post 4:lessons(cont'd)

It seems to me that the citizen who lives under a system that assures him not only voting rights but extensive guarantees for the inviolability of his person and property and who accepts the protection of the state in the enjoyment of these rights, owes to the state at least a high measure of respect and forbearance in those instances where he may not find himself in agreement with its policies.
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George F. Kennan

POST3:lessons(cont'd)

Respect for the law is not an obligation which is exhausted or obliterated by willingness to accept the penalty for breaking it.
:Keenan

POST 2:lessons(cont'd)

“If you accept a democratic system, this means that you are prepared to put up with those of its workings, legislative or administrative, with which you do not agree as well as with those that meet with your concurrence. This willingness to accept, in principle, the workings of a system based on the will of the majority, even when you yourself are in the minority, is simply the essence of democracy. Without it there could be no system of representative self-government at all. When you attempt to alter the workings of the system by means of violence or civil disobedience, this, it seems to me, can have only one of two implications; either you do not believe in democracy at all and consider that society ought to be governed by enlightened minorities such as the one to which you, of course, belong; or you consider that the present system is so imperfect that it is not truly representative, that it no longer serves adequately as a vehicle for the will of the majority, and that this leaves to the unsatisfied no adequate means of self-expression other than the primitive one of calling attention to themselves and their emotions by mass demonstrations and mass defiance of established authority.”
George F. Kennan; Democracy and the Student Left; Hutchinson, London
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counterpoint on agitational methods against corruption:lessons from history:post 1

“It is quite possible for this newborn democracy to retain its form but to give place to dictatorship in fact. If there is a landslide, the danger of the second possibility becoming actuality is much greater.

“If we wish to maintain democracy not merely in form, but also in fact, what must we do? The first thing in my judgment we must do is to hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives. It means we must abandon the bloody methods of revolution. It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, noncooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us” ( Constituent Assembly Debates, Vol. XI, page 978).DR.BR AMBEDKAR.November 25, 1949.

DELHI BOY-REPOSTE!

Must unabashedly admit guilty to the charge of plagiarism at the title of my post.Was fascinated at the blog of Ms.Shah and even more by the huge reactions to it.Since I  fancy myself to something of a thinker and occasional writer,cannot hide the temptation of reacting to the blog of madame Shah.Am not pasting reaction to the blog on Ms.Shah's blog since she is already tired of her celebrity status (she writes she does not care to read reactions to her action-ASTONISHING -even God hasn't reached that stage yet!).But laudable if you brush aside my "sick"sense of humor and remind me about what people would not do in this country for their 15 minutes of fame.So folks here is to me-the new kid on the block-raking up his own controversy by these wicked words-for those who have a similar pathetic sense of humor as I have there is more to follow.Watch this space.