I argue, therefore, that voluntary bodies are entitled outside the realm where their ideas and conduct are intended directly to alter the law, or to arrest the continuity of general social habits, to believe what they please and to practise what they please.
Laski argues for the rights of voluntary organizations to operate freely unless they directly challenge the law.
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More from Harold J. Laski
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.
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.
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.
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