Oztrich Boy
Since Mar 27, 2002
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Oztrich Boy
Since Mar 27, 2002
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1. I don't tag sarcasm
2. Always read the tag line
The Anglosphere as expressed in the introduction to the British edition of Parliament of Whores
Although this book is about a specific political system, it is also about a general political idea shared by much of the English-speaking world and by many, but not enough, other people. This is the idea of individual liberty - the primacy of the individual, the sanctity of the individual, the responsiblity of the individual and the capacity of any individual, to as we say "make a difference". A Catholic theolgian would call it Pelagianism, the belief in free will and salvation through works. Pelagianism is, as historian Paul Johnson has pointed out, the most English of heresies. And it's no accident that Pelagius was from the place that would become England. Political liberty was born here, flourished here, and was exported from here to the rest of the world. Thus I am - despite my American passport, Easter Rebellion name, and no Anglo-Saxon blood to speak of - English.I am a citizen of that self-respecting and enlightened world wide nation. Very Great Britain Indeed. We its people are of no particular color or creed.
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...the idea of true liberty sets all of us apart from the foreign barbarians - the silly French, the pagan Swedes, the drudge Japanese. They believe in individualism in a nice theoretical fashion, the way you or I believe in the Big Bang.
Foreigners believe in individualism, but we are individuals - P J O'Rourke