De Tocqueville's Democracy in America

I am told that some of you think I support uncritically America's experiment in democratic government and society. Tonight I want to set the record straight. Most of you know I support a properly democratic society as the appropriate mode of government. I believe such a democracy posits a social contract in which equals have freely entered into agreement neither reflecting nor establishing a relationship of an intrinsic superiority or inferiority that is backed by the law, that is superior to both parties, and operates according to general, impersonal rules. In other words, the United States democracy is a social system composed of equals willingly engaged in a mutually beneficial enterprise. I am convinced the American system with its extension and equalization of liberty offers man the opportunity to achieve his full potential and ensure that individual rights will not become subject to the whims of the a sovereign.

This being said, I cannot uncritically endorse social democracy in the US. I have numerous reserva

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