As a rule, dictatorships guarantee safe streets and terror of the doorbell. In democracy the streets may be unsafe after dark, but the most likely visitor in the early hours will be the milkman.
ADAM MICHNIKKaczynski appointed a judge to the position of deputy justice minister who had once sentenced current President Bronislaw Komorowski to a prison term.
More Adam Michnik Quotes
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A part of society in our countries would still prefer an authoritarian regime today. These are people with the mentality of Homo sovieticus. But they also exist in France – just think of Le Pen – and even in Finland and Sweden.
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Demagoguery and populism are rampant. We are the illegitimate children, the bastards of communism. It shaped our mentality.
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After the fall of communism in Poland, we had a post-communist as president for two terms: Aleksander Kwasniewski. He was very good. He brought Poland into NATO and the European Union.
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There were free elections in Bulgaria, where the opposition has just won.
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Do you believe in an open society? Then act in the open. Do you believe in a decent and humane society? Then behave decently and humanely.
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We lack a political culture, a culture of compromise. We in Poland, as well as the Hungarians, have never learned this sort of thing.
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Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Arabs can be elected to the parliament in a democratic election.
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I can’t remember any text of mine where I said that one should fight Hitler without violence; I’m not an idiot.
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This is why we will never again say that Chamberlain is no better than Hitler, Roosevelt no better than Stalin, and Nixon no better than Mao Zedong, even if we do condemn Roosevelt for Yalta, Chamberlain for Munich, and Nixon for Watergate.
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The call to finally clean house is a propaganda tool of the right, which tolerates the leftists who it condemns.
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We still have politicians who strive for a different type of country: Kaczynski as well as Orbán in Hungary.
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They want a gradual coup. If Orbán stayed in power in Hungary or if Kaczynski were to win an election in our country, it would be dangerous.
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Today we reject the notion of equality between a regime that belongs to the democratic world – even if it is conservative and disagreeable – and a totalitarian dictatorship, whether its colors are black, red, or green.
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I think it’s always dangerous to make political arguments in a religiously ideological way. And it’s very dangerous to treat as traitors to the American nation those who think differently.
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France can never accept that it is no longer a dominating power in the world of culture. This is true both of the French right and the French left. They keep thinking that Americans are primitive cowboys or farmers who do not understand anything.
ADAM MICHNIK