Of the Ox and the Lion

It is generally assumed that the erasing of all distinctions will usher in the reign of pure democracy.  But the inability of pure democracy to stand for something intelligible leaves it merely a verbal deception.  If it promises equality before the law, it does no more than empires and monarchies have done and cannot use this as a ground to assert superiority.  If it promises equality of condition, it promises injustice, because one law for the ox and the lion is tyranny.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948