“The Saxon is not like us Normans, His manners are not so polite.
But he never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right.
When he stands like an ox in the furrow with his sullen set eyes on your own,
And grumbles, “This isn’t fair dealings,” my son, leave the Saxon alone.
Rudyard Kipling
If there is one concept thought to be more quintessentially English over any other, I think it must be the concept of fair play. Fair dealings, as Kipling put it. That one party should be treated as any other, held to the same standard of conduct, and afforded the same penalties or rewards for the same acts, regardless of economic standing, religious beliefs or racial background. A lot of this concept of “fair dealings” carried over into the American cultural mainstream as well; honored as a concept and an ideal to be striven for. I’d guess that a lot of that general support among Americans generally for the civil rights movement was based on the dawning realization among most of us that Jim Crow laws restricting black Americans were not fair at all.
Fair dealings; it appears that a perceived lack of fair dealings over certain matters of law-breaking, trials and punishment in England lately has led to spasms of mob violence and outright riots in English (and Irish) communities. A well-entrenched ruling class seems more enamored of showering ecstatic welcome, benefits, and social indulgence on economic migrants from Africa and the Middle east … migrants who have little affection for England itself. As another essayist/blogger commented some weeks past – those migrants seem to treat England and the native-born ethnic English as they would a hotel room or a prostitute; used for the moment, and then moving on without any sense of civic obligation.
Curiously these newcomers are valued and indulged by the current ruling class – indulged over and above the native, working and middle-class English. Law-breaking of a horrible and chronic nature on the part of recent migrants and those of an earlier date somehow never excites the impassioned condemnation of the ruling political, intellectual and media elite nearly to the degree to which they damn the ruled classes for objecting vociferously to being preyed upon.
But that is the way of ruling classes, everywhere and throughout history – supremely jealous of their privileges, and resentful of being called to account for misrule. Resentful of being called to account; possibly of knowing in their secret heart of hearts that they have not been fair. In any case, the ruling class is perfectly willing and able to squash any attempt to call for civic order, for fairness, for punishment for the criminal and justice for the victim. Perfectly willing to use the apparatus of the State to bully the relatively powerless into submission, perfectly willing to call for Americans to be silenced … ah, well – this would be old hat to the American colonists of the 18th Century. The rights of Englishmen, and all that.
Most likely, the current British ruling class will succeed in quashing the demonstrations and riots. Two-Tier Kier and his Starmtroopers hold all the advantages … for now. There is the thing about squashing public discussion, dissent, and well-founded objections to Things As They Are; the authorities might buy themselves a bit of peace and quiet over it all, for a time. I can’t help thinking, though – that it’s a bit like locking down the pressure relief valve. When the pressure does blow – it will do so, catastrophically, because those who have been squashed into silence will have ever so many more reasons to hate those who have done the squashing. Another Kipling quote – The Beginning
It was not preached to the crowd,
It was not taught by the State.
No man spoke it aloud,
When the English began to hate.
It was not suddenly bred,
It will not swiftly abate,
Through the chill years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the English began to hate.
Discuss as you wish. For now, we can – since we declared independence from Two-Tier Kier and his ilk a couple of centuries ago.
The second poem, The Beginning, is often cited in the form ‘when the Saxons bean to hate.’ Your version is clearly the correct one, the poem is from 1917, Saxony is a region in Germany….
They are definitely locking down the pressure relief valve and when it blows in Soviet Britain, it will destroy the remnants that we drew our traditions from. There is also a historical background in Britain of taking part in Crusades. And the Crusade to come in Britain will make the Holocaust look like a skirmish . . . no matter who wins.
I also have to note, in the name of completeness, that we are on the edge of a similar crisis here. Fair play, as defined by equal treatment under the law, is about gone. Consent of the governed as expressed through fair and honest elections is too. Both we and Britain are in for hard and interesting times.
Subotai Bahadur
Egypt never recovered from the misrule of the later pharaohs. Rome never recovered from the misrule of the later emperors. China may be the only example of a society which misruled itself into half a millennium of backwardness and then recovered — but only “may be’; that story is far from complete.
History says there is no reason to expect today’s forlorn English ever to rise again to the heights of their ancestors. Indeed, history says that the English are likely to keep sinking and never recover — as, sadly, are North Americans. But human progress will continue elsewhere, in Russia, maybe China, possibly Japan, perhaps Brazil — but for sure somewhere. Big wheel keeps on turning.
“f there is one concept thought to be more quintessentially English over any other, I think it must be the concept of fair play.”
See my post Cricket Morality:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/69592.html
I’m not so sure fairness is a defining English characteristic as all countries have some form of sports competition that, at least performatively, depends on a comprehension of fairness by participants and fans. It’s just that Western belief is also big on the idea that ‘When the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes not that you won or lost, but how you played the game!’
To say that Jim Crow was “Not fair at all” is an overstatement. Given the extremely high levels of black crime, black violence, black dysfunction, and black political corruption, Jim Crow was certainly at least a little bit fair. Just because the Civil Rights movement won the political battle doesn’t make it entirely in the right. There was another side to this, yes?
To say that Jim Crow was “Not fair at all” is an overstatement. Given the extremely high levels of black crime, black violence, black dysfunction, and black political corruption, Jim Crow was certainly at least a little bit fair. Just because the Civil Rights movement won the political battle doesn’t make it entirely in the right. There was another side to this, yes?
Jim Crow was the means by which the white southern establishment that had lost the Civil War unfairly suppressed political competition from black southerners who would otherwise have been politically powerful or even dominant in their States. Unfairness was the point. To rationalize it by citing 21st Century black underclass social dysfunction is a stretch. Are you trolling?
“Are you trolling?” – Jonathan
That, or setting up a demo on how raaaaaaaaacist the commenters at Chicagoboyz are.
Being somewhat depressed, I wonder if SB and Gavin have it right – that Britain is on a downward spiral, and perhaps we aren’t far behind.
Especially if – in the face of massive public unhappiness with the Biden mis-administration, and the pathetic lineup of Harris and Walz — the Dems flat-out fraud themselves into winning the election in November, thereby cementing into place all the bureaucratic and corporate cruds who have brought us to this sad point.
In the 18th and even in the 19th the aristocracy was worried about revolution, especially around the French Revolution. Tony Blair has fixed that with his “replacement strategy.” The problem is that Muslims do not handle civilization well. The Democrats are trying to do the same thing, but with nondescript aliens from all over the world. We don’t know who they are and run a real risk of “The Attack” coming true. I still have some hopes that Trump can still pull it off. We’ll see.
We are living through The Fourth Turning as described by Howe and Strauss.
Baked into that is chaos, incompetence, and failure.
England is grinding into civil war. Their regime is sending people to prison for obviously stupid reasons because its preferred policies are bitterly unpopular. It hopes to prevent that opposition from mattering by intimidating its opponents. It is also attempting to avoid its timely end by importing foreigners to replace its lost domestic support.
I’m not English and I’m not in England, but I am human. I bet right now there are large numbers of English men and woman concluding that the regime is their mortal enemy. That matters. I would further expect that some of them are working on strategies for more strenuous resistance than merely waiting to be stabbed by the regime’s imported support.
But again I’m not English, so my concern is limited. Good luck to them. In the US, we have an incompetent regime that has very likely stolen trillions of dollars, arranged the deaths of millions, and seeks to avoid consequences for that. Nothing is cemented, nothing at all, and nothing has been fixed into place.
If the present American regime manages to steal the next election, then they will still have a failing economy to deal with. They will no doubt attempt to solve this problem with stupid policies that won’t work. If they can’t manage to steal the election, then they will attempt to turn Trump’s victory into that poisoned chalice Mike K mentioned a while back.
Neither eventuality implies a bright future for the regime.
Mark Steyn has written extensively about both the toxic of effects of multicultural immigration and increased authoritarianism in Britain. He’s back to writing on current events at https://www.steynonline.com/
While Britain has been slipping down the authoritarian slope under the Tories, what is especially remarkable is how fast the new Labour government has turned that slide up to 11
I tend to agree. When the safety valve blows, the blood will flow in rivers.
Great Britain tried to run the world from a relatively resource poor island off the coast of France. It did work fairly well for a long time. Loss of the American Colonies notwithstanding.
But the world changed. Other powers arose. Technology changed such that the Royal Navy and the English Channel were not the sword and shield they had been for so long.
They fought long and hard. Sometimes they fought in unjust causes such as the Boer War and lesser colonial stomp downs. Then they engaged the other Rising Powers in a decades long war that only took a break from 1918 to 1939. England (probably best to no longer consider her Great or Britain now) lost her best men, bankrupted their economy and had to promise all those from her Empire that fought and died in her name that they’d be allowed to go their own way.
They have. A few with success, many with endemic failure. How many of the migrants now arriving from the Khyber Pass or the various former Crown Colonies just figure the debt has not yet been paid in full?
I love England. But it is a beautiful, hollow shell.
T
The thing about Fair Play, is that it demands respect for others, and today’s Left only has contempt for others, and believes that no one else deserves respect.