“The only liberty that is valuable is a liberty connected with order; that not only exists along with order and virtue, but which cannot exist at all without them. It inheres in good and steady government, as in its substance and vital principle.” – Edmund Burke
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Burke’s thought can be difficult to arrive at since you really need to read so many different works to put it all together. In a letter to Archbishop of Nisibi he said also concerning order, “I have ever hated tyranny under all the forms it may assume, and there is none which it cannot take. It is especially odious to me whether it be regal, or ecclesiastical, or military, or judicial or popular. But this does not I flatter myself arise from any mutinous spirit. My abhorrence to the perversion of authority arises from my zealous attachment to it whilst it continues in its proper course. I love order so far as I am able to understand it, for the universe is order.”
True order, or ordered liberty, then does not follow the will of this one, or that group, but is only legitimate within the confines of the God given moral law, its “proper course.” Any law abrogating that moral law is then held to be illegitimate.
I always enjoy Burke’s sound practical sense and this put me in mind of further writing of his so thank you for this.