Americans and British, Two Views of the Same Problem

Robert Cecil (Marquis of Salisbury) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The other day we were discussing the terrorism incident in London this week over at Jess’s Watchtower . Our normal complement there on this type of subject is about half-American and half British and we’ve become very good friends, who don’t pull punches . In other words we quite often bluntly state our minds and expect the same, it’s done with respect, and in truth there is at least as much light as smoke generated. How we sort out depends on the subject and is not very predictable, since we are all quite individualistic, sharing mostly that we love God and our countries. It’s a fun group and you should join us.

But this discussion above all broke down into national lines. Every Brit was resigned to waiting 20 minutes helplessly for the police, and every American was thunderstruck by the idea and incensed by the slow response time. Some of us thought that the policewoman should have shot better as well, although many of us thought she did OK.

At one point I was asked what in the world we were talking about when we used those contractions we are so familiar with, you know, PD, LEO, and CCW. But what left me with a rather hopeless feeling was this comment by one of the Brits, a distinguished educator, educated beyond my dreams, and an effective, not to say forceful, leader

“We are entirely dependent upon the Police”

It’s true of course, most of us have read of British subjects sentenced to life in prison for defending themselves in their home from an armed assailant. And I’m certain I speak for most American when I say, with that system, you are not free. To me and most likely to my compatriots it brings to mind a phrase that Thomas Jefferson used.

“Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.”

Which translates as, “I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude.”

Because you see, as Americans, we believe that our “Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness” is for us to secure, not the government, for that way lies tyranny

And yet, Britain is amongst the most free countries in the world, and in truth we are the utopians here, we are also the reactionaries. For we are the one who tend to believe with the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury that

There is no danger which we have to contend with which is so serious as an exaggeration of the power, the useful power, of the interference of the State. It is not that the State may not or ought not to interfere when it can do so with advantage, but that the occasions on which it can so interfere are so lamentably few and the difficulties that lie in its way are so great. But I think that some of us are in danger of an opposite error. What we have to struggle against is the unnecessary interference of the State, and still more when that interference involves any injustice to any people, especially to any minority. All those who defend freedom are bound as their first duty to be the champions of minorities, and the danger of allowing the majority, which holds the power of the State, to interfere at its will is that the interests of the minority will be disregarded and crushed out under the omnipotent force of a popular vote.

Still many of us also believe along with Gladstone

But let the working man be on his guard against another danger. We live at a time when there is a disposition to think that the Government ought to do this and that and that the Government ought to do everything. There are things which the Government ought to do, I have no doubt. In former periods the Government have neglected much, and possibly even now they neglect something; but there is a danger on the other side. If the Government takes into its hands that which the man ought to do for himself it will inflict upon him greater mischiefs than all the benefits he will have received or all the advantages that would accrue from them. The essence of the whole thing is that the spirit of self-reliance, the spirit of true and genuine manly independence, should be preserved in the minds of the people, in the minds of the masses of the people, in the mind of every member of the class. If he loses his self-denial, if he learns to live in a craven dependence upon wealthier people rather than upon himself, you may depend upon it he incurs mischief for which no compensation can be made.

And in practical terms, there is something else. In a free country, the police are a reactive force, it cannot be otherwise. It is not their function to prevent crime, except possibly by deterrence. The prevention of crime is the responsibility of the citizen, to be aware, to report, and to be able to survive. As we here are so fond of saying

When you need the police in seconds, they are only minutes away

It’s true and it can not be otherwise, unless you would like a policeman stationed in your living room, personally I’ll pass, and take of myself.

And a hint for all of you Politically Correct people out there (on both sides of the Atlantic) until we talk honestly about the problem it continues,

Once we recognize it, like here on The Five then we can begin to solve it. But first we have to define the problem and lack of definitions is one of the problems.

Know thy enemy

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Soldier of the Queen

Drummer Lee “Rigger” Rigby

The British soldier brutally killed in London in a Islamist attack was a drummer in a military band who had served in Afghanistan, officials said on Thursday. Lee Rigby, 25, known as “Riggers” to his friends, was killed in broad daylight on Wednesday

And so we find out this week that Nigerian so-called men have taken the role that Afghan women filled so well, as Kipling told us.

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
   An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
      Go, go, go like a soldier,
      Go, go, go like a soldier,
      Go, go, go like a soldier,
         So-oldier of the Queen!

Except, of course, these animals haven’t the courage of the Afghani women, to face a British soldier in the field, far better to ambush him in London, where he’s in his comfort zone, not to mention unarmed and alone. Somehow I suspect they didn’t exactly have jobs either. Scum of the earth living off western civilization.

God grant Drummer Rigby peace. A Soldier of the Queen Freedom. He and his family are in our prayers.

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The wrath of the awakening Saxon

When Churchill said that democracy was the worst form of government – except for all the others – he was making an astute comment. He began his political career when the UK electorate was about 7 million, all men, and all property-owners of one sort of another. In 1918 that system was blown apart after the Great War, and the electorate went up to 21 million, some of them – gasp – female, Fortunately they didn’t let young women vote – you had to be 30. By then, so the thought went, you’d be married and have a man who could tell you what to do. In 1928 they gave in, and the ‘flappers’ – women between 21 and 30, were added to the franchise.

The job of Government in the UK back then was still close to what it had been for a long time – keep law and order and the peace, and make sure the Royal Mail worked. But with the advent of real democracy in terms of numbers, it became increasingly impossible for politicians to tell their electors that problems like unemployment and poverty were nothing to do with the Government; people wanted help and they expected action. After the Second World War, the UK Government did the obvious thing and brought in a Welfare State. The thought then was that we would have a health service which would, once it cleared the back log of ill health, would be cheap; they got that wrong – as it soon began to eat up huge amounts of money and still does. Governments also said they’d deliver education, and did, and now that costs a fortune too. You see the pattern? Governments took on much that used to be done (sometimes not very well) by private bodies. The problem with this dream of utopia was that it cost money. The Democracy was receptive to ideas about money could be redistributed more fairly; it forgot, if it ever knew, that someone needed to create wealth. You can’t redistribute what you don’t have – that’s called robbery.

But in the great modern boom, Governments found they could borrow and print money and promise their citizens the sky. With material prosperity came moral laxity – it always does – look at old Rome. Bread and Circuses kept the plebs (us) happy. But then the casino went bust and the music stopped, and now we are beginning to see the confidence trick,  We handed over freedom for prosperity – and we seem to have less of both now.

Because politics seemed so complicated, it got dominated not by the old elites, but a new one. The old elites were patrician enough – no one ever accused FDR or Churchill of slumming it, but they had that paternalism of an aristocracy born to rule. Neither man enriched himself in office, and they knew that they had a responsibility to those they ruled. The new elite was different. It knew it was smart. It got to office because it was smart, and it rather despised those who weren’t. There was no humility there because these men (and a few women) had got there by their own efforts and despised those who hadn’t.

It was a twist of fate to combine the ascendancy of this class with the end of gravy-train. The bread to keep us quiet was not so plentiful as it had been, and whilst the circuses were glitzy and full of ‘celebs’, they somehow failed to shut us up or to disguise from us what was happening.

In the UK and the USA the old parties seem irrelevant – vehicles for career politicians who don’t care which team they drive for as long as it is the winning one. And out here, beyond the Thunderdome, we’re beginning to see that whoever else wins, we lose. We don’t much like it. But we are slow to anger – and yet our rulers should heed Kipling’s words, put into the mouth of a Norman noble on his death bed, talking to his son:

“The Saxon is not like us Normans. His manners are not so polite.
But he never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right.
When he stands like an ox in the furrow – with his sullen set eyes on your own,
And grumbles, ‘This isn’t fair dealing,’ my son, leave the Saxon alone.

Our rulers should beware the phenomenon described in ‘The Wrath of the Awakened Saxon”

It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late,
With long arrears to make good,
When the Saxon began to hate.

Well, we know this isn’t ‘fair dealing’ – so they should beware.

Kipling: Norman & Saxon A.D. 1100

Of all the poets who have ever written about England and Englishness, Kipling did it best.  There are many poems one could choose to illustrate the theme that Neo and I are dealing with, but this is one of my favourites. I think it should be on the wall of Congress and Parliament:

“My son,” said the Norman Baron, “I am dying, and you will
be heir
To all the broad acres in England that William gave me for
share
When he conquered the Saxon at Hastings, and a nice little
handful it is.
But before you go over to rule it I want you to understand this:–

“The Saxon is not like us Normans. His manners are not so polite.
But he never means anything serious till he talks about justice
right.
When he stands like an ox in the furrow–with his sullen set eyes
on your own,
And grumbles, ‘This isn’t fair dealing,’ my son, leave the Saxon
alone.

“You can horsewhip your Gascony archers, or torture your
Picardy spears;
But don’t try that game on the Saxon; you’ll have the whole
brood round your ears.
From the richest old Thane in the county to the poorest chained
serf in the field,
They’ll be at you and on you like hornets, and, if you are wise,
you  will  yield.

“But first you must master their language, their dialect, proverbs
and songs.
Don’t trust any clerk to interpret when they come with the tale
of their own wrongs.
Let them know that you know what they are saying; let them feel
that you know what to say.
Yes, even when you want to go hunting, hear ‘em out if it takes
you all day.

They’ll drink every hour of the daylight and poach every hour
of the dark.
It’s the sport not the rabbits they’re after (we’ve plenty of game
in the park).
Don’t hang them or cut off their fingers. That’s wasteful as well
as unkind,
For a hard-bitten, South-country poacher makes the best man-
at-arms you can find.

“Appear with your wife and the children at their weddings and
funerals and feasts.
Be polite but not friendly to Bishops; be good to all poor parish
priests.
Say ‘we,’ ‘us’ and ‘ours’ when you’re talking, instead of ‘you
fellows’  and  ’I.’
Don’t ride over seeds; keep your temper; and never you tell ‘em
a lie!”

Crisis of Life

I stumbled across this post the other day and liked it, and its author, a lot. I was moved to answer some of her question, and thought I was going to give her my standard rah-rah, Go America, do your duty, speech. But, you know, I stopped in mid click and said (to myself) “She’s being very open in her posts here, and you respect that greatly, do you really really believe what your typing here?” I thought for a few minutes, and said (again to myself), “Yes, I do, for me, and for most of us but, is it necessarily correct for her. No, it may not be. Let’s do a post and give her a real answer.” So here it is. Note that not all of Faith’s post is here, you really need to follow the link, and I’d recommend you spend some time there. It’s a very engaging site, indeed.

[...] I am a senior in college, about to graduate, and I literally am lost. I’m lost because I know that everything I don’t want is right where I’m headed if I don’t make a serious step somewhere. What I don’t want is the American Dream. I don’t want a house in the suburbs, two cars, two kids, and a big screen TV with cable. I don’t want fences to keep my dog in and my neighbors out.  I don’t want comfort, I don’t want security, and I don’t want to live to work. I have a degree because I went to college because I was expected to go to college. I have student debt because I just “had” to get an education. I’m stuck living in a dead-end town because this is “safe:” I have friends, some family, a job, and a lease on a living space. I have a car. Don’t think I’m ungrateful, because I am. I’ve gotten to have some awesome experiences because of where I’ve chosen to go in my life thus far. But is this my dream? No. Has it been to serve God and further the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven? Not particularly.

OK, that’s fair enough. But see the problem is that is a definition of the American Dream. In fact it is the one pushed at us by the media and the culture. But you know what? That was never my dream either. Mine had to do with work I loved, a wife that I respected and loved, a couple of kids would have been welcome but not required, and the freedom to do what I felt like. Some of it I got, some I didn’t.

And that’s fair enough, at least for me

And that’s the thing about the American (or any other) Dream. It’s your dream, don’t let anyone tell you what you want. I went to college because it was expected as well, in fact Dad required it, but he was willing to finance it, I’d been working for him since I was 13 and that was the deal. I didn’t finish but my majors were Electrical Engineering Technology, and American History, and part of the reason I didn’t finish was that I didn’t see any benefit to it, there were other reasons as well, most had the word duty attached to them.

Here is my dream: I want to do something amazing with my life. I cautiously gave a glimpse to a family member of my dream to move to a third world country, sell everything, and live in a shack on the beach while serving others in love. I ended up regretting it: she literally told me “You can’t do that, it would be a waste” and shook her head back and forth while saying “no,” as if that was the end of it. As graduation looms closer, I am more than ever convinced that “something amazing” means giving up everything and getting out of the hell hole known as the United States. As some people tell me that selling everything and moving to a developing nation would be a “waste” of my life, I want to ask why: why should I stay, and why is it so bad to not want the American Dream? Why is it so bad to want to live as Jesus did, and as he commanded us to?

OK, far as I’m concerned if that’s your dream, you should do it. Do I understand it? Nope, I don’t, but it’s not my dream. Is it a waste of your life? I don’t know but you know what? It’s your life, it’s OK to waste it if you want to. I don’t agree with you that Jesus lived that way or that he commanded us to but that’s a different discussion, and others are far better qualified on that.

We have everything we could possibly want here in the U.S. Why would I think this is hell? Because it is so hard to follow God in the midst of all this shit piling up around us, in the midst of our culture wars and political rants, our discussions over “which church is right” or if homosexuals should get married. Somewhere along the line, these colonies that were settled to find freedom from religious persecution forgot that Christians are called to Love God, Love People. And that is it.

We have the right to earn all that stuff, sure. Nobody’s going to make you. We do have ridiculously restrictive zoning laws and such anymore that overly restrict you. Called to Love God and Man. Yes, and to find Grace, and thereby do works, while we follow the crucified and risen Christ. It ain’t easy and it never was. It’s not supposed to be. Many of us have had the “culture war” rammed down our throat by intrusive government but you’re free to ignore it, as far as we’re concerned. To many of us, it’s part of our works and witnessing.

I’m sick of living in the Bible Belt, I’m sick of American Christianity. I want something real in my life. I want to have to rely on Jesus to my daily bread, not be able to have my pick of 100 fast food drive-thru restaurants if I’m hungry. I want to have to trust God to provide for me, as he provides for the sparrows and lilies. I want to haveto follow his teachings, even if that leads to persecutions. I don’t want to sit in my cushy pew anymore while the pastor drums up some sermon and a terrible band plays thousands of dollars worth of instruments in a multi-million dollar building. I want real Christianity, the kind that you’re willing to give up everything for because you know: it’s worth it.

From Crisis of Faith to Crisis of Life.

I can easily understand all that. Know why? I felt much the same way 40 years ago. I didn’t act on it, and because I didn’t some people have had a better and longer life because of what I do, both professionally, and in my personal life. As our mutual friends will tell you, I don’t BS people, I tell you the truth and the truth is this, I was called to be an electrician, and because of it some people haven’t burned up in their houses, and some people have jobs, as well,  Jesus was a carpenter, at your age.

You have, I suspect a BA degree in English, that’s not the most marketable degree of course, but communicating is very important. A lot of day-to-day life in America is bullcrap but, it’s what you make of it, you don’t have to do everything the cool kids do. Find your drummer and learn to play. Christianity is a religion based on free will. You especially will never have to follow God’s teaching, I, and I suspect you, believe that you have to try if you want the result of everlasting life, but you surely don’t have to

Yes, here come the clichés, because they’re true. Your life really is what you make of it, and it’s between you and God, It doesn’t matter what I or anybody else thinks. Unless you’re an Israelite fleeing Egyptian bondage though, waiting for God to provide dinner is a bad bet, He long ago reminded us that “God helps those who help themselves”

As for wanting real Christianity, go and do it, who’s stopping you, you can do that anywhere, even in Texas, American Christianity hasn’t been tested lately like it has some places but that doesn’t make it false either, just somewhat untested. You’d be surprised, I think, at the number of people who are very strong Christians, and they are often in churches that don’t encourage them.

And while I don’t really think you are after reading quite a bit of your site, this paragraph comes off, to me at least, as very selfish, maybe willful is a better word. Life, in general, and Christianity, in particular, isn’t about what we want, it’s about what God wants for us, sometimes they’re the same, most often they’re not, and which you follow is up to you. All we can do is ask him if that’s really what he wants.

And finally, (and yes, I know you’ve heard this a million times) you are very young, and Rome wasn’t built in a day, all things that are worthwhile take time. That includes you. From what you’ve written, you’ve already made a remarkable journey, and I’m very impressed with you, but the journey lasts a lifetime. And America, like anything else, is what you make of it. You know we’ve been talking a lot about Maggie Thatcher this week, she was in Parliament for close to 30 years before she became Prime Minister.

Oh, and good luck, and Vaya con Dios, always.

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Christ is Risen

That’s the importance of the day. Jesus the Christ is risen from the dead.

A few words on some of the symbolism, The term Easter comes from the old Anglo Saxon goddess of spring, although the only real mention is from the Venerable Bede. The egg being proscribed during Lent was offered in abundance at Easter and is an obvious metaphor for rebirth. There is some evidence for a hare hunt being traditional on Good Friday but, it’s a fairly obvious sign of “go forth, be fruitful, and multiply” anyway.

We have been talking this week about Jesus the leader, and his unflinching dedication to the death to his mission. On Easter this mission is revealed. It finally becomes obvious that His mission (at this time, anyway) is not of the Earth and it’s princelings. It is instead a Kingdom of souls.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

And so we come to the crux of the matter. The triumph over original sin and death itself. For if you believe in the Christ and his message you will have eternal life. This is what set Christianity apart, the doctrine of grace. For if you truly repent of your sins, and attempt to live properly, you will be saved. Not by your works, especially not by your wars and killing on behalf of your faith, valid  and just though they may be,  but by your faith and your faith alone. For you serve the King of Kings.

And as we know, the Christ is still leading the mission to save the souls of all God‘s children. It is up to us to follow the greatest leader in history or not as we choose. We would do well to remember that our God is a fearsome God but, he is also a just God. We shall be judged entirely on our merits as earthly things fall away from us. So be of good cheer for the Father never burdens his people with burdens they cannot, with his help, bear.

As we celebrate the first sunrise after the defeat of darkness, Hail the King Triumphant for this is the day of His victory.

The Peace of the Lord be with you all.

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