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Should he have spoken? (Thoughtful essay explores the road to Europe's multicultural decline)
The New Criterion ^ | September, 2006 | Roger Scruton

Posted on 09/06/2006 10:28:30 AM PDT by Stoat

Should he have spoken?

In 1968 the products of the postwar baby boom decided to seize the European future and to jettison the European past. In that same year Enoch Powell delivered to the Birmingham Conservatives the speech known forever after as “Rivers of Blood”: a speech that cost him his political career, and which, on one plausible interpretation, made the issue of immigration undiscussable in British politics for close to forty years. It is a speech that raises in its acutest form the question of truth: What place is there for truth in public life, and what should a politician do when comfortable falsehoods have settled down in government, and their uncomfortable negations seek forlornly for a voice?

“Human kind cannot bear very much reality,” said T. S. Eliot. It is not one of his best lines, but he used it twice—in Murder in the Cathedral and in Four Quartets—and in both places its prosaic rhythmlessness reinforces its sense, reminding us that our exaltations are invented things, and that we prefer inspiring fantasies to sobering facts. Enoch Powell was no different, and his inspiring fantasy of England caused him to address his countrymen as though they still enjoyed the benefits of a classical education and an imperial culture. How absurd, in retrospect, to end a speech warning against the effects of uncontrolled immigration with a concealed quotation from Virgil. “As I look ahead,” Powell said, “I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood.’” These words were addressed to an England that had forgotten the story of the Aeneid, along with every other story woven into its former identity as the “sweet, just, boyish master” of the world—to borrow Santayana’s luminous phrase. It is hardly surprising that Powell’s words were instantly converted to “rivers of blood,” and their speaker dismissed as a dangerous madman.

It is, in fact, the Cumaean Sybil who utters that prophecy in Book VI of the Aeneid, and although she is foreseeing the troubles that come from immigration, it is to the troubles suffered by an immigrant that she refers. The immigrant in question—Aeneas—travels to Italy at the head of a determined retinue, carrying his household gods and a divine right of residence. His intention to settle is not to be brooked, and if this means “wars, horrid wars,” so be it. Modern immigrants don’t, on the whole, behave so badly. They don’t need to. They come as the heads of families, and even if the family might comprise four wives and twenty children, it arrives to a red carpet of legal privileges, eagerly unrolled by publicly funded lawyers, and to a welcome trough of welfare benefits that few indigenous citizens can claim, however much they have contributed to the common fund.

Yet, like Aeneas, our immigrants come carrying their household gods. Like Aeneas, they come with an unbrookable intention to make a home for themselves. And if their gods dislike the indigenous rivals, they will soon make this fact known. Such predictions as Powell made in his speech, concerning the tipping of the demographic balance, the ghettoization of the industrial cities, and the growth of resentment among the indigenous working class have been fulfilled. Only the sibylline prophecy has fallen short of the mark. Even so, the Madrid and London bombings and the murder of Theo van Gogh are viewed by many Europeans as a foretaste of things to come. It is now evident to everyone that, in the debate over immigration, in those last remaining days when it could still have made a difference, Enoch Powell was far nearer the truth than those who instantly drove him from office, and who ensured that the issue was henceforth to be discussed, if at all, only by way of condemning the “racism” and “xenophobia” of those who thought like Powell. As for the racism and xenophobia of the incomers, it was indiscernible to the liberal conscience, which has never been able to understand that liberalism is an unusual state of mind.

Liberalism emerges from a long-standing rule of law, shaped by the Enlightenment view of citizenship, and dependent upon the shared customs, shared language, and shared culture of a people who have lived together in a common home and acquired the habit of defending it. But it is virtually unknown among people who are seeking territory, and who have conscripted their gods to fight for it. The book of Joshua tells the story of such a people, and it contains in its bloodthirsty pages not a single liberal sentiment. The one gesture of kindness that the book records towards the indigenous people is bestowed on those who had betrayed their native city to its foes. This reward offered for the basest form of treachery indicates how far the Israelites were, in their need, from any liberal view of the human condition.

At the time when Powell made his speech, British politicians were schooled in the Bible and the Greek and Roman classics; they could dispute the factual basis for Powell’s prophecy only by putting out of mind what they had every reason to know, namely that many of the newcomers to Britain would be strangers to liberal values, attached to their own communities, suspicious towards the host culture, and anxious to insulate themselves and their children from its influence. In the face of those manifest truths our political class had recourse to Doublethink. Like the White Queen in Through the Looking Glass, they practiced the art of believing six impossible propositions before breakfast, including the proposition that pious Muslims from the hinterlands of Asia would produce children loyal to a secular European state.

This flight from reality is not a new feature of political life. It is always easier to bequeath a problem to your successors than to face it yourself, and when the problem is intractable, Doublethink will soon erase it, as Hitler was erased from the thoughts of the appeasers, and the Gulag from the political map of the peaceniks. Nor are American presidents any more realistic than the rest of us. When the embassy in Tehran was invaded and United States citizens taken hostage, President Carter chose not to notice what was, certainly de facto and probably de jure, a declaration of war. That may prove to have been the costliest mistake made by America in the Middle East. Likewise, the silencing of Enoch Powell has proved more costly than any other post-war domestic policy in Britain, since it has ensured that immigration can be discussed only now, when it is too late to do anything about it or to confine it to those who come in a spirit of obedience towards the indigenous law.

As I implied, Powell was also in flight from reality—the reality of British society as it was in 1968. The British people had lost their imperial identity without gaining a national identity with which to replace it. There were Scottish nationalists, Welsh nationalists, and Irish nationalists, but no English nationalists and therefore—since England was the core of Britain, the seat of government, and the central fact of our history—no British nationalists either. Powell’s invocation of Virgil fell on deaf ears—or rather on ears that pricked up only at the sound of “blood.” And his punctilious syntax, resounding with the rhythms of the Book of Common Prayer and rich in allusions to a history that was publicly remembered, if at all, only as an object of ridicule, created the impression of a paterfamilias in some Edwardian play, strutting at the front of the stage while his disobedient daughter flirts unnoticed in the background.

Moreover, Powell’s fantasy vision of Britain was absolutely necessary to him. The truths that he wished to put across were uttered in defense of Old England, and it was unthinkable to him that he might be speaking into the void. Powell’s England was a place made sacred by Chaucer and Shakespeare, by the Anglican settlement and the anointed monarch, by the common law and the Great Offices of State. It was the very same England that Churchill had invoked in his wartime speeches: a country whose past was lost in Arthurian mists, whose title was as God-given as that of the Israelites and whose patriotism outshone that of Rome. Those who silenced Powell therefore believed that it was not he but they who were on the side of truth. They were introducing realism and sobriety in the place of dangerous romantic dreams. Not for nothing, they said, did Powell refer to authorities who wrote in dead languages and believed forgotten myths; not for nothing did he choose, when invited onto BBC radio’s “Desert Island Discs,” only episodes from the Ring of the Nibelung of Richard Wagner. The man was clearly living in Cloud Cuckoo Land. And Powell accepted the expression with a wry smile: After all, it comes from Aristophanes.

Truth, Plato believed, is the business of philosophy, but it is rhetoric, not philosophy, that moves the crowd. So how can we protect people from fatal errors, such as those that tempted Athens into conflict with Sparta, or those which, much later, led the Germans, mesmerized by Hitler, into an equally suicidal war? Plato did not believe that philosophers would be listened to: Their words would sound strange and ambiguous, and their eyes would be turned from present and time-bound emergencies towards the stratosphere of eternal truths. Nevertheless among the rhetorical devices of politicians, it is still possible to distinguish the noble lies from their ignoble negations. The noble lie is the untruth that conveys a truth, the myth that maps reality. It is thus that Plato justified the stories of the gods and their origins which inspire people to live as though nearer to the source of things, and to discover in themselves the virtues that exist only when we find our way to believing in them.

In the Platonic scheme of things, Powell’s vision of England might be seen as a noble lie. He was exhorting his countrymen to live up to something, and that thing was an ideal image of their country, shaped by myth in the style of Hesiod. The England of Powell’s dream was fashioned from heroic deeds and immemorial customs, from sacred rites and solemn offices whose meaning was inscrutable from any point outside the social context that defined them. By fixing their sights on this vision, the British people would be in some way perfecting themselves, and establishing their right to their ancestral territory. In place of this noble vision, however, they were also being offered an ignoble lie. The emerging multicultural community would make no place for a common obedience, a common loyalty, or a shared history: It would inevitably deprive the British people of their geographical, cultural, and political inheritance. And yet they were being told that it would not harm them, that they would even be improved by it, since it would inject energy, variety, and youth into a tired old way of life.

The problem with Plato’s theory of the noble lie is that noble lies have to be believed by the one who utters them. Otherwise people will see through the deception and withdraw their support. And a lie that is believed is not really a lie. It was impossible to discern, in Powell’s steely manner, ancestor-laden syntax, and fixed, expressionless gaze, whether he really believed in the nation that he described with his toneless incantations. He was invoking England in the way that a Professor of Classics (which once he was) invokes Greece—as an idea whose roots are buried deep in the archaeology of consciousness.

Plato’s theory of the noble lie was a first shot at describing the role of myth in human thinking. Myths are not falsehoods, nor are they scientific theories: They are attempts to capture difficult truths in symbols. Myths also arm us against realities that are otherwise too fateful or disturbing to bear contemplation. Powell’s deep attachment to Wagner went hand in hand with his own desire for a national myth of England. The composer of The Ring of the Nibelung was adamant that the work possessed “the ring of truth.” Myth, for Wagner, was the opposite of fantasy: It was a truth-directed, rather than an illusion-directed, device. He made this observation in connection with the old myths of Greek tragedy, and saw the tragedians as disinterring from those myths the “concealed deep truths” about the human condition that they symbolized. In the same spirit Wagner wished to use the old myths of the Germanic peoples to explore truths about the modern psyche. His success in this is of less importance than the attempt. Thanks to Wagner, myth-making became a deliberate enterprise, rather than the work of the collective unconscious.

But conscious myth—the noble lie—is a different thing altogether from the myths that emerge from the unconscious fears and longings of a people. Unconscious myth conveys truth because it is the residue of life and the after-image of suffering. Conscious myths, however, are the instruments of human purpose. In the work of a great artist like Wagner they may point towards the truth. Released into the stream of political life, however, they can be directed as easily towards falsehood. Many blame Wagner for that exercise in collective mythopeia which brought the Nazi Party to power in Germany and extinguished the light of civilization across the continent. And many, looking back on Powell’s vision of England, believe that it showed the same dangerous tendency—not towards the truth of the modern condition, but towards a fantasy. Once released from the educated mind in which it was first conceived, this fantasy would run riot in the feelings of ignorant people and there fully justify the charge of “racism” that was wrongly but understandably directed at Powell.

Such is the controversy as we see it now, forty years on: an ignoble lie against a dangerous myth. Whichever way you look at it, truth was the victim, and while the truth can now be cautiously acknowledged, it is acknowledged too late. Decisions can still be taken, but only in the hope of limiting the damage. And even now, when opinion across Europe is unanimous that immigration must be controlled, and that Muslims must be integrated into the secular culture, liberal politicians are refusing to admit to a problem or to confess that they are the cause of it. They still preach “multiculturalism” as the sign of our “vibrant” future; they still condemn “racism and xenophobia” as the enemy; they still try to state and solve the problem by the promiscuous multiplication of “human rights.” Their Enlightenment creed makes it all but impossible for them to acknowledge the fundamental truth, which is that indigenous communities have legitimate expectations which take precedence over the demands of strangers. True, indigenous communities may also have duties of charity towards those strangers—or towards some of them. But charity is a gift, and there is no right to receive it, still less to force it from those reluctant to give.

The destructive effects of liberalism are not usually felt by the liberals themselves—not immediately, at least. The first victim of liberal immigration policies is the indigenous working class. When the welfare state was first conceived, it was in order to provide insurance for poorer members of the indigenous community, by taxing their income in exchange for the benefits which they may one day need. The rights involved were quasi-contractual: a right of the state to levy contributions in exchange for a right of the citizen to receive support. The very term used to describe the deal in Britain—“national insurance”—expresses the old understanding, that the welfare system is part of being together as a nation, of belong- ing with one’s neighbors, as mutual beneficiaries of an ancestral right. The liberal view of rights, as universal possessions which make no reference to history, community, or obedience, has changed all that. Indigenous people can claim no precedence, not even in this matter in which they have sacrificed a lifetime of income for the sake of their own future security. Immigrants are given welfare benefits as of right, and on the basis of their need, whether or not they have paid or ever will pay taxes. And since their need is invariably great—why else have they come here?—they take precedence over existing residents in the grant of housing and income support. Those with a handful of wives are even more fortunate, since only one of their marriages is recognized in European systems of law: the remaining wives are “single mothers,” with all the fiscal advantages which attach to that label. All this has entailed that the stock of “social housing” once reserved for the indigenous poor is now almost entirely occupied by people whose language, customs, and culture mark them out as foreigners.

It is not “racist” to draw attention to this kind of fact. Nor is it racist to argue that indigenous people must take precedence over newcomers, who have to earn their right of residence and cannot be allowed to ap- propriate the savings of their hosts. But it is easier for me to write about these matters in an American intellectual journal than in an English newspaper, and if I tried to write about these things in a Belgian newspaper, I could be in serious trouble with the courts. The iron curtain of censorship that came down in the wake of Powell’s speech has not lifted everywhere; on the contrary, if the EU has its way, it will be enshrined in the criminal code, with “racism and xenophobia”—defined as vaguely as is required to silence unwanted opinion—made into an extraditable offense throughout the Union.

The problem with censorship, as John Stuart Mill pointed out a century and half ago, is that it makes it impossible for those who impose it to discover that they are wrong. The error persists, preventing the discussion that might produce a remedy, and ensuring that the problem will grow. Yet when truth cannot make itself known in words, it will make itself known in deeds. The truth about Hitler burst on the world in 1939, notwithstanding all the pious words of the appeasers. And the truth about immigration is beginning to show itself in Europe, notwithstanding all the liberal efforts to conceal it. It is not an agreeable truth; nor can we, in the face of it, take refuge in the noble lies of Enoch Powell. The fact is that the people of Europe are losing their homelands, and therefore losing their place in the world. I don’t envisage the Tiber one day foaming with much blood, nor do I see it blushing as the voice of the muezzin sounds from the former cathedral of St. Peter. But the city through which the Tiber flows will one day cease to be Italian, and all the expectations of its former residents, whether political, social, cultural, or personal, will suffer a violent upheaval, with results every bit as interesting as those that Powell prophesied.



TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Philosophy; United Kingdom; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: britain; england; enochpowell; greatbritain; immigration; islam; islamofascism; islamofascists; islamonazis; islamonazism; multiculturalism; newcriterion; oslamofascism; riversofblood; rogerscruton; uk; unitedkingdom
The Salisbury Review - Editorial Team
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Consulting Editor

Roger Scruton


Roger Scruton, who is considered to be one of the most outstanding intellects of his generation, is now Professor of Philosophy at Buckingham University. A Renaissance man, his prolific output in journalism and over twenty academic books ranges over architecture, music, the philosophy of sex, hunting, as well as political comment. He is a frequent broadcaster on radio and television and columnist in newspapers in the UK and America. His books include Modern Philosophy, The Meaning of Conservatism, The Aesthetics of Music, the most recent being England: an Elegy and The West and the Rest, a study of the relationship of Islam to the West.

 

Additional biographical information at Wikipedia:

Roger Scruton - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Roger Scruton's Official Site

Roger Scruton - Home Page - Curriculum Vitae

 
  Roger Scruton

writer and philosopher
 

When is he?

zivii
  Born 27th February 1944. Still alive.


What is he?
zivotopis
 

Academic philosopher: Graduate of Jesus College Cambridge. 1969-71 Fellow of Peterhouse Cambridge and  Director of Studies at Christ's College Cambridge. 1971-1991 Professor of Aesthetics at Birkbeck College London and 1992-94 Professor of Philosophy at Boston University Massachusetts, and who has held visiting posts at many other institutions, including Princeton, Stanford, Louvain, Guelph (Ontario), Witwatersrand (S. Africa), Waterloo (Ontario), Oslo, Bordeaux, and Cambridge). Currently visiting professor in the Department of Philosophy, University of Buckingham.


 
  Writer (see below).

 
  Freelance journalist Between 1983 and 1987 op-ed column on The Times (selection of which collected in Untimely Tracts, Macmillan (1987). 1999-2002 'This Land' column in the Financial Times magazine (selection of which published in News from Somewhere: on settling, Continuum (2003). From 2001 wine column in the New Statesman. Links to recent articles in the UK and farther afield will be made available on this site shortly.

 
  Political activist, Founder of the Conservative Philosophy Group, which helped to change the climate of opinion in Britain during the 1970s and 1980s. Co-founder with Anthony Barnett of the Town and Country Forum, devoted to encouraging cross-party discussion of the problems and solutions connected with the town and country divide.

 
  Editor, From 1982-2000, Editor of the Salisbury Review, a journal of conservative thought.

 
  Publisher, Founder and director of Claridge Press. 1982-2004. Claridge Press was taken over by Continuum International Publishing Group in January 2004.

 
  Composer, A new opera will be premiered in London at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama on 30th November and 1st December 2005. Tickets are available by e-mailing info@violetopera.org. Roger's first opera The Minister received its world premier four years ago, and was most recently performed by Lot 18 in Oxford, 1998.

 
  Broadcaster, Who has presented two full documentaries and many short programmes on TV, as well as taking part in radio presentations and discussions..


What has he written?
zivotopis
 

Roger Scruton has published more than 30 books, including philosophy, political and cultural commentary, criticism, and novels. They have been widely translated. Here they are:

:: Art and Imagination (1974)
:: The Aesthetics of Architecture (1979)
:: The Meaning of Conservatism (1980, second edition 1984, third edition 2000)
:: The Politics of Culture and Other Essays (1981)
:: Fortnight's Anger (a novel) (1981)
:: A Short History of Modern Philosophy (1982, second edition 1995)
:: A Dictionary of Political Thought (1982, second edition 1996)
:: The Aesthetic Understanding (1983, new edition 1997)
:: Kant (1983)
:: Untimely Tracts (1985)
:: Thinkers of the New Left (1986)
:: Sexual Desire (1986)
:: Spinoza (1987)
:: A Land Held Hostage (Lebanon and the West) (1987)
:: The Philosopher on Dover Beach and other essays (1989)
:: Francesca (a novel) (1991)
:: A Dove Descending and other stories (1991)
:: Xanthippic Dialogues (1993)
:: Modern Philosophy (1994)
:: The Classical Vernacular: architectural principles in an age of nihilism (1995)
:: Animal Rights and Wrongs (1996, third edn. 2000)
:: An Intelligent Person's Guide to Philosophy (1996)
:: The Aesthetics of Music (1997)
:: On Hunting (1998)
:: An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Culture (1998)
:: Spinoza (1998)
:: Perictione in Colophon (2000)
:: England: an Elegy (2000)

:: Death-Devoted Heart: Sex and the Sacred in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde (2003)

:: News from Somewhere: On Settling (2003)



Edited:
:: Conservative Thinkers
:: Conservative Thoughts
:: Conservative Texts (With Michal Brisliger and Petra Bockholdt)
:: Szmanowski und seine Zeit
:: Town and Country (with Anthony Barnnett)

Papers: A list of academic articles will be available soon.



Why is he?
zivotopis
  His own diligent researches have produced no definitive answer to this question. Some kind of mistake was made, however, over the timing of his birth. The question is, whose?


Who cares?
zivotopis
  Admittedly, not many. But he has been awarded an honorary doctorate, for services to literature and philosophy by Adelphi University, New York, and another honorary doctorate in recognition of his intellectual work, by the Masaryk University in Brno, Moravia. He has also been awarded the First of June prize by the city of Plzen, for services to the Czech people in their resistance to communist oppression, and has been decorated by President Havel for the same cause. He received the Richard M Weaver award for scholarly letters in 2004. He has given the Owen Memorial lectures in the University of Wales, the Jones Memorial Lecture at the University of Swansea, and the Stephen Memorial Lecture at the University of Cambridge.

“There are few more valuable thinkers in Britain – or indeed, the world – today. His vilification and rejection by the academic establishment is disgraceful. In comparison with him, most of his critics are intellectual pygmies. Both left and right should be grateful to have such a man to sharpen and define the issues. And philosophers should be grateful that he has placed their subject at the very centre of current affairs. Perhaps Scruton’s greatest contribution is his living demonstration of the truth that without philosophy we are nothing.” Bryan Appleyard, The Sunday Times

1 posted on 09/06/2006 10:28:33 AM PDT by Stoat
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To: Stoat
It's probably all true but one thing you cannot discuss rationally is the idea that Europe somehow "descends" as it acquires more cultures.

This place was always multi-culti ~ for thousands and thousands of years.

Oh, yeah, there's one other thing you can't discuss rationally and that is the idea that Europe somehow "ascends" or improves as it sheds itself of cultures.

The destruction of the Jews and Gypsies spring to mind in that regard.

This thing needs a much better title, and that picture of the writer? Why did they pick a guy who looks just like the actor who plays the evil Tarlton.

2 posted on 09/06/2006 10:34:21 AM PDT by muawiyah
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To: All
It is not “racist” to draw attention to this kind of fact. Nor is it racist to argue that indigenous people must take precedence over newcomers, who have to earn their right of residence and cannot be allowed to appropriate the savings of their hosts.

Thee are so very many similarities between the Leftist lies and bullying tactics employed in Great Britain and Europe to those of the American Left, that we can easily see much of our past as well as our future through Europe's example.

We ignore history's lessons at our great peril.

3 posted on 09/06/2006 10:34:56 AM PDT by Stoat (Rice / Coulter 2008: Smart Ladies for a Strong America)
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To: Stoat
The first few paragraphs are going to frighten a lot of people of which is a shame.

If you want to cut to the chase - 3 paragraphs from the end and the gubbin's will be clear.

No doubt he will be vilified as a Nazi.
4 posted on 09/06/2006 10:39:43 AM PDT by vimto (Blighty Awaken!)
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To: Stoat

Great post, thanks!


5 posted on 09/06/2006 10:41:05 AM PDT by SWAMPSNIPER (MAY I DIE ON MY FEET IN MY SWAMP, BUAIDH NO BAS)
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To: Stoat

bump for later read


6 posted on 09/06/2006 10:43:04 AM PDT by fso301
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To: SWAMPSNIPER
Great post, thanks!

You're quite welcome!  Professor Scruton is truly a gem in Conservatism's crown.

7 posted on 09/06/2006 10:45:15 AM PDT by Stoat (Rice / Coulter 2008: Smart Ladies for a Strong America)
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To: muawiyah
It isn't a question of the quantity of cultures, but the quality of cultures.

Importing Confucius is not the same as importing Muhammad.

8 posted on 09/06/2006 10:54:03 AM PDT by wideawake ("The nation which forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten." - Calvin Coolidge)
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To: All
To All...related item; Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech

Untitled Normal Page

Related press accounts from the time it was delivered:

Rivers of Blood speeches by Enoch Powell

9 posted on 09/06/2006 11:03:17 AM PDT by Stoat (Rice / Coulter 2008: Smart Ladies for a Strong America)
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To: wideawake

No idea ~ sometimes you want Mo and sometimes you want Kong Fu Tse.


10 posted on 09/06/2006 11:09:43 AM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Stoat

A simply wonderful post. Thank you very much.


11 posted on 09/06/2006 12:21:05 PM PDT by dagogo redux (I never met a Dem yet who didn't understand a slap in the face, or a slug from a 45)
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To: Stoat

Brilliant article. I think I'm in love.


12 posted on 09/06/2006 12:47:31 PM PDT by Mordacious
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To: dagogo redux
A simply wonderful post. Thank you very much.

WOW!  You're quite welcome...I'm delighted that you enjoyed it and thank you very much for your kind words   :-)

13 posted on 09/06/2006 1:03:11 PM PDT by Stoat (Rice / Coulter 2008: Smart Ladies for a Strong America)
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To: Mordacious
Brilliant article. I think I'm in love.

WOW!  I'm delighted that the article touched such a positive nerve   :-)

I don't know whether Professor Scruton is married or not, but I'm sure that his agent can tell you.

 

Roger Scruton's agent is: Caroline Michel, William Morris Agency, 52-53 Poland Street, London W1F 7LX. Tel: +44 (0)20 7534 6800. E-mail: cmichel@wma.com

 

14 posted on 09/06/2006 1:08:38 PM PDT by Stoat (Rice / Coulter 2008: Smart Ladies for a Strong America)
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To: Stoat

Yes, I finally got around to reading this. Wonderful and a great post. Thank you.


15 posted on 01/27/2007 6:08:52 PM PST by shrinkermd
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To: shrinkermd; All
Yes, I finally got around to reading this. Wonderful and a great post. Thank you.

I'm delighted that you enjoyed the article, and I would like, in turn, to thank YOU for your post to me, because it prompted me to re-read the entire article.  Professor Scruton succinctly and unapologetically defines for us why a nation, it's indigenous culture and national identity are of crucial importance to the survival of a nation.  Writers such as Mark Steyn have spoken about similar things with a more populist and humorist style, but Professor Scruton provides the solid historical foundations for these universal truths which are, in my view, essential to an understanding of the matter.

I appreciate your kind words and I hope that everyone who found this article to be enlightening or helpful might consider printing it out and/or forwarding it to their friends.  Too many people are fearful of learning about such issues, much less speaking about them for fear of being labeled a 'racist', and I feel that Professor Scruton's approach is uniquely valuable in that it provides the logical foundations for immigration control and the maintenance of an indigenous culture while dispelling any notions that such truths are racist in nature.  The die-hard Leftists will never admit to these truths, but truly thoughtful and open-minded people will embrace them as the universal truths that they are.

A maintenance note....Professor Scruton's home page has changed since I originally linked to it with this posted article.  Here is his new and current page:

Roger Scruton - Home Page

16 posted on 01/27/2007 10:27:38 PM PST by Stoat (Rice / Coulter 2008: Smart Ladies for a Strong America)
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