corrente

Inspired by Tresy (below) I thought I'd gather a garland of quotations from an authentic conservative, Edmund Burke. The National Review types surely know the man, and know the words; I'm not even going to bother to highlight the relevant parts. Are they capable of being ashamed of themselves for supporting Bush in his shameful and unconstitutional expedients?

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts.
(via EDMUND BURKE, letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, April 3, 1777)

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites,—in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity,—in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption,—in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
(via EDMUND BURKE, “Letter to a Member of the National Assembly,” 1791)

Fraud and prevarication are servile vices. They sometimes grow out of the necessities, always out of the habits, of slavish and degenerate spirits…. It is an erect countenance, it is a firm adherence to principle, it is a power of resisting false shame and frivolous fear, that assert our good faith and honor, and assure to us the confidence of mankind.
(via EDMUND BURKE, “Letters on a Regicide Peace,” letter 3, 1796–1797)

The particulars that make all these quotations relevant to the present day should be obvious for those with eyes to see.

Have they no decency? At long last, have they no decency?