The history of England is one of an uneasy alliance between two traditions. The first is that of the Libertine, the fun-loving rake, which reaches its apogee in the character of Shakespeare’s Falstaff. Politically, the Libertine is akin to the Civil War Cavalier: a romantic figure full of fun and adventure, willing to brook all the trauma and tragedy of life provided he is left alone.
The second is that of the Puritan, the austere number cruncher, devoid of fun but desperately trying to save your life or soul with ‘facts-facts-facts’, as Dickens’ Gradgrind – the archetypal Puritan – would have it. Politically, Puritans are the Civil War Roundheads: great talkers for rights, freedom and dignity, but give them an inch and they’ll cancel Christmas and close the theatres.
The Cavalier concept of liberty is particularly pertinent when addressing the issue of home. It is an old adage in England that ‘an Englishman’s home is his castle’. This phrase has always meant that despite what ravages affect the outside world, what happens within the four walls of one’s house are strictly private affair, upon which not even the state has a right to intrude. Pitt the Elder alluded to this when he said:
The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the force of the Crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storms may enter, the rain may enter, but the King of England cannot enter; all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement!
The Libertine takes these words to be sacrosanct, a universal call to mind your own business. The Puritan, by contrast, is that much-despised figure throughout the Anglosphere: the nosey parker, determined to make everyone as miserable as they are with their incessant spying.
In 2020, the Puritans won. No longer was home the cradle from which others should keep out; it was now a danger to a regime that deemed it inexcusable to think of anything other than the spread of germs. Home was where we were all expected to stay but were given strict rules to follow while there. The common person could no longer escape the ravages of the world through entering their front door. The living room itself was now a battleground and subject to the most base intrusions – chief of these being freedom of association, which was now no longer acceptable. To have people in the home meant you were dangerous, a conspiracy theorist, a granny killer. Flying in the face of hundreds of years of tradition, police could now enter your home and issue fines if they suspected you were harbouring that nightmare called ‘other people’. You could be locked up, brutalised and spied upon with impunity.
Not only did the Puritans win, but just when it looked as if things had swung back the other way, just as the Libertine spirit was reviving and gaining ground, one home in particular took centre stage with the ‘Lockdown Party Scandal’, giving the Puritans a much needed second wind. Yet this mess is entirely of the Prime Minister’s own making. One only has to read Boris’ old journalism to realise that he is by nature a Cavalier. He is part of a coterie in Parliament of people who place individual liberty at the heart of their politics and aren’t afraid to say the odd occasional irreverent thing to ruffle some feathers. In March 2020, his commonsense left him and he decided to become a Roundhead – at least publicly, and therein lies the problem. One can’t join the Temperance League and keep sneaking to the pub; one can’t tell the entire population, in no uncertain terms, that if they go out people will die, and then start the party when everyone’s back is turned.
This is the whole reason Boris’ position looks so shaky. He is a traitor to the two traditions. The Puritans hate him because he abandoned the Covid restrictions. The Libertines, his natural audience, hate him because he imposed them in the first place. So what’s the average lockdown sceptic to do? Occupy Parliament square until Desmond Swayne takes charge?
If there is one excuse that can be given for Johnson turning into Cromwell, it is that he has not been alone. The English-speaking world has been pretty disgusting during the pandemic years. Australia has reverted to its former status as a Prison colony, Canada has decided that it should make clear the differences between it and the United States by abolishing liberty altogether, and New Zealand has based its new look on North Korea. These were frontier societies in which people stood and fell by their own efforts; they were hardy and strong. Now they twitch behind curtains while their governments threaten them with fines. England, as Nicola Sturgeon pointed out, is an outlier in this game. Our restrictions were lifted last July and barely touched since, despite a slight panic around Christmas. Even if one looks at out nearest neighbours, the Puritan strongholds of Wales and Scotland, one can see a stricter policy than we enjoy between the Thames and Hadrian’s wall.
It seems clear then that no matter how incompetent Boris is, there are worse people waiting in the wings. Almost all centre-Left parties called for longer lockdowns and tougher restrictions; they are the summation of the Puritan tradition. The people calling for Boris’s head are the same who cheered as masked zealots broke up barbecues and dispatched drones to spy on walkers. They supported the lockdowns and they wish we were still under lock and key. Unfortunately, this is the gallery Boris has spent two years playing to when he should have stuck to his own tribe.
It is very hard to support someone who abandons principle for arguments that are proving more specious by the day, who handed the keys to the kingdom to zealots and killjoys. I find very little difference between the Prime Minister’s home and mine: both should be castles for those who live inside and it should not be anyone else’s business what goes on between their walls. I do not wish to see fines issued or anything else. But how can one feel any sympathy for a Cavalier turned Roundhead, for a man who decided that he wanted to ruin my fun but continue to have his? During the height of the lockdowns, if you wanted to do anything slightly outside the rules you had to be very careful who you revealed it to lest the Gradgrinds of England reported you to the law. Now this spirit of paranoia has reached No.10 and a nation salivates and drools for blood. Perhaps that is the perverse victory of lockdown: it has turned us all into nosey parkers – Puritans by proxy in a world where advocating the most basic freedoms casts one as a dangerous libertine.
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Puritans? You have no idea of history at all. Secular nanny staters won. Puritans continue to preach the saving gospel of Christ, as we always have done. The most wonderful hope and joy it is possible to offer anyone.
The problem being, come the next election, that the UK Libertarian parties are too fragmented, meaning that voting for them would just split the vote & usher in the Covid/Climate/Ukranian Nazi awfulness of Starmer’s Labour, or the equally dire SDP. Freedom loving Britons need to have a damn hard think about uniting under a single banner PDQ… #ReformUK? …You’d still need a lot of major defections from the current Tory benches…
Perhaps we’d all be better off if everyone voted ‘Monster Raving Looney Party’ …
Come off it: the Cavaliers represent the Norman conquest Dukes and Prince Bishops who feudalised the peasants for centuries, freedom for their own decadence and theft, the Stuarts were anti Parliamentarians, divine right of kings. Puritans theologically got the Bible into the hands of the ploughboy and taught him to read, they taught individual faith not the Inquisitorial state religion of the Covid regime and Woke – unless you confess the faith of the indefectible and infallible CEO in Rome, get burned. Yes Covid and net Zero is an oppressive inquisition, still going strong, and the Puritan Parliamentary tradition has been smashed by the arrogant entitled aristocrats who despise the people.
This article has more respect for Johnson than I do. I don’t believe his image as a cavalier is any more real than his adoption of roundhead policies. He does whatever is politically convenient at the time.
At a time when some of his rivals, notably Rishi Sunak, seem to be much more level headed and indeed very much more Conservative, I fail to see why anyone would cheer the idea of Johnson clinging on to power a moment longer.
The article seems to give the past 2 years a dimension which has almost a misty eyed romanticism…the Cavaliers and Roundheads in (now) eternal combat. However, this dimension isn’t what was played out although no doubt some elements were/are present as by products (the continuing rise of the killjoys).
This has been Al Johnson’s application of the gobalists’ plans. Other leaders in other countries tried it differently, perhaps contingent on social mores or history.
‘Libertarians’, ‘Cavaliers’, whatever the label, all had their price and were eager to be paid. We, the bedrock of societies, have been sold out, told to stay silent(censored left right and centre), told to accept the arms of the bio security State to be eternally ‘safe’.
Non compliance is our modus operandi and it will undermine the tyrants’ Shangri-la.
As multiple others have already pointed out, it is historically incorrect to compare the Puritans to those pushing the covid narrative. And, frankly, this article does a disservice to the Puritans, whose history I have studied, and whose books I have read by the hundreds. Puritans promoted thoughtful discussion, wholesome activities, courage through hardships, and love for neighbors.
Rather, as I have observed, covid divided every category and group of people. Some religious folk fell for the narrative, others rejected it. Some atheists bought the covid lies, others saw the truth. Some conservatives swallowed the deceptions of the media, others refused the fiction. Some liberals went covid mad, others kept their sanity. Some recognized that the narrative was false, yet chose to publicly support it for fear of reprisals or love of money.
It is worthwhile keeping this in mind.
Think my analysis was better. 😉
Fair comments! But the article was quite good fun.
In my day a Roundhead was someone who was circumcised a Cavalier not so.
What the last two years has revealed is just how stupid and gullible most people still are. They have decided to side with the puritans because they are persuaded by lies that it’s the right thing to do.
We do not have a proper Conservative Government and we haven’t had for a long time. The UK has seen soft socialism creeping in since John Major. Johnson is only concerned with Johnson. However, if we had properly chosen and elected MPs there would have been a very strong backlash in his own party. As we have seen the backlash yesterday in the Greek Parliament.
Westminster is controlled by the Globalists (men in grey suits). The Party Associations no longer choose their candidate. It’s done from Central Office in Whitehall.
the solution to this dire problem of managerial Government is to stop voting for the same old same old. Stop listening to the tired mantra that the Tories are better than Labour or Labour is the party of NHS and Benefits to working classes. Neither is true. Every single political party wants socialism. Top down control. They want to drain us of our money, our autonomy and our families.
I will never vote again. I will mark my voting paper ‘none of the above’ so those greedy career sycophants know exactly that I will no longer listen to their lies or obey their petty rules. When this country finally produces… Read more »
Boris is now a man without a country.
This comparison between lockdown fanatics and seventeenth century Puritans is utterly fatuous. Based on tired and worn out cariacatures that have little connection with historical fact.
It was the Puritans who kept the churches open in London during the Great Plague when most of the incumbent ministers (generally royalists) fled in fear.
Boris is a libertarian but only below his navel and above his knees.
In every other respect he is a globalist and will happily crap all over the British people for a bribe.
I used to mutter about those who broke speed limits, or who crossed at the red man (or whatever we’re supposed to call it these days), but now I have a certain sympathy with rool-breakerz.
I have had similar thoughts myself. Covidmania has made me much less respectful of those placed in authority and left me with a grudging admiration for those who break the law.
It’s like tax dodgers. I used to deplore them, now I just think “good luck.”
“Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty defends non dom tax status and blasts claims she’s a tax dodger”
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/18191748/rishi-sunak-wife-akshata-murty-tax/
I have occasionally driven without a seat belt for the perverse puerile pleasure of choosing my own risk and refusing to obey a petty pedantic patronising law. Very immature I am sure, but a little frisson in an otherwise joyless existence.
Racist. The proper term is person of higher wavelength.
That’s a very good article.
It’s a good argument. But, as with so many aspects of British social and political life, it ignores the class dimension, which creeps into just about every part of existence in this country.
And the class dimension played a huge role in the covid catastrophe. It was very easy for university-educated white-collar people to accept (indeed revel in) the notion of working from home. A bit more difficult for working class people driving vans, working in shops, and toiling in factories. It was easy for people with spacious private gardens (and well equipped home gyms) to dictate that public parks and recreation facilities be closed.
People living cheek-by-jowl in housing estates were much more likely to be tattled upon by their neighbours for having an illicit visit from a friend or relative. And you see this sort of rank hypocrisy throughout the covid-19 regulations. It was considered perfectly fine for the wealthy to employ, in their homes, gardeners, maids, cleaners, and nannies. But completely illegal for an ordinary person to meet a friend (in private or public) to have a coffee or pint of beer.
I don’t believe Johnson is to blame for the covid-19 catastrophe. He, like every other… Read more »
It’s not so much class as Marxism behind lockdown, lockdown being communist and puritan, after all.
The ideas of Marx are widespread, as are the ideas derived from both him and Hegel, Green ideology is but one example.
All of this paved the way for lockdown.
SAGE were not advising that lockdown be implemented before Boris imposed the first one.
So on what basis and whose advice did he impose this disaster.
The basis that other countries had panicked and the public were panicking too, most likely.
Kim Jong Johnson was terrified he’d be unpopular if he didn’t lock down.
We need to know exactly what the reasoning was, what was Johnson’s excuse, it wasn’t ‘The Science’.
Whim, the reason he does everything.
You’re confusing class with wealth.
An entertaining piece but there are far bigger forces in play.
This gets to the heart of what’s going on:
ATTORNEY FUELLMICH RE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: “THIS GENOCIDE IS NOT BY ACCIDENT” https://www.bitchute.com/video/SSRNPaWnYFiZ/
It was shocking just how puritanical many people were prepared to be.
Being allowed to be a puritan would have been several steps improvement from where we were allowed to be. I cannot think that the Commonwealth authorities had police who arrested people for taking drinks on a walk, or sitting on park benches, or in their own gardens, or who stopped them seeing relations, or attending funerals and weddings or even getting married, or going to Church, or singing in groups, or holding prayer meetings, or sitting down to a meal with more than six people, or buying ‘unnecessary underwear… or…or…or (the list is endless). Whatever the Commonwealth authorities banned was a mere peanut compared to the very large hairy and inwardly putrid coconut of the truly Luciferian oppression we have suffered.
No, it was entirely puritan in nature, it was the ancient fallacy of original sin rehashed via Mao via German philosophy.
As such, all pleasure was forbidden.
Including drinks and definitely no singing.
But you could eat a Scotch egg.
Yes, that was a substantial meal and Gove was in no way laughing at the country.
The problem with Johnson as i see it is that not only do I think he is probably one of the laziest PM’s we’ve ever had but that he also lacks the courage of his convictions , he has been exposed as lacking any real backbone when it comes to the tough decisions, he has little of no courage in his beliefs which has been the hallmark of every great leader who ever lived from Ghandi and Churchill to Thatcher and Reagan – Johnson talked the talk for many years and when he had the chance to act on those beliefs he failed to walk the walk – he’s not a fighter like Thatcher who was prepared to go toe-to-toe with anyone and argue for what she believed in and I suspect he is the type of character who will almost immediately fold at the very first sign of pressure from those who surround him and advise him – to be honest I suspect they see him as a bit of a pushover and I think they’re probably right … ‘anything for an easy life‘ springs to mind when I think of Johnson the PM and this is where we… Read more »
It is said that he basically listens to the last person in the room.
Yes, he is a ‘second-hander’, a walking or waddling receptacle of other people’s opinions.
Hear, hear. There’ll never be another Thatcher, sadly.
And she didn’t want the batons of the police against the hammers of the miners, as many say she did. No, she wanted to beat the unions with the strength of her ideas and beliefs alone. And beat them she did.
I firmly believe she would have stood up to the COVID maniacs and told Joe Public to get a grip.
RIP, Maggie. Your ideas haven’t died.
With you.
Spot on, she had a scientist’s training and was a very hard worker. I don’t believe for one moment she would have accepted Ferguson’s ‘models’, she would have seen straight through them.
Thatcher and her mates asset-stripped Britain. De-regulation of the bus services, anyone?
“Deregulation of the financial markets in order to allow the ‘poorer’ classes the ability to get into large amounts of debt was, for me, the worst of her policies. It has meant that people with enormous debts are unable to be without work, even if this work is low paid, demoralising, emasculating and management know this – so can abuse power and treat workforce less than fairly. She was without doubt clever, but evil none-the-less!”
And now all the coal mines are shut and thousands are going to die of hypothermia next winter. Well done, Maggie (and McGregor who had his tongue firmly up her bottom).
“Conspiracy theories are particularly popular among right-wing extremists”
https://elephantinthelab.org/how-conspiracy-theorists-get-the-scientific-method-wrong/
Yes, he has no ideas, no convictions, no beliefs, he is a populist, entirely dependent on what he believes will be popular.
He does what he believes will be popular or he does what he believes he will be unpopular for not doing.
Anything for an easy life is an extremely apt description of him.
In the first couple of years of Thatcher’s government the media portrayed her as knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. When Argentina invaded the Falklands the Government was unpopular and many expected the PM to do little about it because it was not “cost effective”. But she showed a highly principled character and stood up for what she believed to be right. The mood of the country changed markedly.
Boris would do well to note that integrity and principles go down well with the voters.
Far too kind to Johnson – arguably the most unreliable, most dishonest and disingenuous individual ever to squat in Downing Street.
He told us last year that his main ambition was not to run the country decently in the interests of it people but to make lots of money and have fun. To this end he will say whatever he is told to say abut anything.
So he is in fact just a fatter and slightly more coherent version of Joe Biden!
As in spite of his ample form, he has not one ounce of integrity in his body , we can trust and rely on absolutely nothing he says or does so long as he is in Office.
What we do know for certain is that it will be in his best interests and those of his monied Globalist backers and not ours.
Yes, when Biden was lucid, he was a weathervane, an indicator of the prevailing political wind and Kim Jong Johnson is the same.
From the beginning, I have told everyone and anyone that I have been breaking all the rules, not wearing the mask, travelling without let or hindrance, and the latest breed of British Little Hitlers (and indeed most of other nationalities) have left me alone. They only prey on the ones who are afraid, you see, the ones who validate their nasty, stupid rules by trying to follow (or at least attempting to appear that they are trying to follow) their nasty, stupid rules.
Same here.
I’ve just returned from a GP visit – an unpleasant experience to say the least. Anyway I reported to reception and was asked to take a seat, which I did, it was marked up “Do Not Sit Here.” Well they can ‘eff you see key’ that.
The next person to report to reception was asked to wear a mask and he duly obliged.
Why wasn’t I asked to wear a mask? Why was the GP so brusque and unprofessional and keen to get rid of me?
Would I be correct thinking that my “card” is marked?
Covid denier. Conspiracy theorist. Non-believer, or perhaps just, trouble causer?
Denier of the efficacy of voodoo cultism masquerading as science, that’s what you are.
As for conspiracy theorist, well, you’ve used your eyes, exactly what cultists don’t do and cannot do, as cultists.
Thank you MVL.
You remind me.
I go to Scotch Whisky festivals and a former friend of mine went ballistic at me on Facebook for rejecting the whole lockdown sadistic farce. He said he had lost relatives to Covid. I could have said that lockdown nearly killed me but settled for blocking the turd instead.
There is a large whisky festival coming up very soon in the Highlands and I’m wondering if he’ll be there. If he is, I wonder if he’ll challenge me.
For information, I’m hardly Hafthor Bjornsson but I do have an enormous advantage in size and strength over him and I wonder if he has the courage in his convictions to take me on.
I can’t believe he’s learned anything in the intervening two years since I unfriended him.
You claim you have shown falsified documents at airports.
We have no evidence of that, just your word.
The key point missing from this analogy is that nobody at these parties had any belief that the whole social distancing, lockdowns and mask charades were necessary. If they had truly believed that they were at risk of contracting and spreading a deadly disease that could kill them or others close to them, which was the load of old bull they were busily selling to the rest of us, they would never have contemplated such meetings. If you believe that the water is contaminated, you don’t dive in and have a good swim. Again and again.
They knew that they were peddling tosh. It wasn’t just hypocrisy; it wasn’t just dishonesty; it was downright evil. Perpetrated in full consciousness of what they were doing.
Yes.
Excellent analysis of the situation BJ has got himself into. How does he get out?
By imprisoning himself in Michael Moore’s underpants for all eternity…..
We have to vote him out… …oh, wait a minute, who do we then vote in?
Rishi Washi, Bojo, don’t trust any of them
Is Rishi Sunak a bigger threat to the Elderly than the Death Drug Midazolam?
https://dailyexpose.uk/2022/04/07/is-rishi-sunak-a-bigger-threat-to-the-elderly-than-midazolam/
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They call this activity “whoring”.
No. Wrong. Nothing to do with ancient British history.
This has everything to do with allowing ourselves to be dictated to by intranational bodies – particularly those in Brussels and Geneve and the long term goal to fatally weaken all nation states.
Run deficits with fake money. Pamper to a weak political agenda. Eventually become bankrupt by design, borrow unserviceable debt. Join the club(s). Follow others and their vested interests. Bastardise the rule of law. Law for Corporations, no low for citizens Remove/off-shore inherent industry and knowhow Dumb down the population so knowhow is never regained School children to be confused and uncertain of themselves. Off-shore food and energy supplies, critical to the nation Bring a pseudo disease to the fore. Bring a pseudo treatment that kills more than it saves Prosecute another overseas war without any preparation or foresight Debase your currency even further, prioritise debt repayment from the citizenry Prevent purchases of competitive fertiliser for farming Initiate starvation due to lack of food security Initiate cold starvation due lack of energy security Make your currency totally worthless so you go back to the bronze age. It is all by design and that design is to kill 75%-85% of… Read more »
That’s a pretty comprehensive summary.
Top of the class. Chapeau.
Good piece.
“It seems clear then that no matter how incompetent Boris is, there are worse people waiting in the wings. Almost all centre-Left parties called for longer lockdowns and tougher restrictions; they are the summation of the Puritan tradition. The people calling for Boris’s head are the same who cheered as masked zealots broke up barbecues and dispatched drones to spy on walkers. They supported the lockdowns and they wish we were still under lock and key. Unfortunately, this is the gallery Boris has spent two years playing to when he should have stuck to his own tribe.”
This is the sad truth.
But also, we have to consider the Green puritan agenda, where Johnson is also playing the true believer without anything like the same excuse. Perhaps we can blame that on his woman (and his weakness, obviously).
We have to consider his regime’s anti-free speech laws.
We have to consider his regime’s refusal to confront mass immigration as the inherently harmful thing that it is, and properly control it. (Not helped by the current entirely gratuitous import of thousands of Ukrainians, apparently for virtue signalling purposes. Not that I’ve got anything against Ukrainians, per se, but it… Read more »
This is the sad truth.
No it isn’t. The Tory Party embraced the Green Agenda with their “Green Broccoli” logo in 2006, as was already preparing to be the NeoLib inheritor to Blair’s New Labour; Brown failed to understand the rules of the game. Thus the Conservative Coalition Government from 2010-15 was New Labour in word and deed, with administrations from 2015 onwards merely confirmed the shift.
The Roman Empire was divided East / West, so Centrist NeoLib Politics hangs onto quaint remnants of the past such as left and (err) right to keep the voters from crying foul. The current LabCon parliamentary coalition, that gleefully foisted covid coercion, crony capitalism & murderous jabs onto the populace has nothing to do with any workable definition of conservatism.
But hark!! Boris is addressing Russian citizens online (or those that know how to use a VPN, let’s ignore that his minions have banned RT and Sputnik in the UK) and pointing out those ‘undoubtedly Russian’ war crimes, while simultaneously sending much needed NHS ambulances to ferry Azov death squads and film crews around; just as they were used in Syria. Vanessa Beeley (independent journalist) has previously pointed all this out, while warning… Read more »
Political left/right has nothing to do with the Roman Empire. It’s to do with the places occupied by coteries of the French revolutionary assembly on the ‘hemicycle’.
Did I ever say it had? I am not addressing the origin of left and right. ‘Centrist’ Neolib politics recruits from those places once ascribed to the now defunct left and the now defunct right. Blair’s New Labour 1997 followed the same instruction manual as successive post 2010 Conservative led governments have. The NeoLiberal globalist agenda in the UK moved to the most viable political location (party), and as such has remained in continuous power from 1997 to the present, only the name has changed. And ‘New Labour’ by any other name….
Likewise the Roman Empire didn’t collapse, it simply moved eastwards to a more viable geographic location.
The left/right divide wasn’t an infallible guide to political intentions in revolutionary France, and it certainly isn’t today.
Nor does the Cavaliers/Puritans argument fit the bill (though I rather enjoyed the essay from a stylistic point of view).
There’s something else at work: a concern for truth, perhaps even for the sanctity of the individual – taking the form of an objection to any form of tyranny.
I’m not any sort of a biblical scholar, but I love the first Book of Samuel – with its references to the taking of bribes and “perverted judgment”. Unfortunately, the people wanted to be “like all the nations” and have a king that would “judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles” – despite the warnings.
Perhaps we find ourselves being required to ask why we subordinate ourselves to others, to examine the consequences, and to reconsider how we organise our societies.
What was significant was not the parties but the highly selective controlled-media outrage at the parties. The public was being told what to be outraged about. Where was the outrage at the lack of masks at the G7 meeting in Cornwall? Why did the outrage only appear 18 months after the event, when the final COVID restrictions were being removed in advance of many other countries?
Exactly.
Boris’s big mouth let the cat out the bag when he accidentally told the truth
Boris Johnson on boosters – YouTube
Then all MSM hell appears
Now be fair, they wore the masks for the press photo gathering…
This article proffers a false analogy and a bifurcation of English history. It is difficult to decide where to start with this. The analogy is horribly strained and simplistic.
For a start, the Puritans were dealing with the ongoing Reformation and its effects, and had genuine concerns both religiously and politically. In contrast, the SARS-2/COVID ‘Puritanism’ is nothing of the sort. Depending on who we are dealing with in this multifaceted cult, this ‘concern’ was in some cases – particularly among the establishment class – contrived, in some cases – particularly among the masses – born of an infantilised mind incapable of (and/or unwilling to) rationally coming to its own conclusions based on research… and so on. While the Puritans overreached in certain areas (in some cases understandably given what they themselves suffered or had witnessed others suffering), they had genuine concerns living in an entirely different period.
In short, the very Gospel was at stake here, and lives were genuinely at risk, whereas this pseudo pandemic has been one large pantomime.
Secondly, this bifurcation of history, where we are offered ‘Puritan vs Libertine’, is utterly simplistic. This excludes a necessary middle, leaving out the ‘conservative’ element… Read more »
Hear hear.
True Puritans were honest, hard-working, God-fearing people who strove to live quietly, in accordance with God’s commandments.
Indeed, Annie. It’s usually liberals and libertarians who try to criticise and mock the Puritans, the very liberals and libertarians who have surrendered all moral authority, are without a consistent and objective mechanism by which to make any meaningful moral claims, and are thus reduced to arbitrariness.
Great to see you posting again, dear sister.
Great to see you posting again, dear sister. Indeed it is – never an uninteresting word.
But although I would broadly agree with you MR, I would argue that liberals and libertarians do not necessarily lack all meaningful moral authority. Many have bravely fought against earthly tyrannies, and not simply for their own sakes, but for the sake of others.
I wouldn’t disagree if you are saying that liberals (largely of the past) and libertarians have fought good moral battles, etc. My argument would be that they have done this from an inconsistent position. Given liberalism and libertarianism emphasise the primacy of the individual, and by extension individual tastes, and given that this stands in contrast to the needs of a healthy society, these of necessity lead to moral anarchy. Hence both liberalism and libertarianism surrender moral justification since they have, either explicitly or implicitly, abandoned objective moral norms and the objective standard which gives legitimacy to those norms.
Uptick from me.
“are without a consistent and objective mechanism by which to make any meaningful moral claims,”
Having an imaginary friend as an adult doesn’t give you a consistent and objective mechanism to make moral claims.
If that’s your level of argumentation then you’re out of your league, sausage. I suppose the big metaphysical questions passed you by.
Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. Do human being possess intrinsic moral value? If so, whence did they derive this value? In what is this value grounded? Why ought Government respect other human lives and not do them harm or prevent them from living their lives?
The people who made the decisions seem to have an imaginary friend by the name of Moloch.
IMO They should post this above the fold as a counter to the published drivel.
I reject the premise that he believes in anything. It seems to me that the only thing he cares about is furthering his own agenda, which appears to be set quite rigidly by Mrs Prime Minister and her handlers.