FREEDOM, DEMOKRASI AND CIVILISED HUMANITY
In defense of freedom, democracy and civilised humanity is an increasingly intolerant Western world.
Mounted on a working horse, fully decked in digger gear of tunic and slouch hat, Tanya Lightowler proudly guards the ancient Aussie spirit, calling us to care for our equine mountain heritage. She’s so unlike motorized modern mercenaries in smug receipt of pay cheques collected with no conscience in that morbid grasping culture where the real colts from old Regret now struggle to survive.
Geoff Fox, 9th June, 2022, Down Under
On April 25, 1599, Oliver Cromwell was born into England’s landed gentry. The great religious poet John Milton praised him as “Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud, ……… To peace and truth Thy glorious way has ploughed” whereas Winston Churchill condemned him as a “dictator”, writing “Upon all of us there still lies ‘the curse of Cromwell.‘ “.
Cromwell grew to become a strong ruler in difficult times. He genuinely believed in liberty, writing in 1650: “Your pretended fear lest error should step in, is like the man that would keep all the wine out of the country lest men should be drunk. It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy, to deny a man the liberty he hath by nature upon a supposition that he may abuse it.”
Seven weeks before he died he expressed great disillusionment with the realities of power, telling parliament in 1658: “I would have been glad ……. to have kept a flock of sheep, rather than undertook such a Government as this is.”
Lest we forget the truth.
The Truth. In all its complexity. The impossibility of living up to Utopian dreams for any mortal human.
On April 25, 1915, courageous Australian diggers began sacrificing their lives to serve the needs of the British Empire. About 62,000 died in World War One in the following years. (Over one percent of the nations population.) About 156,00 were wounded, gassed or taken prisoner. Those figures combined are over half of the 416,809 men who enlisted. They were all volunteers.
Lest we forget the truth.
All of our traditions make us who we are.
Trying to be better is a part of that.
Geoff Fox, 25th April, 2022, a refugee in Terra Nullius from my true home.
Henry James died on this date, the 28th of February, 106 years ago, in 1916, in the middle of the Great War.
He wrote: “Life is, in fact, a battle. Evil is insolent and strong; beauty enchanting, but rare; goodness very apt to be weak; folly very apt to be defiant; wickedness to carry the day; imbeciles to be in great places, people of sense in small, and mankind generally unhappy. But the world as it stands is no narrow illusion, no phantasm, no evil dream of the night; we wake up to it, forever and ever; and we can neither forget it nor deny it nor dispense with it.”
People like Beck Spelman confront the world as it is and by doing so they make it better. They name problems which others deny and that naming is the first step to solving any problem.
Becky Spelman calls out arrogant bureaucrats at the Melbourne Freedom protest on 26/02/2022
Geoff Fox, 28th February, 2022, Down Under
Woodrow Wilson is considered a father of globalism. His own presidency did not end well.
He was elected as America’s 28th president (POTUS 28) in 1912 on a platform called The New Freedom advocating limited government.
In 1916, Wilson won a second term with the campaign slogans, “He kept us out of war.” and “America First”. He swept the South and the West (except Oregon) but lost the Northeast and most of the Midwest.
In the space of five months, by April 2nd 1917, German attacks on American and international shipping lead POTUS 28 to ask Congress to declare war on Germany, saying:
“The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make.”
The declaration passed 373 to 50 in The House and 82 to 6 in The Senate.
In 1919, Wilson spoke words about World War One heroes, which make for an interesting comparison with the following generation’s achievements in World War Two, “The Americans who went to Europe to die are a unique breed…. (They) crossed the seas to a foreign land to fight for a cause which they did not pretend was peculiarly their own, which they knew was the cause of humanity and mankind. These Americans gave the greatest of all gifts, the gift of life and the gift of spirit.”—speech at Suresnes Cemetery, May 30, 1919.
Wilson’s presidency ended with the President himself in poor health (but still hoping for a third term), the treaty of Versailles (making World War Two inevitable), American GDP falling and a constitutional amendment imposing nationwide Prohibition.
Idealism doesn’t always work.
What price freedom?
Geoff Fox, 2nd April, 2020, Down Under
FREEDOM, DEMOKRASI AND CIVILISED HUMANITY 