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| Britain |
| The Destruction Of England |
| 2006-03-25 |
| (original opinion) England is at an impasse. The divide between them and the Continent is far wider and deeper than the Channel. It goes back to their very roots as a nation. It is the Common Law. It is their English way. Continental Europe, and the EU, are products of Roman and Napoleonic Law. Likewise, it is their very definition, their foundation, meagre and flawed as it is. Their society is permeated with it. It is their, Continental way. And the two systems are not compatible. Common Law is the "round peg", and Roman Law is the "square hole". The round peg cannot fit within the square hole unless it is destroyed. And England's government, and both political parties, are willing, even enthusiastic, to destroy England to make it conform to the Continental way, the Roman Law. They have so given up on the English way, are in such contempt of their own history and the Common Law, that they are willing to try reduce their people to generic nothings, so that they can belong to Europe. To strip from their people everything that they are as a people, with a sneering contempt for their Englishness, and to make of them Europeans. That is why England is moving towards authoritarianism. In its continual, unyielding and voluntary effort to *force* their nation to be something it *cannot* be, it achieves a situation of "velvet despotism". Not ironically, the brutal social consequences of these efforts are seen in skyrocketing alcoholism, despondency and despair. Their government, perplexed by it all, wants so badly to be part of Europe, because it loves Europe, that it has become monstrous to its own people. They are stubborn beyond description in their arrogance. They do not want a son, they want a daughter. So each day they force their son to dress and act like a girl. They give their son only girl's toys. They tell everyone they know that their son is their daughter. They rant for hours to their son about the inherent evils of boys, and hypnotize them until they, themselves, parrot the lie. But the truth cannot be denied. An Englishman is English, a race, and a creature of the Common Law. He is not Hindu or Moslem, or someone of African descent from Jamaica. Such people who live in England are just copies of what the English really are. People who were raised in the English way, many of whom profoundly admire and accept this way. Many who are likewise creatures of the Common Law. Even their cousins, the Americans, too, are like the English. But they are still not English. So how much of England must be destroyed until the English are no longer English? This is the daily question their government faces. Their government willingly faces, even looks forward to. The next possibility on the agenda. The next social experiment. The next dehumanization. And all for the greater good of belonging to a Europe unwilling to cede even a hair's breadth of their Roman Law traditions or national cultures. A Europe aghast even at the suggestion that the Rights of Man outweighs the prerogatives of the state, or that the very authority to govern descends from the people and not the elites, born, raised, and educated to power. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #7 Well, in a manner of speaking, they are. For example, if you look at the English language, you will see that it is permeated through and through with references to the King James Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and Shakespeare. If you try to excise those sources, the language is diminished considerably. In fact, most English speaking people would struggle terribly just to try and communicate. And the same with Common Law. It is so intertwined with business, customs & courtesies, criminal and civil matters, etiquette, even education itself, that there is no way around it. Social behavior collapses when the social contract is torn up. Which is why Britain is so miserable trying to adapt to Continental ways. Thousands of things that people "just did" before, now they have to ask permission from some appointed person they neither know, nor respect, nor should. And the most aggravating part of it all is that there is no reason for the added bureaucracy, other than "because we say so." For this reason, the expression "Brussels bureaucrat" has almost become an epithet in Britain. Nameless, faceless people far away who rule without accountability or conscience. Does Britain face a revolution? Perhaps not yet. Their ability to tolerate amazingly oppressive situations is legendary. But then, something snaps. In past, it was the poll tax that did it. Sooner or later, they will trod too hard on "The rights of free-born Englishmen". |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-03-25 21:36 |
| #6 I agree re: common law, 'Moose. Perhaps I was misreading you, but I took you to say that people are pretty determined by their ancestors' culture. If that were the case then I would be a Russian autocrat, from my father's side, and he would have embraced common law here even less warmly. But that wasn't the case at all for him and his brothers, born here of immigrant parents. They chose to come here and willingly embraced the legal culture here. I think you're right about the trend to impose a uniform EU-ness on Britain. It is not a positive trend, IMO. |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-03-25 20:39 |
| #5 lotp: I specified the English for a few reasons, everything from common law origins in the tribes of Gaul, Viking-Norman influences, Welsh, Irish and Scottish Law, Black's Law and the precedents of the Assizes, etc. Pretty soon it would overwhelm my point. So tacitly, I just took English post-Civil War Common Law as the clearest and most influential example to compare with post-Napoleonic era Roman Law. Both have been relatively stable as systems of law for about 350 and 200 years, respectively. Recognizing that both, in truth, are far more ingrained in their respective cultures than that brief time. It is truly arrogance to assume that you can change perhaps 2000 years of culture in a people in a few generations. And yet, the basic concept of Europeanization is that all local customs, traditions, and practices be eliminated to produce a generic European, equally grey and at home in any part of Europe. A melting pot of sludge. And yet Britain has become confused. In trying to "get along" with the Continent, they are not just surrendering their colour, and those things that lead to armed conflict, but they are surrendering to the process. That is, Common Law is just, philosophically and practically, a better system than is Roman Law. It is foolish to give up a better, more efficient way of living, as much as if we surrendered our laws and embraced Sharia Law. Common Law is fairer, more equitable, more conducive to creativity and business, and is filled with means to challenge the inefficient, the flawed, and the unfair. To Americans who have studied American Revolutionary history, it seems that our entire revolt was an exercise in explaining the modern pricipals of Common Law. Our founding documents are explanations of why and how it is a better system. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States with its Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers, and a hundred other major documents are an astounding lecture on why Common Law, and not Royal Law or Roman Law, is better. As a glaring contrast look to Roman Law, and the feeble document that was supposed to be the European Constitution. It is a document of, by and for the bureaucrat, an effort in a bizarre way to create the legal basis for *everything* that is, and what might be. Insanity. This is because, just the opposite of Common Law, in Roman Law, if an activity is not expressly permitted by law, then it is forbidden. In Germany, it is a running joke that they have a police regulation for everything, and everything requires a permit, in triplicate. The European Consitituion has no Bill of Rights, though they insist that within some unsurmountable paragraph in there somewhere that it actually gives more rights, next to the regulation governing the proper amount and type of food to feed a cow. It has the simple message, that all laws, if not people, are equal before the bureaucracy and the state. Since the state issues laws to the people, like guaranteed welfare checks, there is only the assurance that the bureaucracy will continue to do its bureaucratic thing. And that is the "right" of the masses, of man. To be ruled over. How is this any different in substance than being ruled by a king and his court? Democracy is supposed to be the rule of the people; which is why the Eurocrat abhors it so, and does not wish it on his office. He was raised to be a bureaucrat, he attended the polytechnic, which all bureaucrats must attend to become bureaucrats, the elite. Why should his actions be scrutinized by people with no training or knowledge of government? He is not "of the people", he is "above the people", and this is the Roman Law way. For the British to abandon Common Law in favor of Roman Law is, again, as if they had decided to embrace Sharia Law, an act of foolishness. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-03-25 20:16 |
| #4 "Even their cousins, the Americans, too, are like the English." If anything, the divide is between the Continentals and the Americans, and the English are the cousins of the Americans. The cousins are transitioning from monarchy to EU authoritarianism. Velvet despotism indeed. |
| Posted by: Darrell 2006-03-25 19:25 |
| #3 I will disagree with Moose on this: An Englishman is English, a race, and a creature of the Common Law. He is not Hindu or Moslem, or someone of African descent from Jamaica. Such people who live in England are just copies of what the English really are. People who were raised in the English way, many of whom profoundly admire and accept this way. Many who are likewise creatures of the Common Law. Even their cousins, the Americans, too, are like the English. But they are still not English. It is the culture more than anything that matters IMO. Although it is telling, 'Moose, that you write "English" rather than "British". For surely you are aware that Britain has been made up primarily of the Welsh (the original Britons) plus those relative newcomers the English (Angles and Saxons) and the Scots (Irish Gaels intermixed with Picts). And these merged over more than a thousand years to form the English culture and common law you cite. Now, you might say I'm a little sensitive to this since I have some Welsh ancestry. But the point is broader than that. 'English' common law is rooted in part in the ancient Welsh and Scots traditions of local assemblies as well as in the tribal customs of the invading Angles and Saxons and Jutes from 1600 years ago. I'm not trying to nit pick. I think this matters terribly for our current situation around the world. Those in Britain who are embracing the continental model might well be ethnic English for generations back -- but they are no longer CULTURALLY English. Which I think is your main point. |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-03-25 15:08 |
| #2 In the context of moose's post, the distinction is meaningful. Common Law is bottom up law creation as opposed to the Civil Law which is top down. The continentals are just ethnic groups that aren't united because they won't use the same language. Chiraq's hissy fit over a speech being given in English is worthy of any Iraqi politician. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-03-25 14:46 |
| #1 Europeans don't exist; they are an abstract construct from the EU's post-nationalist tranzis. There are european *people*, *Nations*, but they are being dissolved into that new concept of Europeans as well. This is not just the english here. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-03-25 14:34 |