If anything, this quote may help Democrats who believe in Liberty more than the progressive liberalism that has taken over the party's agenda. Most American socialists DON'T KNOW THEY ARE SOCIALISTS! They think they are Democrats (or even Republicans).

Quotes like this highlight the distinctions of 'equality' and 'rights' -- two terms that the libertarian and the socialist define differently. A representative democratic republic can be called 'democracy' -- maybe not A democracy, but democracy in action as a process. Of course, there are limits to what can be voted on, most everyone understands that. The definition of a 'republic' can be as varied as the definitions of a 'democracy' (communist republics come to mind). As long as the people call their government a 'democracy', we ought to make clear what the American definition of a democracy is.

We are not going to get rid of the word 'democracy' -- so take ownership of it, don't make it a bad word, and keep clarifying the limits of 'Democracy in America.' ;-)

Remember the time and place of the writing. France did throw off the yoke of monarchy, only to have the socialists steal the show once the dust cleared. "Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood" is the motto of the French, even today. Taken in context, democracy is considered 'liberty' compared to monarchy. De Tocqueville does touch upon the 'Equality' aspect -- he is comparing democracy in America with democracy in France.

Mike, isn't the very title of the book 'Democracy in America' a misnomer as America is not a democracy? Note that is it democracy in America not American Democracy -- there is democracy in America, that is true, our republican form of government utilizes democratic processes as per the Constitution. Without getting caught up in the 'US is not a democracy', de Tocqueville is not really off here.

Classic liberalism is different than progressive liberalism in the same way that de Tocqueville's 'democracy in America' is different than European socialist democracy. How they each define 'equality' determines whether the individual is considered his own master or subject to the dictates of the group.

De Tocqueveille is correct in his comparison of equality, so 5 stars from me.

The "desire to set themselves above mankind in order to arrange, organize, and regulate it according to their fancy" is the very reason the free man/woman have limited the powers of their representatives. I believe this contest for the power over others will always be present to some degree or another. And there will always be a significant percentage of people who are willing to submit themselves body, mind, and soul to be 'saved' and 'serve' as a protected member of a community. Let that in.... because such a mentality is hardly a foundation for liberty and personal responsibility, it is voluntary servitude. And we are being pitched this con everyday by church and state to 'surrender' to the 'lord' whether religious (Jewish, Muslim, Christian, ...) or secular (government).

Not everyone wants to be taken care of by the State -- especially if you have ever known anything else, mediocrity is the most one can expect from the State. Frankly I am tired of being 'arranged, organized, and regulated' according to the fancies of others. Enough!

Waffler, if you are such a lover of liberty, and wish to express yourself in that regard, why do you ceaselessly spout socialist dogma? I believe you are confusing liberty with power, and have traded personal independence (and responsibility) for a privileged place in the State hierarchy -- your loyalty is to the State, not to the principles of liberty and the personal responsibility that comes with it. You bow to government authority without a thought, and tell us to do the same if we don't want trouble. You parrot the left-media, progressive liberal newspeak verbatim. Frankly, your Orwellian double-talk is perfect and predictable. I have often wondered if you were a paid blogger for some leftist group, but I believe you are authentic -- you've already received your cut of the spoils. Don't you just love America? ;-)

Dick, Les Miserables were in Europe, not the USA -- the European still bound to the destiny of the ruling class. Your reference to 'leftists' are actually classic 'liberals' not social democrats (socialists). The Democratic Party has been co-opted by socialist ideology, and thus the redefinition of the word 'liberal' to mean its opposite, socialism -- i.e. State control over everyone and everything. Of course, today's establishment Republicans are not liberal in the classical sense either. Both establishment parties represent STATISM, the supremacy of the State over the citizen -- completely backwards from the republican form of government guaranteed by the US Constitution in which the citizen is sovereign over himself and hires representatives in matters of State.

Classic liberalism and progressive liberalism have been and will always be at odds with each other -- will the real liberal please stand up...

The purpose of gun control laws is to take the gun out of the citizen's hand and put it into the bureaucrat's hand...

Remind the State governors and State legislatures of their own states' sovereignty and the sovereignty of their citizens. The State governments will have to 'grow up' and stop their whoring with DC. ;-)

Mike, Pleasant Hill, you are right. The dilemma is the unconstitutional 'law' is still a law that the police enforce -- even while it is unconstitutional. The last check is the jury in which a unanimous guilty verdict is required in order to convict -- these 12 jurors are also to judge the 'law' as well, if one or more jurors consider the law unconstitutional, the defendant is not guilty.

The same logic goes for a man imprisoned for violating an unconstitutional law -- is he still a free man? Yes, he is a freeman in prison for an unconstitutional 'crime'. Unfortunately, other than jury nullification (which was a crucial blow to the Prohibition law), we have left it up to the Supreme Court to decide the constitutionality of legislation. So only the most political of cases make it, and the decisions are always straight down party lines in the judiciary -- which has never been more obviously establishment partisan politics than it is today.

The primary corruption is the mix of flesh and paper in law. Congress can only regulate interstate commerce -- does anybody remember that? SO they can't make laws that the average citizen must follow. It is the combining of common law and commercial law. The combination of which is a massive jurisdiction of people and corporations all subject to the statutes the government churn out year after year. Note, however, that almost every act of congress now is about either taking or distributing money -- specifically all the 'money' Congress can borrow or down-right print.

State sovereignty and personal responsibility of the citizen are the foundations of American Common Law -- all the rest is just the game of political graft and tyranny in the name of Justice.

The US Coinage Act of 1792 provides for the death penalty for the debasement or the embezzlement of the nation's real currency, and is still applicable today. So technically, the people who exchanged our gold for fiat paper currency have in a sense completely debased the currency and definitely have embezzled through fraud the nation's currency.

Mike, the threat of death by law is hardly a scarecrow -- it is the fear of assassination (physical, political, economic, etc.) that keep politicians in line (and it ain't the People they are afraid of...).

Look, Liberty means Responsibility. Every person is ultimately responsible for himself/herself -- in Nature every creature must face the world it has been born into -- survival of the fittest still applies even in a 'civilized' state. In that sense, each person is equally responsible to provide for himself, to protect himself, and is accountable for what he says and does. He may voluntarily commune with others of like mind and make mutual agreements with each other to pool their resources for their mutual benefit. But the terms of the group's agreement can only apply to those who have voluntarily agreed to it -- they may not impose their 'order' upon others not in their group.

The group can vote on what to do with their voluntarily granted tools and services, but they can't force members to grant more resources or labor than agreed upon. The group may perhaps vote to change the charter of their association, but new agreements would have to be made by each member.

The assumption that 'democracy' is 'equality' is a misnomer, because whoever controls the group's processes and administration wields the collective power. Who provides the group with the nominees? Who pays for this? Who collects? Where do the collections go? Who gets paid along the way?

The real question is this: may an American living in the USA willingly make himself a slave? It is interesting that we do not have any laws that say a man must take care of himself, but we have plenty that dictate what a ward of the state must do.

Waffler isn't a Marxist, he doesn't have the guts for that; he is a government shill.

Durham Ellis got it! ;-)

@Mike, Norwalk, 10 stars! America is not gone, though. The battle for Liberty didn't end with the American Revolution -- the ideal wasn't fully realized then, and it isn't fully realized now. And the game is bigger -- there are plenty more nations shackled, indentured, and enslaved worse than the American. The next Freedom Revolution will probably come from within a different nation than the USA, and they will find in Americans (if not their government) plenty of support and a rejuvenation of the founding principles of true self-determination and personal responsibility. Even with the economy in the tank, the average American has more freedom, power, wealth, property than in the days of Thomas Jefferson -- this is due to the continuous struggle of Americans in everyday life. Every battle is not won, and not every battle front is known to the people. But the process of awakening WORLDWIDE is occurring.

We can't vote our responsibility away without one day having to fight to reclaim it. It is a hefty price to pay for empty promises.

Anonymous is a socialist shill, whether he/she knows it or not.

Thank you Waffler for making plain the difference between FASCISM and personal responsibility -- where you stand has been made clear. And yes it has become also known that Waffler is retired from a government service employee union (most likely the IRS), receiving a government pension, and a tireless supporter of bureaucratic rule over the common people as their 'authority.'

C.S. Lewis is NOT making a case for a world Welfare State -- he is warning us of going in that direction.

Man, oh, man, Bastiat's The Law is a must read for Americans. Either you are with him or against him -- that is to say, you are either for Liberty or against it.

'Radical' is what you call 'the other guy' for challenging your long held beliefs. Whenever the word 'radical' is used by the press, it indicates the slant of the speaker. Any freedom is considered 'radical' by those that wish to have that freedom curtailed. Those defending their gun rights are called 'radical' by the gun grabbers, and those defending their access to raw milk are 'radical' by the Dairy Industry, the folks smoking and drinking in their own homes without permission from the caliphate are considered 'radical' by Shiites. Politicians and the media use the word 'radical' to discredit the ideas being proffered without investigation. If we do not believe that "the science is settled" we are radicals.

The quote is right on!!

'Danger' can never be eliminated -- a free man will always have to be on the lookout for predators, a slave has already been caught. Runaway slaves face more danger than a free man. But what price is freedom to the slave?

Waffler's obsession with 'authority' is one of the hallmarks of progressivism -- if I am not responsible for my life, then who is?

As for the Nobel prize, the Norwegian parliament determines the Nobel judges, and depending on which party is in power, the agenda of that party is expressed in the choosing of Nobel prize winners. Geil Lundestad, director at the Nobel Institute for 25 years, said in his just-published memoir that he and the committee had unanimously decided to grant the award to Mr. Obama just after his election in 2009 more in hopes of aiding the American president to achieve his goals on nuclear disarmament, rather than in recognition of what Mr. Obama had already accomplished. He expressed regret that the decision had been based in a hope for the future rather than recognition of past accomplishments, and that their expectations for Mr. Obama were not fulfilled.

The Nobel Prize, unfortunately is clearly more political than it is scientific.

Reston epitomizes the progressive, myopic, double-thinking required to prop up the ideal of socialism. The mainstream media -- ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX -- are NATIONALISTIC in their tone and context. Nationalism is the supremacy of the State over the citizen -- the citizen is the subject of the State, whether democratic, monarchical, fascist, communist, whatever -- the State (and whoever is 'in charge') is the boss and can (and does) dictate to the people rules governing what would normally be under the responsibilities of the individual: to feed, house, and clothe oneself, to hunt, gather, produce, and trade, and all the rest ...

The 'establishment' politicians are nationalist statists -- leaning to communism are the establishment Democrats, leaning to fascism are the establishment Republicans.

A true 'republican' government regards the citizen as the origin of all state authority -- the State is hired by the citizens for the mutual protection of the rights they already have. In a republican government, independent and self-determining individuals form counties, which then form a state, then state governments make similar agreements with other republican states into a confederation -- sort of like the UN with each state still sovereign, like the People. In a nationalist government, the State is sovereign, in a republican government the individual is sovereign.

Perhaps we ought to subdivide each party into the nationalist and the 'responsibilitist' -- who believes the State is the boss and who believes the people are the boss?

I think you will find that the political process has been rigged in favor of nationalism, to the point the American citizen (like Reston) no longer thinks of himself as master of his own destiny and responsible for the condition and quality of his/her life, but instead demands to be a ward of the state as a 'right.'

It was understood that the US Constitution did not grant the federal government the power to prohibit the manufacturing, sale, or possession of alcohol within the States -- an Amendment to the Constitution was required with a 3/4 majority of States agreeing. History proved it to be an awful flop, and another Amendment was passed to repeal it -- imagine how hard it is to get an Amendment to the Constitution and then having to go through that process again to undo it!

The problem is that several government bureaus had exploded in size trying to enforce alcohol prohibition, the need of which being removed. In very short time, these agencies were reorganized to enforce marijuana prohibition (called Controlled Substances) under the auspices of the interstate commerce clause, the Uniform Commercial Code.

So somehow, what was unauthorized by the Constitution before is now authorized -- same government bureaus, just a different 'substance.' Everybody keeps their jobs, and the police state continues its growth. This is one of the pillars of American Fascism which has become the de facto form of government in the US.

I think the quote is right on !! The word 'socialism' is tossed around a lot when speaking about 'the State' when the State is considered sovereign and the individuals subjects, but the State in the republican sense is the hired servant of the sovereign people. I believe the contest between these two principles of power is perpetual, and the pendulum continues its swing.

Depending on the 'side' I have chosen, the State is either a protector and promoter, or a lord and master. Note that lord and masters also wish to protect their property and promote their enterprises -- when the State becomes a tool for this arrangement, the people are treated as mere chattel, and privileged classes arise in proportion to their loyalty and contribution to the State. Statism can be socialist, monarchical, aristocratic, democratic, theocratic, fascist, communist -- the commonality of them all is totalitarianism, the supremacy of the State.

A republican form of government is perpetually at odds with a statist form of government. Statists believe that people's behavior, labors, housing, and money require regulation by the State -- anything else is considered anarchy and a threat to the security and welfare of the people (whenever the State refers to the people, it refers to itself) thus the State has a 'right' to compel, intimidate, fine, imprison and execute anyone that threatens its monopoly of power.

The "ordinary happiness of human beings in this life" has NEVER come from totalitarianism -- ever. Most of society's ills are the result of dishonorable collective actions -- we are conned regularly out of our power because we don't want to take responsibility. The churches promise us 'paradise', the governors promise us 'security', the banks promise us 'prosperity', the military promises us 'victory', and the politicians promise us money for votes. We've bought it all, and now we are paying for it. Is it socialism? It's just plain ol' irresponsibility, dishonesty, and GAMBLING.

You want to fix the game? At what price? Just let me handle my own happiness, please, the State has no soul.

If the quote is from a voice interview then maybe it's just poor sentence structure. But an interesting 'mistake' -- "reduce the quality of law enforcement" Indeed! What an Orwellian phrase 'law enforcement.' There is no such thing in a republican form of government. Who has to enforce gravity? What they really mean is 'rules enforcement' and the only rules that can be dictated are for the commercial law jurisdiction, not the common law. Most of the 'rules' do not apply to the common people. AND they make up new rules all the time, even without the authority to do so -- if they have the printing press, they can print up whatever they want. It is left to the JURIES to not enforce a bad rule.

Well said, Mike. 'Question Authority'

The thing to understand is that this is a PERSONAL responsibility -- to take the time to re-evaluate one's principles, attitudes, and purpose. From the moment we come into this world we are learning -- obviously some of what we learned as children were fairy tales used as teaching aids -- learning to make the distinction between what is 'so' and what we 'want' is a good start. But like a losing gambler hoping the next throw of the dice will recoup all his losses, our desires can cloud our reason. DENIAL is the common trait that props up the illusion -- a price has been paid for this fantasy, and facing the lie means facing the real cost -- often lives, liberty, and property, i.e. one's sovereignty, honor, and home (and often not just yours but everyone's).

Standing military indeed!! Man, there sure are a lot of terrorists disguised as ordinary Americans -- good thing we have the government there to protect us!

Watch Citizen Four, the documentary about Edward Snowden. The US and British are essentially tapping all digital communications passing through several communications hubs. The are storing everything, not just meta data, but actual content. All cell phone calls, Skype calls, emails, texts -- everything. It is all cached and saved for future querying -- think it as the NSA's own private Googling of anything that has ever passed through their routers. As well, these agencies are trying to get the security keys of every software service so that if need be, they can decrypt whatever they have cached on-the-fly.

Can't find Hillary's emails? BS! They have them all -- including those sent from any @state.us.gov address, too...