Edmund Burke on Power and Other Topics

Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief.

Yea, that pretty much sums it up back then in 1791 when he wrote that quote and now. Human nature hardly ever changes if at all especially when it comes to power.
Edmund Burke was the person who said “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Which is still true. Evil will never give up.
Other interesting quotes of his are:

Manners are of more importance than laws.... Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in.
Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.*
When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.
People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.
Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.
Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.
Society is indeed a contract.... It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.
To drive men from independence to live on alms, is itself great cruelty.^
And having looked to government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them. To avoid that evil, government will redouble the causes of it; and then it will become inveterate and incurable.^
Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.
The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science, because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate. (A criticism of socialism?)
The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.
The great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit to the dominion of the great.

*This is what the Founding Fathers also thought. The difference between liberty and freedom: Freedom + morality = liberty.
^Gee, I wonder what he talking about here. Hmmm……

Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates

Strictly speaking, the pirates' objective was economic more than political. The Barbary ships, in the service of dictatorial strongmen, had the job of holding to ransom foreign vessels plying the Mediterranean. The techniques were those of terror: the pirates perpetrated massacres and took the passengers of some ships hostage so that others would submit and pay tribute in order to travel in peace.

As the nineteenth century began, the young United States had already been the victim of hundreds of attacks against its merchant ships, and it decided to respond, in what would be its first large- scale foreign intervention. It was at this time that Washington assembled a naval force and that the United States, spurred by Thomas Jefferson, committed all available means to ridding itself of this scourge. After several unsuccessful attempts, the U.S. Navy helped free the Mediterranean of a peril that had tormented mariners for centuries.

At the time of its Mediterranean intervention, the United States was an insignificant nation absent from a geopolitical chessboard dominated by Europe: it is no coincidence that during the same period Napoleon Bonaparte sold off territory amounting to one- third of the present lower forty-eight American states to help finance his European campaigns. For its part, the American government decided to fully commit itself to a costly military campaign, whereas the Europeans had preferred to negotiate [my emphasis] with the Barbary dictators, incident by incident. But Jefferson had already understood what his successors would take more than a century to grasp: that America's interests were not confined to its national territory.

Source: The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to al Qaeda (2007)  by Gérard Chaliand and Arnaud Blin (editors)

--------------------------------------------------------

Negotiating with or appeasing evil (yes, I am calling these pirates evil) encourages more evil. It doesn’t ever make it go away. That’s what the Europeans back then and even before WWII never understood. Winston Churchill’s predecessor negotiated with Hitler. Hitler just laughed at the guy. Heck Hitler even broke his pact with the Soviet Union. I guess those appeasers can’t recognize evil for what it is. This is still a problem today.

I wonder what got the Muslim Barbary Pirates back then ticked off at America and the West back then. We didn’t occupy any of their lands back then. We were just minding our own business. And President George W. Bush wasn’t president back then.

One last thought. The editors makes an interest point about Jefferson. He wasn’t an isolationist. A good hypothetical question to presidential candidates: If you were Jefferson giving his situation what actions would you have take? I can take a good guess what Bush would have done.