Wednesday 9 November 2011

Maybe it's time again

The Bill of Rights
Over at EU Referendum, guest poster Sandy Rham gives a potted account of the Bill of Rights that holds this interesting observation (emphasis added):
Lawyers will try and persuade you that since GB has no written Constitution it has no Constitution. This is not so, we have 'Constitutional Documents' of which by far the most important are the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Rights 1688, the result of James II demise. The reason these carry more weight is that in both cases the Rule of Law had broken down and the documents represented the conditions under which the rebels would give their Consent to the Rule of Law.
With the illegal Junta in power and her majesty unwilling to dismiss them, the rule of law has certainly been tossed out the window, so maybe it's time that those conditions be announced again.

2 comments:

eon said...

It's not going to happen. Simply put, the government has no fear of the "will of the people", because the people have no means to enforce their will. Ditto the Sovereign.

Britain has put all power in the hands of nameless bureaucrats,and the parade of prats which passes for their PMs these days, and her peoples' recourse is quite limited.

If they vote in a way their leaders don't like, their leaders are free to ignore them- or have them locked up if they protest too much. Not so much because the EU will back the leaders up, but because the British people have no arms with which to make their objections stick.

There, I've said it. Call me a kill-crazy redneck Yank, but as H. Beam Piper observed (through his hero Lucas Trask re Marduk in "Space Viking"), if the peoples' rights are not secured by arms in their hands, they are only free on sufferance. Said freedom to be revoked as it pleases, or is convenient for, the government.

The British people's "choice" in government right now is reminiscent of the 1920s-30s round robin of MacDonald, Baldwin, and Chamberlain. Like that idiot trifecta, all of their "choices" now espouse the same philosophy, just wearing different party buttons while doing so. Even the present lot's goals are the same; making Britain a "thought leader" in some sort of Wonderful World of Socialist Everything.

When the programs fail and the bills come due anyway, I expect that the government will be looking for scapegoats, as governments like this are wont to do.

The British people should be very aware of that, and consider that they are at the head of the "To Be Blamed" list.

cheers

eon

Sergej said...

Well, times be a-changin'. I don't think the EU is going to stand much longer, not in its current form. When times were good, it could afford to include less productive economies, but unless things straighten out a lot, I expect the thing to either trim down to France and Germany (and Britain?), or collapse altogether. Countries will have to start to look out for themselves again. Interesting times. I wouldn't be surprised if the countries of Europe decided to stay friends but give each other more room---or if they kind of looked at each other, said, "you know, it's been a long time since we've had a proper war", and just fell to murdering everyone in sight.