For at the back of each governmental act, there is, in his own mind, an active citizen body occupied in judging it with single-minded reference to the law of nature and their own natural rights.
This quote reflects Laski's belief in the active role of citizens in evaluating government actions based on natural rights.
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More from Harold J. Laski
We grant it in religion to deny it in politics; we grant it in politics, to deny it in economic matters.
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.
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…
Each age finds that the incidence of freedom is significant at some special point, and there, once more, the lesson of freedom has to be learned.
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