Friday, February 11, 2011 :::
 
And so we have again the Spirit of Revolution loose upon the face of the earth.  In bidding farewell to Hosni Mubarak, no person of any sensibility whatsoever should shed a single tear.  But let slip, please, only a few cheers for Egypt's new masters.

A Mind That Suits will here do what he did upon the news that Saddam Hussein had fallen, and that is reproduce the words that flowed from the pen of Edmung Burke in 1789. Many felt that it was bliss indeed to be alive in that dawn; Mr. Burke saw clearly that the Seine could flow red with blood, as it did.  If one is to lay claim in any way to the title "conservative," these must be the dominant emotions one feels on these occasions.

He will take a second to add that any Christian and any believer in real liberty must take heed of what Rich Lowry of the National Review wrote this morning, which may be read here.

And now, Edmund Burke:

When I see the spirit of liberty in action, I see a strong principle at work; and this, for a while, is all I can possibly know of it. The wild gas, the fixed air is plainly broke loose: but we ought to suspend our judgments until the first effervescence is a little subsided, till the liquor is cleared, and until we see something deeper than the agitation of the troubled and frothy surface. I must be tolerably sure, before venture publicly to congratulate men on a blessing, that they have really received one. Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings. 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 the solidity for property; with peace in order; with civil and social manners. All these (in their way) are good things too; and, without them, liberty is not a benefit while it lasts, and is not likely to continue long. The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations, which may soon be turned into complaints. Prudence would dictate this in the case of separate insulated private men; but liberty, when men act in bodies, is power. Considerate people, before they declare themselves, will observe the use which is made of power; and particularly of so trying a thing as new power in new persons, of whose principals, tempers, and dispositions, they have little or no experience, and in situations where those who appear the most stirring in the scene may possibly not be the real movers.

::: posted by A Mind That Suits at 1:29 PM


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What doesn't kill me, makes me laugh... usually.