Deval Patrick Quotes
The status quo is a powerful force.
Deval Patrick, Governor of Massachusetts (Democrat), Speech, Democratic National Convention, Denver, August 26, 2008
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This is the ultimate extreme of conservatism which literally means to conserve what is. Salisbury argues that even if you truly believe that the status quo is bad, you should keep it as the risk of change and unexpected consequence is so great that it is not worth the risk. Interestingly, this is the same mode of thinking which created the command in the Koran for Muslims to live with a terrible Caliph or ruler (unless he is a blasphemer or heretic) rather than risk the instability of regime change. See {590195} and {593076} as examples.
Democracy and a republican form of government ran counter to the Chinese customs and failed, with Yuan Shikai taking all power—the “immemorial custom” of the autocratic Mancho and earlier Chinese dynasties. This failure of republican government in China so colored the future Chinese political leadership that both the Communists and Chang’s Kuomintang Nationalist anti-communists were both dictatorial and autocratic with great power lying in military hands. It was only in the later years of the 20th century that the Nationalists began to have a real democracy and although the Communists became avid capitalists and loosened up in terms of economic freedom, they did not feel the Chinese masses were ready to accept anything but the authoritarian political system that was the Chinese “immemorial custom”. They would not risk another collapse of modern government and all the factions fighting for control as in the Republic failure.
This statement is very revealing in that it illustrates the attitude of the establishment of most developing nations. Traditional change is OK as long as it is not does transformational—ie as long as it does not make any meaningful changes. But modernization requires transformational change; without it there is no major reform and all institutions and power structures remain in their positions.
Deval Laurdine Patrick is an American politician, civil rights lawyer, author, and businessman who served as the 71st governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015. He was first elected in 2006, succeeding Mitt Romney, who chose not to run for reelection to focus on his presidential campaign. He was reelected in 2010. He was the first African American Governor of Massachusetts. A Democrat, Patrick served from 1994 to 1997 as the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division under President Bill Clinton. He was briefly a candidate for President of the United States in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
