Government, he does not doubt, is a trust, or, as he prefers, somewhat oddly, to call it, a quasi-contract; but that does not mean that the actual governors can be dismissed when any eccentric happens to take exception to their views.
Laski discusses the concept of government as a trust, emphasizing the importance of accountability among rulers.
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Ultimately, that denial is always made upon the same ground: it is insisted that the doctrines or practices attacked are subversive of the civil order.
When attacks on liberty are political or economic, it is their motive rather than their nature that changes.
Each age makes some idol in its own image and sacrifices upon its altar the freedom of those who refuse it worship.
The intolerance may be Catholic, when it insists that a unity of outlook is essential for the preservation of society; or it may be Protestant when, as with Calvin and the Socinians, it holds that the blasphemous nature of the belief…
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