Continuing my cogitations on voting and progressive informed government and a shift towards the right of the political spectrum, I am saddened by articles in the Economist journal and the latest polls with regard to the state of the parties in the United Kingdom.
By the latter half of the eighteenth century numbers of people had flocked to the Americas. In 1775 there were nearly 2.5 million people living in the colonies at that time. Just under 2 million whites and just over half a million blacks, mostly slaves. In Britain there were some 8 million people. The First Continental Congress which took place between 5th September and 26th October 1774 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Of the 56 delegates most were layers, judges. Quite a number were merchants and planters, mostly from the southern colonies, but the predominant members of the Continental Congress were lawyers, university educated and most held political office of some kind. Not all were without blemish and many were slave owners. Nonetheless they produced the Declaration of Independence at the Second Congress between the 10th May 1775 and July the 4th, 1776.
From then on the Congress functioned as the provisional government of the United States of America through to March 1 1781 when Articles of Confederation came into force having been ratified by the 13 Colonies. Thereafter the Constitution of the United States was presented for ratification on the 28th September 1787 and ratified by 9 of the 13 states by the 21st June 1788. It became effective on the 4th March 1789. The French Revolution kicked off two months later of the 5th May, 1789. All that some 235 years ago.
Before that however, the United States was already functioning as a government. Indeed, during the drafting of the constitution at the Constitutional Convention, John Adams was in Britain serving as minister to Britain and Thomas Jefferson was serving as Minister to France. It took a while to put in together, and despite the various squabbles and compromises, these were educated men who had travelled, who were aware of the political situations in Europe, who had read the philosophies of John Locke, Montesquieu and Edward Coke, borrowed from Magna Carta, read Blackstone and a great many others. In short they knew their stuff and they ground out an extraordinary document in so far as they could to cover a number of eventualities
They did a pretty good job, in particular as to the maintenance of a free people’s government under the rule of law. They had supreme respect for the rights of the individual citizen –of the people, by the people, for the people:
We The People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
So what have we now? People who have nowhere near the education and culture of the founding fathers led by the most divisive psychotic narcissist whose sole purpose appears to be to become dictator of America. His speeches have nothing whatever to do with tranquillity, promoting general welfare or securing the blessings of liberty, except his own ability to lie, to dissemble, to be free to crap all over the Constitution with impunity being supported by a party that sees its sole purpose but to cater to this madman. Not a single forward thinking piece of legislation is discussed. It is all about what is best for Mr Trump. They prostrate themselves to this gargantuan ego, this monster who walks among us rather than being caged as he should be. His entire rhetoric, if one can call it that, is devoted to complaint about how he is so hard done by, how the entire nation is being manipulated against him. All the while he is succeeding in gaslighting sufficient number of the citizens to go along with his clinically childish and regressive behaviour. He speaks violence, not tranquillity. He speaks repression and vengeance, not union and general welfare. I repeat myself.
I don’t know how often or how loudly one has to repeat what he stands for to break through the skulls of his Maga supporters. Are they really so blind and thick. What has happened to decency in America?
The problems in the United Kingdom are slightly more complex. We have a Constitutional Monarchy. The Constitution is unwritten, but it is contained in the Common Law and the existing Statutory Legislation, as well as time honoured custom, going back some 1000 years. Much of what is contained in the written constitution of the United States comes from this Kingdom’s progression towards its constitutional monarchy. The individual freedoms that most British citizens claim as of right are just as much carved in their hearts and souls as any document or parchment. Yet there are some who would seek to cut them out, to remove them with surreptitious surgical legislation to stop and imprison any form of dissent. The so called Reform Party is just a reiteration of the National Front. Are they really now one percentage point ahead of the Conservatives in the polls?
Just as Trump lashes out at migrants at the start of just about any speech he makes, apart from his ‘woe is me’ element, so Nigel Farage lashes out at immigrants who are apparently overtaking the entire country and squeezing the treasury dry. That is his solution. It is why he supports Trump. It is why Ms Truss supports Trump.
Fortunately there is another party that is in front in the polls, now at apparently 37%, some 18 points ahead of Reform and the Conservatives, but a few points down on what they were at the start of this election campaign. There are three weeks left before the 4th July I hope that lead will not disappear, but the trend is a worry.
I can only hope that a Labour victory on America’s Independence Day will be a sufficient boost and influence on America’s election on Guy Fawkes Day in the United States. The insurrectionist on that occasion failed to blow up Parliament. Let us hope the insurrectionist in chief will fail again just as he failed on the 6th January four year ago. The auguries are there.
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