Did Magna Carta die in vain?

[Marshal Murat]

lol

[Lord Winter]

It's a sad day when you can't hold a peaceful protest without permission.

[AntiochusIII]

It's a sad day when you can't hold a peaceful protest without permission.

It's actually a longtime practice...something about disturbance of domestic tranquility and other excuses (usually translated as traffic woes).

Also, Magna Carta is for the barons :) I'm sure I won't appreciate it as much since I'm of an impure colored peasant stock.

You British subjects really need a Constitution...starting with stop being subjects instead of citizens, perhaps; then the Civil Rights no government can break; then...

[Incongruous]

No, the magna Carta was not just for the Barons, but for all freemen. You should appreciate it as its the founding stone of Modern British Liberties. However to use it to decry the present institution is silly. The Magna Carta was also the first step towards Parliamentary sovriegnty. It is that which we should be angry about. For all it's historical pap about being the first modern democracy, Westminster government is just another form of Tyranny, in which un-written conventions can be abuse daily, in which the secrecy act protects abuses on human rights. People should not just be attacking silly laws, for Westminster governmnet will always allow them. People should be rallying against Monarchy and against English style Government. Westminster will never allow an entrenched bill of rights or constitution in supreme law. So westminster must be gotten rid of.

[Slyspy]

Of course Magna Carta is all about creating the rule of law as opposed to rule by decree.

Unfortunately for the bloke writing that article all his protests are against the rule of law, so Magna Carta can't really help him however justified his complaints!

[Gawain of Orkeny]

No, the magna Carta was not just for the Barons, but for all freemen. You should appreciate it as its the founding stone of Modern British Liberties. However to use it to decry the present institution is silly. The Magna Carta was also the first step towards Parliamentary sovriegnty. It is that which we should be angry about. For all it's historical pap about being the first modern democracy,

Yup when we first study the constitution in HS they go back to the Magna Carta as one of the most important documents leading up to it. The only thing they mention much before that is Greece and Athens in particular. At least thats what we did 40 years ago when I graduated

Oh and the Articles of Confederation of course.

[English assassin]

“They can’t arrest you for just standing there, can they? What about our rights?”

That sums it up.

IA, get your hands on a copy of "England, an Elegy" by Roger Scruton. I'm reading it now and although I don't entirely agree with all of it, its powerfully depressing stuff, in the same mold.

According to Rog, the answer to the question is it too late is yes, far too late. No one under 50 even knows what we lost. We decided not to teach it. Too oppressive, probably, as if a tradition of liberty and dissent was oppressive.

As Rog remarks, to be a nation, a people have to tell the same stories about themselves. In England's case the stories included two fingers to unjust authority, and scepticism about any authority. Without the same stories you aren't a nation, just a crowd.

Of course nowadays we all "celebrate" having different stories. Welcome to the crowd.

For all it's historical pap about being the first modern democracy, Westminster government is just another form of Tyranny, in which un-written conventions can be abuse daily, in which the secrecy act protects abuses on human rights. People should not just be attacking silly laws, for Westminster governmnet will always allow them. People should be rallying against Monarchy and against English style Government. Westminster will never allow an entrenched bill of rights or constitution in supreme law. So westminster must be gotten rid of.

Fortunately the judges in the Administrative court do not share your views. That is about the one bit of the constitution that is working, and it works precisely BECAUSE the common law exists independently of parliament and without any need for parliamentary authority. A bill of rights or a written constitution would be the final snuffing out of liberty, as then, all our freedoms would come de haut en bas, instead as now from the unwritten law of the land itself. And a freedom given from on high can be revoked, unlike the common law.

Oh, they've tried to revoke it, of course, but the judges have always found a way round. I love admin law.

Ironically, if we have civil liberties today, its because of unelected white public school men wearing wigs, (and, to be fair, the ocassional bloody minded jury. Which of course they want to abolish. Just as they want to engineer the composition of the judiciary to be less independent, although they claim its in the interests of diversity, of course.)