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John, civilisation is to be found in the colonies. There are not only the "tinnies" with which Infanteer and I had to make do but you can actually find pubs that can pull you a proper Guiness. Murphy's has been sighted as well. Some of those Ottawa types on this board should be able to point you in the right direction.
Zipper, the answer to where does it all come from ... see John's query. The black stuff seems to lubricate the thought process. Then the ideas just seem to spew forth.
Infanteer, balls in your court, expecting reply ....... sometime.
Agamemnon, I have no intention of getting into an Anglo-Franco dispute. They are not good for my marriage.
And back to Zipper on a serious note:
Your comment about leaning towards the social democrat or French view as opposed to the more libertarian Scots view. That is about par for the course. Many Scots living on the Clydeside would agree with your position. It is important to remember that both in Scotland and in France the same people were debating the same ideas and in many cases adopted the same beliefs. But they also divided on certain other beliefs. So while they could all agree on the need for social justice and equity they came to different positions on God, the Law and Democracy.
Just as the Wars of Religion influenced the European tendency to walk away from God, ending ultimately with Nietzsche and Sartre, so the French Revolution also impacted the track they took.
In the 1600's Britain and France were on parallel courses. The Stuarts and the Louis' were monarchs that were supported by the Catholic church and collectively they supported the concept of a hierarchical power structure that said that authority came from on high and that God was the ultimate source of power and that power was purveyed on Earth by the Catholic Church and the Pope.
Throughout Europe that notion was challenged by the Protestants. But the Protestants were split. There were those of the type like Luther and the Tudors in England that liked the hierarchy well enough but believed that someone other than the Pope should be wielding it. In Britain these Church of England protestants were known as Episcopalians and they supporte rule by the Bishops. The Bishops would appoint ministers to the parishes at the request of the King and they would instruct their flock to support the King. This system appealed to the Stuarts as well as the Tudors.
It also appealed to Louis, who decided to stay Catholic but to ignore the Pope and appoint his own priests.
The other bunch of protestants were the Presbyterians. This group followed Calvin, and Knox, and Zwingli and they found followers in Italy, Switzerland, France, Holland, Scotland and England.
This group were the real threat to Louis and the Stewarts. For they wanted the right to hire and fire their own ministers and found no need to bend the knee to God, much less the Pope or a King. They believed that authority was theirs to give and were quite capable of talking to God on their own. Give them the book and they would find the answer themselves. This wasn't a pleasant prospect for an authoritarian regime.
Charles I had his biggest threat from a group of my ancestors in the Ayrshire, Dumfries, Galloway area. Louis had his from the St-Malo, La Rochelle, Poitou area. In Scotland they were Covenanters, in France they were Huguenots. In France Louis copied one of Charles' big ideas and visited a bunch of Royal troops on the area and had the locals turn over their houses and their daughters to the service of the troops. In Scotland Charles did it on the cheap. He didn't bother to raise troops he couldn't afford. He just invited some "loyal" Highlanders to take up residence in Ayrshire towns and help themselves to the spoils. In Scotland this was known as the Highland Hosting. In France, 40 years later it was the Dragonnades.
The difference between Scotland and France was that in Scotland the Presbyterians won. In France Louis won. He also took on the Dutch, the Swiss and the Savoyards with mixed results.
In Britain, we lopped off Charlie's head and replaced him with a Commoner name of Cromwell. After a few years we discovered that Commoner or Royal a tyrant was a tyrant. Putting a Commoner on the throne was no guarantee of a just society and a peaceful life. Consequently we invited the Royals back and then limited their arbitrary power by tying them to the wishes of the mob. Just the same as we limited the power of the judges. In the case of the judges their powers were limited by the representatives of the mob sitting in the jury, the peers of the accused. In the case of the Crown the representatives of the mob sat in Parliament. The King didn't have any authority without money to raise an army so Parliament kept a tight rein on the purse strings to limit the power of Government. A typically parsimonious Scots solution. Cheap. We then set about making money by setting up trading companies all over the world, like the HBC and the East India Company as well as many in the States.
In France Louis his son and his grandson kept the lid on for a century or so more. Maintaining their divinely authorized right to rule. Eventually they ran out of money and their mob ran out of patience. Off comes a Louis head. And many relatives besides. And many associates. And people that disagreed. And people that had houses that others wanted. And people that didn't look right. Heads off the lot of them. Much blood. Much disorder. All the result of a mob prodded by a bunch of "Enlightened" radicals.
Into this mess steps Napoleon. He brings order but he also brings a control to the arbitrary power of Kings, himself included. He brings the Code Civile, the Napoleonic Code. He determines the Right answer to every situation and appoints tribunals of learned men to adjudicate.
So in Britain we ended up with a system where the power of Government is fettered by the will of the mob, as represented by their Members of Parliament while in Europe generally, where there was a distrust of the mob at all levels of society Power was deemed to be better controlled by constitutions and learned men.
The British system is a system of Democracy. Rule of the people. In particular it is a parliamentary democracy. Rule by the representatives of the people in consultation with the Government.
The European system is a Constitutional Government, and it may or may not be democratic. The judges don't have to listen to the people. They are free to decide according to their own arbitrary discretion on the rights of the case.
Canada under Trudeau became a hybrid child, a constitutional democracy. Trying to be both democratic and just.
That isn't always possible.
The strength of the mob is stability. If the mob all asserts a common position and the Government follows their advice then the Government survives to fight another day. The Government is the people. They are us. The British parliamentary democracy has stood as an institution now for over 300 years. In that time the institution has changed course and form but it has never broken. Britain has prospered.
The Constitutional system has the advantage of being "Right" and "Just". Learned people knowing the right answers act in the best interests of the populace. But unfortunately "to Govern is to decide" as is Judging. And every time you make a decision you upset at least one party, often it is many parties, sometimes in an effort to find a compromise it is all parties. After a while the Judges and the Government are found to be out of step with the mob. Everybody has their own pet reason for hating the arbiters, not all of them are rational But the mob is of one opinion on this fact alone. They, the judges and government, are NOT us. In the last 200 years, in contrast to over 300 years of relative stability in the UK, France has gone through a number of revolutions, republics and monarchies.
Back to the concept of leadership. It serves nothing to give an order, no matter how right it is, if nobody is going to obey you.
The system of parliamentary democracy can be abused both by the mob and by demagogues. It relies on firm rational leadership. Not command but leadership. It is up to the leaders to convince the mob that their leaders are right. But it is a durable government that never separates the mob, us, from our leaders, for any of us can be a leader if his or her neighbours agree.
Constitutional government relies on learned individuals. A separate class of individuals. Individuals that are separated, cloistered and educated with special knowledge. They are, already, not us. When they start making pronouncements they have to overcome a degree of scepticism at least, in some cases hostility.
Parliamentary democracy is the triumph of the Commoner. He or she sits in the House of Commons and applies Common Sense to the problems of the Nation (or State), just as they do when sitting on a jury, judging their peers.
I prefer to live in a land where I am judged by my peers and my peers debate my issues, often coming to an expedient pragmatic solution, than a land where experts come to the Right decision for me.
This, to me is the ultimate outcome of the debates started in Edinburgh and Paris. Do we choose to be governed by experts so that the Right thing is always done, or do we choose to govern in our own name making mistakes along the way. Nobody has yet convinced me that the Experts are less fallible that the experts are less fallible than the mob.
For me the Royals are a living symbol of the society that waded its way through much blood and many compromises to produce the parliamentary democracy that allows me a say in my country's life. They are also a racial, genetic link to my past.
I can understand why others in my new country would not feel the same link of blood ties but I would find it regrettable in the extreme if connection to that history that created our government were lost. Symbols help preserve that connection. At very least I would like to see the Crown maintained as such a symbol. That is why I accept infanteer's proposal as an inevitable minimum.
Cheers again guys,
And I promise to try and limit these rants to once in a rarity.
Zipper, the answer to where does it all come from ... see John's query. The black stuff seems to lubricate the thought process. Then the ideas just seem to spew forth.
Infanteer, balls in your court, expecting reply ....... sometime.
Agamemnon, I have no intention of getting into an Anglo-Franco dispute. They are not good for my marriage.
And back to Zipper on a serious note:
Your comment about leaning towards the social democrat or French view as opposed to the more libertarian Scots view. That is about par for the course. Many Scots living on the Clydeside would agree with your position. It is important to remember that both in Scotland and in France the same people were debating the same ideas and in many cases adopted the same beliefs. But they also divided on certain other beliefs. So while they could all agree on the need for social justice and equity they came to different positions on God, the Law and Democracy.
Just as the Wars of Religion influenced the European tendency to walk away from God, ending ultimately with Nietzsche and Sartre, so the French Revolution also impacted the track they took.
In the 1600's Britain and France were on parallel courses. The Stuarts and the Louis' were monarchs that were supported by the Catholic church and collectively they supported the concept of a hierarchical power structure that said that authority came from on high and that God was the ultimate source of power and that power was purveyed on Earth by the Catholic Church and the Pope.
Throughout Europe that notion was challenged by the Protestants. But the Protestants were split. There were those of the type like Luther and the Tudors in England that liked the hierarchy well enough but believed that someone other than the Pope should be wielding it. In Britain these Church of England protestants were known as Episcopalians and they supporte rule by the Bishops. The Bishops would appoint ministers to the parishes at the request of the King and they would instruct their flock to support the King. This system appealed to the Stuarts as well as the Tudors.
It also appealed to Louis, who decided to stay Catholic but to ignore the Pope and appoint his own priests.
The other bunch of protestants were the Presbyterians. This group followed Calvin, and Knox, and Zwingli and they found followers in Italy, Switzerland, France, Holland, Scotland and England.
This group were the real threat to Louis and the Stewarts. For they wanted the right to hire and fire their own ministers and found no need to bend the knee to God, much less the Pope or a King. They believed that authority was theirs to give and were quite capable of talking to God on their own. Give them the book and they would find the answer themselves. This wasn't a pleasant prospect for an authoritarian regime.
Charles I had his biggest threat from a group of my ancestors in the Ayrshire, Dumfries, Galloway area. Louis had his from the St-Malo, La Rochelle, Poitou area. In Scotland they were Covenanters, in France they were Huguenots. In France Louis copied one of Charles' big ideas and visited a bunch of Royal troops on the area and had the locals turn over their houses and their daughters to the service of the troops. In Scotland Charles did it on the cheap. He didn't bother to raise troops he couldn't afford. He just invited some "loyal" Highlanders to take up residence in Ayrshire towns and help themselves to the spoils. In Scotland this was known as the Highland Hosting. In France, 40 years later it was the Dragonnades.
The difference between Scotland and France was that in Scotland the Presbyterians won. In France Louis won. He also took on the Dutch, the Swiss and the Savoyards with mixed results.
In Britain, we lopped off Charlie's head and replaced him with a Commoner name of Cromwell. After a few years we discovered that Commoner or Royal a tyrant was a tyrant. Putting a Commoner on the throne was no guarantee of a just society and a peaceful life. Consequently we invited the Royals back and then limited their arbitrary power by tying them to the wishes of the mob. Just the same as we limited the power of the judges. In the case of the judges their powers were limited by the representatives of the mob sitting in the jury, the peers of the accused. In the case of the Crown the representatives of the mob sat in Parliament. The King didn't have any authority without money to raise an army so Parliament kept a tight rein on the purse strings to limit the power of Government. A typically parsimonious Scots solution. Cheap. We then set about making money by setting up trading companies all over the world, like the HBC and the East India Company as well as many in the States.
In France Louis his son and his grandson kept the lid on for a century or so more. Maintaining their divinely authorized right to rule. Eventually they ran out of money and their mob ran out of patience. Off comes a Louis head. And many relatives besides. And many associates. And people that disagreed. And people that had houses that others wanted. And people that didn't look right. Heads off the lot of them. Much blood. Much disorder. All the result of a mob prodded by a bunch of "Enlightened" radicals.
Into this mess steps Napoleon. He brings order but he also brings a control to the arbitrary power of Kings, himself included. He brings the Code Civile, the Napoleonic Code. He determines the Right answer to every situation and appoints tribunals of learned men to adjudicate.
So in Britain we ended up with a system where the power of Government is fettered by the will of the mob, as represented by their Members of Parliament while in Europe generally, where there was a distrust of the mob at all levels of society Power was deemed to be better controlled by constitutions and learned men.
The British system is a system of Democracy. Rule of the people. In particular it is a parliamentary democracy. Rule by the representatives of the people in consultation with the Government.
The European system is a Constitutional Government, and it may or may not be democratic. The judges don't have to listen to the people. They are free to decide according to their own arbitrary discretion on the rights of the case.
Canada under Trudeau became a hybrid child, a constitutional democracy. Trying to be both democratic and just.
That isn't always possible.
The strength of the mob is stability. If the mob all asserts a common position and the Government follows their advice then the Government survives to fight another day. The Government is the people. They are us. The British parliamentary democracy has stood as an institution now for over 300 years. In that time the institution has changed course and form but it has never broken. Britain has prospered.
The Constitutional system has the advantage of being "Right" and "Just". Learned people knowing the right answers act in the best interests of the populace. But unfortunately "to Govern is to decide" as is Judging. And every time you make a decision you upset at least one party, often it is many parties, sometimes in an effort to find a compromise it is all parties. After a while the Judges and the Government are found to be out of step with the mob. Everybody has their own pet reason for hating the arbiters, not all of them are rational But the mob is of one opinion on this fact alone. They, the judges and government, are NOT us. In the last 200 years, in contrast to over 300 years of relative stability in the UK, France has gone through a number of revolutions, republics and monarchies.
Back to the concept of leadership. It serves nothing to give an order, no matter how right it is, if nobody is going to obey you.
The system of parliamentary democracy can be abused both by the mob and by demagogues. It relies on firm rational leadership. Not command but leadership. It is up to the leaders to convince the mob that their leaders are right. But it is a durable government that never separates the mob, us, from our leaders, for any of us can be a leader if his or her neighbours agree.
Constitutional government relies on learned individuals. A separate class of individuals. Individuals that are separated, cloistered and educated with special knowledge. They are, already, not us. When they start making pronouncements they have to overcome a degree of scepticism at least, in some cases hostility.
Parliamentary democracy is the triumph of the Commoner. He or she sits in the House of Commons and applies Common Sense to the problems of the Nation (or State), just as they do when sitting on a jury, judging their peers.
I prefer to live in a land where I am judged by my peers and my peers debate my issues, often coming to an expedient pragmatic solution, than a land where experts come to the Right decision for me.
This, to me is the ultimate outcome of the debates started in Edinburgh and Paris. Do we choose to be governed by experts so that the Right thing is always done, or do we choose to govern in our own name making mistakes along the way. Nobody has yet convinced me that the Experts are less fallible that the experts are less fallible than the mob.
For me the Royals are a living symbol of the society that waded its way through much blood and many compromises to produce the parliamentary democracy that allows me a say in my country's life. They are also a racial, genetic link to my past.
I can understand why others in my new country would not feel the same link of blood ties but I would find it regrettable in the extreme if connection to that history that created our government were lost. Symbols help preserve that connection. At very least I would like to see the Crown maintained as such a symbol. That is why I accept infanteer's proposal as an inevitable minimum.
Cheers again guys,
And I promise to try and limit these rants to once in a rarity.
