Source: Edmund Burke, British political theorist and member of Parliament, Reflections on the Revolution in France,
from a pamphlet published in 1790.
Abstractly speaking, government, as well as liberty, is good; yet could I, in common sense, ten years ago, have
congratulated France on her enjoyment of a government (for she then had a government) without enquiry what the nature
of that government was, or how it was administered? Can I now congratulate the same nation upon its freedom?...
I should therefore suspend my congratulations on the new liberty of France, until I was informed how it had been
combined with government; with public force; with the discipline and obedience of armies, with the collection of an
effective and well-distributed revenue; with morality and religion; with the solidity of property; with peace and order;
with civil and social manners. All these in their way) are good things too; and without them, liberty is not a benefit
whilst it lasts, and is not likely to continue long...
In England, we preserve our native traditions entirely. We fear God; we look up with awe to kings, with affection to
parliaments, with duty to magistrates, with reverence to priests, and with respect to nobility. Why? Because when we
think about the goodness of these traditions, it is natural to feel protective of them. Far from liberating us, turning away
from our institutions would render us unfit for true liberty and would turn us into in an immoral, insolent mob justly
deserving of slavery through the whole course of our lives.

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