Teach a child year in and year out that the American Constitution is the ultimate embodiment of political wisdom and you increase tenfold the difficulty of rational and necessary amendment by the generation to which that child belongs.
Laski critiques the uncritical reverence for foundational political documents and its implications for democratic evolution.
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It has been the historic character of persecution always to degrade the persecutor and to strengthen the persecuted by drawing attention to their claims.
We grant it in religion to deny it in politics; we grant it in politics, to deny it in economic matters.
The essence of the persecuting position is always that the persecutor has hold of truth and that he would betray its service by allowing it to be questioned.
He is able, accordingly, to indulge in the twofold luxury not only of preserving his own authority, but also of assisting the persons attacked to enter, if they so choose, the way of truth.
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