Call me a Linknzona goupie, if you want. His latest post demonstrates once again why he’s become my “must read” blog on immigration and border security. Read it. There will be a test. Your children and grandchildren will grade your answers…
A Homework Assignment: “long train of abuses”
Read the Declaration of Independence recently? The Founders had some very specific beefs with their government. They had considered themselves Englishmen, and had brought their grievances before their ruler many times, already. In doing so, they simply and doggedly insisted on their rights as Englishmen. Nothing revolutionary, nothing remarkable, nothing really new at all: just the long-established rights of Englishmen, viewed from the perspective of colonists being denied those rights.
In doing so, they were conservatives, promoting the long history of the liberalization of rule that had been making progress in England since Runnymede. Look especially at the “long train of abuses” of good governance expected by English subjects/citizens in the 18th century. As Edmund Burke said in a speech before the British Parliament on March 22, 1775,
“…the people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation, which still I hope respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The colonists emigrated from you when this part of your character was most predominant; and they took this bias and direction the moment they parted from your hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas, and on English principles.”
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