“In the mythology of the modern presidential campaign, nothing looms larger than the debates...[H]istory suggests that these events won’t be as influential as the pundits or TV ratings suggest. In fact, in the past 50 years, they have not flipped the outcome of a single presidential election....[T]he real battlefield is not the debate stage.” – Nate Cohn, There You Go Again: The Meaningless of Debates, The New Republic, October 4, 2012.
EDMUND BURKE
Edmund Burke -- the great eighteenth century British statesman -- was both a liberal and a conservative. For a relatively concise but complete profile of Burke, and an explanation of why by today's standards Burke may be considered either a liberal or a traditional conservative -- but emphatically not a libertarian, neoconservative, or social conservative -- read Professor Bogus' article Rescuing Burke, 72 Missouri Law Review 387 (2007).
Here are some quotes from Edmund Burke:
"We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature, and the means perhaps of its conservation."
"Society become a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are dead, and those who are to be born."
"The individual is foolish; the multitude, for the moment is foolish, when they act without deliberation; but the species is wise, and, when time is given to it, as a species it always acts right."
"Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself; and he a right to all which society, with all its combinations and skill and force, can do in his favor. In this partnership all men have equal rights; but not to equal things."
EDMUND is a blog by Professor Carl T. Bogus.