Liberal conscience

George Will delivers where he is brilliant.

Welcome to Socialism

This is why intellectual integrity and liberal values matter.

So we can be honest with ourselves when we are acting inconsistent with them.

Conscience is borne of such integrity and values.

Power, in all its soft and hard forms, is checked and challenged by those values and that integrity.

And, over time, it is shaped by them.

And that, and not by legislative, executive, or judicial fiat, is how liberal democracy, and the liberal conscience that underpins it, operates.