Benjamin Disraeli Quotes
Party is organized opinion.
1st Earl of Beaconsfield
Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-1881, British Prime Minister (Tory), Speech, Oxford, November 25, 1864
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Of the different kinds of political parties, the one that was formed on principles was at that time a new notion. Hume was particularly skeptical of those as the tended not to be as amenable to compromise as parties unified by simple vested material interests.
Essentially Trollope claimed that English political parties are by their very nature, conservative, in the sense that they tend to resist great change. This has tended to be true in America and other democracies, but there are a number of exceptions. Where political parties are totally unsuccessful, they have little to lose. Likewise, when a political party becomes overwhelmingly dominant, it tends to overreach and try and make ideological change. However when there is true contest among the parties, they tend to be conservative in the sense that even if they are liberal parties, they do not move in extreme ways.
Every sect of Russian communism had an offshoot in America and in other countries as well. When bad blood broke out between sects in Russia, the battle spread to the rest of the world as when Leon Trotsky was assassinated by Stalinists in Mexico and the Trotskyites were viciously and physically attacked here in America. In many cases there was little ideological difference but the split reflected different leadership styles and personalities. Despite Frank’s warning, American communism was a mirror reflection of Russia until Stalin negotiated the WWII pact with Hitler, when anti-Stalin Communists began to be active, and because America was a more open society, American communists were ahead of their Russian comrades in denouncing Stalinism.
This was a new political phenomenon where a President was perceived as more important, more powerful, and preferable to his party. Note that the base of the scale is labeled “Public Opinion”.
The British Conservative Party was attacking the Liberal government for not dealing with the threat of German air power in the form of Zeppelins flying to England. The Germans were outraged at such freedom of the press at their expense. See {609907}.
At the time the Republican party was a minor, third party and Douglas was disparaging that. While Douglas' general point has held true, the Republicans supplanted the Whigs as the second major party shortly thereafter.
Opposition to the Bolsheviks
Early political philosophers were very concerned about the conflicts that would be engendered in society by political parties. Many of the Founding Fathers had similar suspicions.
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, MP, FRS, was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, serving in 1868 and from 1874 to 1880. He was a member of the British Conservative Party and played a central role in the creation of the modern Party, defining its policies and its broad outreach. Disraeli is remembered for his influential voice in world affairs, his political battles with the Liberal Party leader William Ewart Gladstone, and his one-nation conservatism or "Tory democracy". He made the Conservatives the party most identified with the glory and power of the British Empire. He is the only British prime minister to have been of Jewish birth. He was also a novelist, publishing works of fiction even as prime minister.
