“By holding out to the people a new right—the right to vote—it becomes possible set on them a radically new duty, a duty that no peasant population would have so readily accepted: the duty to wage war. This was always the justification of the nobility's privilege: they ruled because they fought, and they fought because they ruled.” RightsVotingUniversal SuffrageObligations Author:Daniel Schwindt
“Whether we are speaking of the philosophical history of the concept (universal suffrage) or the contemporary reality of its application, everyone stops somewhere. They all set a limit, even if that limit is the requirement of adulthood (a completely arbitrary classification if there ever was one). This unwillingness to apply the principle completely tells us something: First, it tells us that almost everyone knows that there ought to be some sort of qualification for electoral participation; and second, it tells us that no one knows exactly what this qualification ought to be. Because everyone agrees, even if unconsciously, on the first point—that qualifications there must be—then we can consider this an implicit acknowledgment that universal suffrage, even where it is preached, must be considered a purely sentimental notion which no one is actually willing to implement. We may then set about examining the second point, concerning the necessity and nature of the qualifications that ought to be set before the voting citizen.” DemocracyVotingUniversal Suffrage Book:The Case Against the Modern World: A Crash Course in Traditionalist Thought Source: The Case Against the Modern World: A Crash Course in Traditionalist Thought