Anglosphere

Quote of the Day

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[T]he enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.

Justice Scalia, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ET AL. v. HELLER

The Sun is Not Setting II: Unfurl the Old Banners …

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In this earlier post, I should have linked to this piece by Fareed Zakaria, which is the first chapter of his new book. It is very much worth reading.

I like this Zakaria piece because he seems to be in broad agreement with me. Ha. We all like it when that happens. Also, his little capsule summary of the British Empire as our predecessor is nicely done. However, as I have complained to anyone who will listen, even Zakaria fails to understand how different the British Empire was from all its land-based predecessors. The one current writer to who “gets it” on this issue is Walter Russell Mead. Mead, in his excellent recent book God and Gold: Britain, America and the Making of the Modern World discusses the “maritime order” founded in recent centuries by the Dutch, then handed off to the British, then the Trident was passed to the USA. This is exactly correct.

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Patriot’s Day

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Christmas 3: Merry Christmas from the Queen, 1957

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The embed does not work, but you can click here. Very nice message from a then-young Queen. She looks a little nervous in her first televised Christmas message, but her impeccable enunciation never fails.

Quote of the Day

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Currently reading Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi, which is excellent, and which I highly recommend. I saw a review of it, by A.G. Noorani, which had this to say:

British rule in India was doomed when the rulers introduced their
language in India. You cannot talk a people into slavery in the
English language. “An Englishman is the unfittest person on earth to
argue another Englishman into slavery,” Burke reminded the House of
Commons on March 22, 1775. The effect is the same if “the natives” are
taught English. It brings in its train British history – the Magna
Carta, the Bill of Rights, Parliament versus the Crown, habeas corpus
and the rest, as also concepts like the rule of law. Those who framed
our Constitution were familiar with all this.

This come through very clearly in Guha’s book. The founders of modern India wanted to do at least two things: (1) Get the British out of their country, and (2) preserve what they had learned from the British, including things the British had denied them, like democratic elections.

Forward the Indo-Anglosphere!