And when people are forced to vote on whether everyone should support acts that are considered murderous by many but not a majority, democracy is also infringing on civil rights - even if those rights are not recognized in the United States. In our society, it is a widespread myth that democracy is not totalitarian. Let me be the first to dispel that illusion. A democratic society is and can be a totalitarian one. All that is necessary for this to occur is for it to take decisions that properly belong to the individual and through the threat of force, make them decisions that can be voted on.
Democratic societies are totalitarian whenever they tread on civil liberties.
Given the current trend in our society to take away such liberties from individuals, the totalitarian nature of democracy may initially seem disconcerting. Unfortunately, this feeling does not go away. Our society, while carefully preserving the rhetoric of freedom, is far too democratic. It is incumbent on us, if we are to make America live up to its claims of being the freest nation on earth, to reinvent the notion of civil liberties in our generation and place firm limits on the tyranny of democracy.