Vince Conyer has an article at the American Thinker today entitled Britain, Which Birthed American Ideas About Liberty, Has Embraced Despotism. In the article he quotes President Ronald Reagan: "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction." A correlary to this is that getting it back will take much blood and treasure. For politicians who once grabbed for our liberty will be loathe to give it up.
When I grew up, Great Britain was exotic. There were the red telephone booths, Buckingham Palace, black cabs, and, of course, the Bobbies (police) and the Beefeaters. England was the land of Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth I, and Henry IV. For me, Britain was history incarnate.
Obviously, part of that comes from the fact that, as Americans, we share a great deal of history with the British. Not only did we split from Britain in 1776, but our history continued to stay close until modern times…from the US joining Britain in the fight to end slavery to fighting two world wars together to the British Invasion in the 1960s that brought us the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Kinks.
Modern England largely dates back to 1066, when William the Conqueror crossed the English Channel and put the finishing touches on a unification that had been evolving since the Romans abandoned the island in 410 AD. (For clarity, as the terms are often used interchangeably, the United Kingdom (UK) is a sovereign nation comprising England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. “Great Britain” is the largest island in the British Isles, containing England, Scotland, and Wales, but not Northern Ireland.)
The 1,000-year span since has seen Britain, like the rest of the world, evolve—always, however haltingly, in the direction of freedom. This journey began with the Magna Carta, agreed to by King John in 1215. A watershed event in Western culture, it limited the King’s powers and declared he was subject to the law, guaranteed church rights, access to an impartial system of justice, and limited taxes.
I would point out that while Britain gave us our ideas about freedom and liberty, the system of government in Britain is not the same as here. In Britain, the Crown, represented by the king, as the representative of the divine, gave the people the rights it wanted them to have. The people were, and are, subjects of the Crown.
In the United States, the rights of man are given to him by the Creator God, and he lends some them to the Sovereign state for the common good. But he always can take them back when the state acts against his interests. As Thomas Jefferson noted in the Declaration of Independence, men will suffer a lot of abuse rather than revolt. But there comes a time when men must take back their God given rights and throw off the government they have and form a new one. (see below)
Thus, contrast the past with the Britain of today:
The genesis of today’s dystopia began almost three decades ago when immigration took off in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The number of non-EU immigrants averaged over 200,000 per year for a decade and then skyrocketed after 2020. A nation of 55 million in 2000 is today over 65 million, with almost all of that growth coming from immigration, a majority from non-EU nations, particularly from the Middle East and Africa, countries that don’t share British culture or, importantly, religion. (It’s also likely that many of the ostensibly EU immigrants originated in non-EU countries.)
As a consequence, London, home to 20% of England’s population, has gone from approximately 80% native white British in 1991 to approximately 36% in 2021. The native population has surely shrunk more since then.
The result of this transformation of Britain from a largely British nation to something else has been monstrous. Possibly the single most despicable example is the 20-plus-year Rotherham child rape scandal that saw hundreds of Pakistani Muslims rape over a thousand British girls right under the noses of police who did nothing for fear of being called racists. As if that wasn’t bad enough, those who dared report on the various trials—see, e.g., here and here—found themselves jailed for doing so.
There is more to this story, to be sure. No doubt, British politicians, disatisfied with their current electorate decided to import a new electorate. No doubt also the politicians will cover their true motives with vague words that can mean anything like "multiculturalism" and "anticolonialism" and "reparations for colonial abuses." But the proof is in the pudding, and the traditional yeoman British subject finds himself at the bottom of the ladder, and he better shut up about it or else.
Like Turkey and Venezuela before it, Britain demonstrates that a single election can make the difference between freedom and tyranny. As we approach November 5th, we just might want to take note…
*After thoughts: Many in the Roman Church have a problem with the American system of government, based on Paul's epistle to the Romans chapter 13 verse 4. But they read this too broadly and conclude that God appoints rulers and rulers rule over subjects. Thus, the rulers have the power to determine a person's rights by the "Divine Right of Kings." Paul was only referring to just laws in accord with the laws of God. There is ample evidence in the Old Testament that God enjoined rulers to rule justly, without prejudice, and punished those who delivered injustice. Moreover, Jesus himself noted that we were to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And what do we own our God? Nothing less that our complete love, trust and loyalty.
The Popes have styled themselves as the Vicar of Christ and just like Paul's letter to the Romans, believe that Christ passes His authority to His Vicar, who in turn rules the world. In this scheme, we owe our love, trust and loyalty to the Vicar of Christ, and through him to God. He thus imposes himself between the individual and Christ, who is our intercessor to God. I think this is a misreading of the Bible.
Now, nobody has ever completely loved, trusted, nor granted his complete loyalty to God. But the Bible offers glimpses of what it would be like if we could completely empty ourselves and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Jesus stands as the exception because Jesus was God incarnate. And Jesus is pretty clear that faith in Him, and thus salvation is granted to individuals, not to groups. Indeed, there were many that did not believe in him, and others who believed for utilitarian purposes. These Jesus condemned. But, we can draw the conclusion the idea that God grants each individual with rights. And if each individual has rights, he can delegate some of them to a ruler for the common good while retaining others. Therefore, a democratic Republican form of government is possible under Christian principles. But it is not possible under Islam or the many pagan religions.*
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