"The Brits ran a tight ship. They were about as good as it gets, empire-wise, the best since the Romans. Better than the Spanish, who did very well, indeed."
You betcha by golly they did. They developed a body of law built on terrorism inflicted on their own people:
"In England the expropriation of the peasantry was accompanied by systematic violence and terror, organized through the criminal sanction, public searches, the prisons, martial law, capital punishment, banishment, forced labor, and colonization. Magistrates used cruel and pitiless legislation to whip, dismember, brand, hang and burn thousands; privy searches rounded up thousands more masterless men and women [some crime, being masterless, huh?]. The judicial decision known as Gateward's Case (1607) denied common rights to villagers and propertyless commoners. Despite these cruel expropriations, a residue of paternalism remained: it was still expected that, to quote from Ben Jonson's play Bartholemew Fair (1614), Justice Overdo would "give puddings to the poor . . .the bread to the hungry, and custard to his children."
The real-life equivalents of Justice Overdo routinely sent the poor, the hungry, and the young to prison, an institution that was central to the regime in terror in England."
Linebaugh & Rediker, "the Many Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic," (2000) p.50
Knowing this was the foundation for the establishment of a central government under the proposed constitution that would mimic the British foundation, one anti-federalist wrote:
"Upon an attentive examination you can pronounce it [the proposed federal government] nothing less, than a government which in a few years, will degenerate to a compleat Aristocracy, armed with powers unnecessary in any case to bestow, and which in its vortex swallows up every other Government upon the Continent. In short, my fellow citizens, it can be said to be nothing less than a hasty stride to Universal Empire in this Western World, flattering, very flattering to young ambitious minds, but fatal to the liberties of the people. The cord is strained to the very utmost.-There is every spice of the Sic. Jubeo [thus, I command] possible in the composition. Your consent is requested, because it is essential to the introduction of it; after having received confirmation, your complaints may increase the whistling of the wind, and they will be equally regarded."
Kenyon, ed.,"The Antifederalists," (1966) p.104
The Cherokee could tell you a tale. So could a few others. And now, 200+ years later, we have 700+ military bases in 130+ countries.
Let us give thanks, this day after Thanksgiving, for that heritage of a "tight ship" run by those Brits.
By the way, how's the domestic war on terror going? |
