Saturday, January 8, 2011

"The case against them simply is that when they legislate for all men, they always omit themselves."

The evil of aristocracy is not that it necessarily leads to the infliction of bad things or the suffering of sad ones; the evil of aristocracy is that it places everything in the hands of a class of people who can always inflict what they can never suffer. Whether what they inflict is, in their intention, good or bad, they become equally frivolous. The case against the governing class of modern England is not in the least that it is selfish; if you like, you may call the English oligarchs too fantastically unselfish. The case against them simply is that when they legislate for all men, they always omit themselves.

-Heretics (1905)

2 comments:

  1. Sounds likes the U.S. Congress. That is why Chesterton is so timeless.

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  2. Steve: Thank-you. :-)

    Fr. Larry: Exactly what I was thinking...

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