Social issues seem to bring out the senator's worst tendencies to paint a word picture in shades of gray and equivocation.

What lesson do we learn by indulging our worst voyeuristic tendencies?

Capitalism, he reasoned, needed to be saved at times from its worst tendencies.

He has developed a bad tendency to say yes to everything.

The theater, he once wrote, saved him from "a very bad suicidal tendency."

In other words, if words have a "bad tendency" they can be punished.

Finally, we are taking care to get rid of a number of bad, protectionist tendencies.

It does not seem to me necessary to encourage and adopt these bad tendencies for ourselves.

So each side helps restrain the worst tendencies in the other.

The concept of bad tendency was used to justify the restriction of speech.