I've always considered this term an oxymoron. Anybody who knows anything about Burke gets this. Ideally my students get it as well, given that they should know some of what I know about Burke, which is greater than nothing but shy of authoritative. This term...
burke
Yglesias:But foreign policy questions are McCain's passion, he's chosen to put them at the center of his campaign, and there's really nothing at all Burkean about McCain's take on them..
Charli Carpenter at Duck:My quote, attributed to Edmund Burke, read "the only thing necessary for the persistence of evil is for good people to do nothing." It is commonly quoted.