No one had more faithfully than Burke himself explained why the Whig oligarchy was obsolete; yet nothing would induce him ever to realize that the alternative to aristocratic government is democracy and that its absence was the cause of that disquiet of which he realized that Wilkes was but the symptom.
Laski critiques Burke's failure to recognize the necessity of democracy over aristocracy in political governance.
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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.
Each age makes some idol in its own image and sacrifices upon its altar the freedom of those who refuse it worship.
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.
To deny novelty or grievance a right of expression is a certain, if, indeed, an ultimate, validation of the truth they contain.
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