Posted on 9/22/2009, 12:05:58 PM by Maggie Maggie Maggie
There are four places in the world which I never visit without a sense of reverence, almost of pilgrimage. Three are in Britain: Stratford, where the greatest mind produced by our species was shaped; Runnymede, where the idea that governments should be answerable to their peoples was encoded; and Naseby, where the victory of constitutional parliamentary authority was secured. The fourth is the old courthouse in Philadelphia where the US Declaration of Independence was signed and where, later, the Constitution was drafted. I love Philly, the city where my parents were married. I have a troop of brilliant, warm, generous (if largely Democrat-leaning) Scots-American cousins here. I never visit them without making my Hajj to the place where the highest concept of British liberty was distilled into the noblest constitution ever put on paper. This time, I began my journey in Valley Forge, a few miles out of town, where the Campaign for Liberty was meeting. It was an apt place for them to withdraw, these proud sons of the Revolution, after their poor showing in the 2008 presidential poll. Valley Forge was where Washington took the remains of the Continental Army after his defeats at Brandywine and Germanstown. There, in the grip of winter, his soldiers came close to starvation, and their general came close to despair. But, although they didn’t know it, the patriots had turned the corner: from that moment, almost every engagement they fought was successful. In Great Britain, popular sympathy was with the colonists, and there was no stomach for a war against our kinsmen when there were urgent battles to fight against the Bourbons. It took Washington the better part of a decade to make the short journey from Valley Forge to Philadelphia to sign of the Constitution. It took me half an hour.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
Sadly, this praise for the American constitution from a British politician would nauseate our own President and all those who now control the United States.
Hannan/anybody in 2012.
The most sublime constitution ever drafted - I mourn its slow, strangled, neglected, abused death.
Can we have him? We need him here.
Well at least a person from another country praises our Consitution.
You cannot spend your way out of a recession or borrow your way out of debt. And when you repeat, in that wooden and perfunctory way, that our situation is better than others', that we are well placed to weather the storm, I have to tell you, you sound like a Brezhnev-era apparatchik giving the party line. You know, and we know, and you know that we know that it's nonsense. Everyone knows that Britain is worse off than any other country as we go into these hard times. The IMF has said so. The European Commission has said so. The markets have said so, which is why our currency has devalued by thirty percent. And soon, the voters too will get their chance to say so. They can see what the markets have already seen: that you are the devalued Prime Minister of a devalued government.
I second it -Hannan for President’12! His parents were married in Philly? Were his parents U.S. citizens?
Oh, I forgot it doesn’t matter anymore.
No, it apparently doesn’t matter anymore. Any wise and good person should apply. Forget the birth certificate.
WHERE is OUR DANIEL HANNON???? WHERE??? He is CONSERVATIVE, SMART, INTELLIGENT, and BRAVE enough not to BACK DOWN!!
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