Quote:
Originally Posted by Peregrino
When it comes to the Magna Carta, history neglects to mention what King John did (or tried to do) to the signers - and everyone else he could get his hands on who thought a piece of parchment to be a viable constraint on unbridled tyranny. It wasn't until after John's death that the myth we accept as the Magna Carta gained stature - at the point of a sword in the hands of an armed gentry who seized upon the weakness of a 10 year old king and the complicity of a Roman Pope. Without willing arms to enforce its provisions, the Magna Carta would have been a forgotten footnote in English history. Even then its provisions generally only applied for the gentry. Add that throughout history English kings continued to view it much as our current administration views our own Constitution - an impediment to the natural exercise of their "divine rights". The takeaway from this brief lesson? - The coin paid to enforce words on parchment is blood; tyrants will not be stopped with anything less dear.
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Well said.
TR
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"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
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