Excavations


... nothing is more essential to public interest than the preservation of public liberty.

- David Hume



Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Montesquieu on the Greek Referendum

Finally, as in democracies the people seem very nearly to do what they want, liberty has been placed in this sort of government and the power of the people has been confused with the liberty of the people.[1]

Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, 1748



[1] Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws.  Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, tr. and ed. by Anne M. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller and Harold Samuel Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) p. 155 (Part I, Book 11, Chapter 2).  The same can be said for Metro-Vancouver's failed transit plebiscite.

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