This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,This other Eden, demi-paradise,This fortress built by Nature for herselfAgainst infection and the hand of war,This happy breed of men, this little world,This precious stone set in the silver sea,Which serves it in the office of a wall,Or as a moat […]
Continue Reading
This kind of thinking undermines Western society at two levels. On a macro level, the heretofore dominant narrative of Western success—the gradual development of liberal political and economic institutions and changing attitudes to reason, science, commerce, and innovation—is being undermined by the increasingly popular view that the West got rich by making the rest of the world poor.
Continue Reading
Britain doesn’t feel very free at the moment. And that’s bad news for Britain, certainly, but also for the world. Because – uniquely – British identity and our long heritage is rooted in the ideal of individual liberty.
Continue Reading
Here bygynneth the Book of the tales of Caunterbury Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,And bathed every veyne in swich licóurOf which vertú engendred is the flour;Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breethInspired hath in every holt and heethThe tendre croppes, and the yonge sonneHath in the Ram his […]
Continue Reading
When the ancient Greeks erected their first temples from stone, they incorporated construction features found in earlier temples made of wood. Wooden columns, supporting wooden beams (architrave), and even the end of the joists (triglyphs) showed the binding pegs underneath (guttae), yet these guttae served no structural purpose. Presumably, this was so the new stone […]
Continue Reading
It has become a common trope that slavery and the slave trade is responsible for the industrial revolution, if not our entire modern prosperity. Slavery is often called capitalism’s “dark side.”
Continue Reading
The story begins with Arthur, born the illegitimate son of the King of the Britons. He is raised in secret away from public view. While Arthur is still a boy, the old King dies. In the days before courts of law, a physical challenge called an ordeal was seen as a way to reveal God’s will. In the legend, to gain the throne, aspirants had to demonstrate that they had the right-to-rule by withdrawing a sword from a stone, in which it is deeply embedded. Many come forward to try, but all are thwarted in their attempts to withdraw the blade. Try as they might, no amount of force will wrest the sword from the stone’s vice-like hold.
Continue Reading
“Either you believe in limited government or you don’t. And if you do, you must recognise, with John Stuart Mill, that the business of government is not to mend our morals, but to protect our freedoms”
Continue Reading
…But the Consul’s brow was sad,and the Consul’s speech was low,And darkly looked he at the wall,and darkly at the foe.“Their van will be upon us, before the bridge goes down;And if they once might win the bridge, what hope to save the town?” Then out spake brave Horatius,The Captain of the Gate:“To every man […]
Continue Reading
On this day 330 years ago in 1689, Royal ascent was given to the English Bill of rights which laid out the rights of parliament, the limitations on the Monarch as well as certain civil rights and liberties of subjects, such the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. The Bill was presented to William of […]
Continue Reading
Examines the positive net benefit of the British Empire – Science & technology, freedom from disease, global trade, destruction of the slave trade, parliamentary democracy, and individual liberty as well as protection from communist, fascist and other tyrannical “utopias.”
Continue Reading
Tell them in Lacedaimon, passer-byThat here, obedient to their word, we lie, Ὦ ξεῖν’, ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδεκείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι. Simonides of Ceos (556 B.C. – 468 B.C.)Translated into English by F L Lucas as an English heroic coupletSparta was known as Lacedaimon In 480 B.C. 300 Spartans under King Leonidas held off […]
Continue Reading
Rowan Atkinson argues, in his inimitable style, for unfettered free speech with the right to offend. Yet he acknowledges that freedom comes with responsibility.
Continue Reading
Considering our civic Constitution.
Continue Reading