A people very rarely hears two sides of a subject in which it is much interested; the popular organs take up the side which is acceptable, and none but the popular organs in fact reach the people.
Walter Bagehot: “A people very rarely hears two sides of a subject in which it is much interested; the popular organs take up the side…”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot observes that the public rarely hears multiple perspectives on issues of great interest to them.
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Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner.
Subject to this saving remark, however, I not only admit, but maintain, that our Constitution is full of curious oddities, which are impeding and mischievous, and ought to be struck out.
The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
The casual line was traced according to the strength of deceased combatants; succeeding generations fought elsewhere; and the hesitating line of a half-drawn battle was left to stand for a perpetual limit.





