free citizen who yields to the will of the majority.

Communist, Nazi, fascist ...

I have an urgent need to expand my humanitarian program.

I am playing it safe.

But in order to do so we need to get away from instrumental arguments.

Optimism leads to success in academia and sports and politics.

It's like a coin flip it doesn't count, really.

Communism, capitalism...

What do you mean by cultural relativism?

And in the end, there's better bargaining between the authorities and citizens, and democracies, capitalism everything else flourished.

He was Bobby Kennedy like because in some ways one could never tell if he was a realist masquerading as an idealist or an idealist masquerading as a realist, as people always wondered about Bobby Kennedy and John Kennedy in that way.

You love your heroes.

On the contrary!

Objection.

The Limits of Democracy

The constitution's gone.

The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless.

It is connected to reality less than anything else, or if connected at all, it's done mechanically, not by way of ideas, just by a sheer sound, devoid of any associations.

(Laughter)

I am by turns an optimist and a pessimist.

Soviet Union was Communist and it was totalitarian. Communism and democracy are not necessarily things that go against each other.

But the Soviet Union had neither a capitalist system nor a democracy.

So what does this tell us?

I'm a pacifist.

If we look at Islamists, if we look at the phenomenon of far right fascists, one thing they've been very good at, one thing that they've actually been exceeding in, is communicating across borders, using technologies to organize themselves, to propagate their message and to create truly global phenomena.

But this is not a democracy.

Kuwaiti Democracy in Action

But, we can escape from this trap, these pincers, I think.

And what do we teach in these schools?

Is that democracy?

Aren't those just the foundations of xenophobia and authoritarianism and Puritanism?

We are actually going to define our own operators.

What cause was that?

If you are a Republican, you can take a Democrat to lunch, or if you're a Democrat, think of it as taking a Republican to lunch.