On the record
I do not think a government can be left to the not always tender mercies of an orator with a grievance to exploit.
Said by
Harold J. Laski
Source
gutenberg.orgHarold J. Laski: “I do not think a government can be left to the not always tender mercies of an orator with a grievance to exploit.”
Editor's note · Context
Laski expresses concern about the dangers of orators exploiting grievances to sway crowds.
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More from Harold J. Laski
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…
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.
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.
We grant toleration in one part of the field only to deny it in another.
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