Posted on 11/29/2001 6:38:35 PM PST by ThJ1800
I'm afraid not, but I will certainly look into it.
"If One Wishes That a Sect of a Republic Live a Long Time, It Is Necessary to Draw It Back Often toward Its Principle."
"May princes know then that they begin to lose [their] state at that hour in which they begin to break the laws and those customs and usages that are ancient and under which men have lived for a long time."
"In all cities and in all peoples there are the same desires and the same humors, and the same as they always were. So it is an easy thing for whoever examines past things to foresee future [things] in each republic and to take those remedies that were used by the ancients, or not finding any used, to think up new ones based on the similitude of events."
"[Men without] fear of God [have] no faith in other men."
"A perfect republic... that will run the whole course ordained by heaven."
"And truly, never was there an ordainer of extraordinary laws to a people who did not recur to God..."
"Our religion has glorified humble and contemplative men more than the active. It has placed the highest good in humility, abjection, and in scorn for human things: that other [ancient Roman] religion placed it in greatness and spirit, in strength of body, and in all the other things apt to make men the strongest. And if our religion asks that you have strength in yourself, it wants you to be more ready to suffer than to do something strong."
"I shall always esteem it not much to live in a city where the laws do less than men, because that fatherland is desirable where possessions and friends can be securely enjoyed, not where they can be easily taken from you, and friends for few of themselves abandon you in your greatest necessity."
A couple other things:
Both Machiavelli and Burke desired a well-ordered state, but sought opposing means to achieve this end. Machiavelli allowed for any means necessary.
Absolutely NOT! Niccolo had a definite plan -- drawn from history and example, the very nature of his conservativism. It was very simple: what has worked will continue to work, such as property rights and religion, per the above.
Niccolo was mostly concerned with the state as a whole, that is, its very existence, not its intrinsic makeup. That, he left to history to define. He was more worried about outer dangers, although he gave great advice on how to keep hold of things inside. But don't lose the perspective of the period's City States -- each against each other, and, of course, Rome.
Viewed through Niccolo's advice in The Prince, the U.S.of A. did a marvelous job of managing the Cold War. A marvelous job.
Then this:
And unlike Machiavelli, Burke required that the church have control over the minds of the rulers that “all persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust” (Ebenstein, 528). One of Burke's quarrels with the French Revolution was that the National Assembly reversed this necessary construction with the "Civil Constitution of the Clergy" by which the assemblymen took over church lands and made the clergy employees of the state. No longer did the church in France hold sway over its rulers, but was now subject to them, but perhaps the worst of the situation was the confiscation ofof church property by the lesser party.
I don't see the same difference between Burke and Nicollo coming from Burke's Revolution . Seems to me Burke objected more than anything to the rejection of the institution as anything else, not so much the philosophy of the religion. He thought it was stupid and counterproductive to take the church's properties and expell its agents -- counterproductive to stability and law, just as Machiavelli would have it.
Well, glad for your discovery -- welcome aboard! These two are imperatives to reality.
PS For my mispeling of the man's first name, go to the profile.
Burke was a genius. He was the intellectual force of the Whig Party in Britain for the second half of the 18th Century. He was a contemporary of the founding fathers in America and like them he was a "classical liberal." He supported America in her dispute with Britain & wrote "On Conciliation with America" in 1770. The Torys in Britain caused and fought the war against America. When the Torys under Lord North fell from power it was the Whigs who made peace. He knew that America would serve as a beacon of liberty to the world and predicted that when liberty was under seige in the old world America would one day protect it.
Ever wonder why American patriots during the revolution called themselves Whigs and those against American independence called themselves Torys? The political views of Burke and the founding fathers were similar.
One of Burke's most unselfish acts was the doomed from the start Impeachment of Warren Hastings. Hastings was Governor of India and had violated the civil rights of Indians and abused his power. He was also a powerful man who directed British forces to victory after victory. Burke acted on principle as a man of conscience. He also supported religious freedom and the rights of the Irish - wildly unpopular positions for the times.
The French Revolution was the issue that divided Burke from the Whig Party then lead by his friend Charles Fox. Burke correctly saw the ugly malignancy at the heart of the French revolution. He ascribed this evil as having it's source with Rousseau. Rousseau was perhaps the worlds first left wing "illiberal." He was a statist who thought private property the root of all evil. In Reflections Burke exposed Rousseau's habit of fathering illigitimate kids then dropping them of at the local orphanage like so much garbage. Burke detested Rousseau the man and Rousseau the political philosopher.
In any event Burke was absolutely right about the French Revolution. In 1790 he correctly predicted the murder of the King and Queen, the reign of terror, and the instability and chaos that would ultimately lead to a Napolean like military dictator.
Burke was a reformer who built upon work previous generations struggled to pass on to the future. He was rightfully fearful of revolutionaries who sought to destroy society and build a new utopian one - which history has shown us can only ben done by eliminating freedom under the totalitarian boot.
"...but conservatives in 2001 should not be conserving the existing norms, but rather be working very hard to change them to their former order.
That's just the point -- exactly what Burked objected to in France of 1792.
It's been some time, but I would guess I dragged them all from De Grazia's "Machiavelli In Hell," which was my intro to the species and the original source of my enthusiasm. The M-Man himself takes patience, btw. Git it, though!
They're all from Prince and Discourses. I'll see what I can find for you. Go to De Grazia, regardless. And do good by Niccolo!
People tend to think that Burke was a Tory. There was a lot of Whig in Burke. Your discussion of Burke's attitude towards religion indicates this Whiggish strain and the parallel to Machiavelli. Disraeli was much more critical of liberalism and Whiggery in theory, though he wasn't opposed to using liberal policies in practice when it suited his aims.
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