Michael Ignatieff
Michael Ignatieff
Michael Grant Ignatieff, PCis a Canadian author, academic and former politician. He was the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition from 2008 until 2011. Known for his work as a historian, Ignatieff has held senior academic posts at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and Toronto...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth12 May 1947
CountryCanada
state wait
I don't think you'll have to wait long. I'm not in a Hamlet-like state of indecision.
crazy drives enormous experience fantastic government senator skills slightly states united
I've always thought Anne-Marie Slaughter would make a fantastic United States Senator or something. She's a real intellectual, but she's got enormous communicative skills and she's got government experience. The thing that drives me slightly crazy is the way we think about intellectuals as wooly, hopeless, arrogant, self-deceived, incapable.
want world states
There are lots of nations in the world or national peoples who don't yet have states. They're inside someone else's state and they want a state of their own.
allow case democratic neither prove states suspension thus
Democratic constitutions do allow some suspension of rights in states of emergency. Thus rights are not always trumps. But neither is necessity. Even in times of real danger, political authorities have to prove the case that abridgments of rights are justified.
good state ultimate
The ultimate good in a liberal state is liberty.
alive china model republic state
Communism may be over as an economic system, but as a model of state domination, it is very much alive in the People's Republic of China and in Putin's police state.
criticism learn promises respect toward work
I respect the work Mr. Harper has done to learn French, to make a 'gesture' toward Quebec. My criticism of him is that he's making promises I don't think he can keep.
appears canadian-politician chief concern giving moral precision weapons
My chief concern about the way we're going is that new technology, precision weapons technology, appears to be giving us a new moral alibi.
harry truman
Some of our finest leaders were not intellectuals at all, and I admire them enormously because they weren't. Harry Truman wasn't.
almost canadian-politician country defined feeling intense national
Nationalism could almost be defined as intense national feeling for a country that does not yet exist, or for someone else's country.
founding james laws learned lincoln understood
Lincoln was not an intellectual, but no one in 200 years understood the language of the King James Bible or learned Blackstone's Laws of England, or Cicero, or the language of the Founding Fathers, better than he did.
destinies lives parts scots similarly thousands ukraine welsh
There are hundreds of thousands of Scots who acknowledge English, Irish or Welsh parts of their very being. Lives and destinies are similarly intertwined in Catalonia and Spain, in Ukraine and Russia.
canadian firmly plant standard
We have got to plant our standard firmly on the centre-left of Canadian politics.
almost call cry foul politics teams trouble
Trouble is, we call politics a game, but it isn't one. There is no referee, and the teams make up the rules as they go along. You can't cry foul or offside in politics. Almost anything goes.