In “Inventing Freedom”, Daniel Hannan reflects on the historical origin and spread of the principles that have made America great, and their role in creating a sphere of economic and political liberty that is as crucial as it is imperiled. Hannan argues that the ideas and institutions we consider essential to maintaining and preserving our freedoms — individual rights, private property, the rule of law, and the institutions of representative government — are the legacy of a very specific tradition that was born in England and that we Americans, along with other former British colonies, inherited.
(WIKI) Daniel John Hannan (born 1 September 1971) is a British journalist, author and politician who is a Member of the European Parliament, representing South East England for the Conservative Party. He is also the Secretary-General of the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists (AECR). An advocate of localism and a Eurosceptic, Hannan earned worldwide fame for making a speech in the European Parliament criticising Gordon Brown.
I almost didn’t report this, but with the latest news that at the G8 meeting that Canadian Prime Minister was the only one of these major leaders who oppose the 1967 borders in Israel, I thought I had to get this post up. Both observations come from LR, the first is his older post:
‘To be secular is to embrace certain values and beliefs. Instead of neutrality there is an attempt to get rid of religion and to promote something else instead. It has produced a ‘me society’, a society of great selfishness and increasing cruelty and brutality.’ ~ Melanie Phillips
Excerpt, “And now, those who are on the side of civilisation” Melanie Phillips, The Spectator UK, May 23:
In these terrible times when western elites are dominated by the fellow-travellers of Islamo-fascism and genocidal Judeophobia, it is very important to realise that there are also some outstandingly decent, courageous and rational individuals who are putting their heads above the parapet and speaking up for Israel, truth and justice.
One such is Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. Within a few hours of Obama’s call for Israel to return to the ‘Auschwitz borders’ with land swaps (as if the Arabs really do own all the territory beyond the Green Line, which legally, historically and morally they most emphatically do not) Harper was saying ‘not in our name’:
The Harper government is refusing to join the United States in calling for a return to 1967 borders as a starting point for Mideast peace, a position that has drawn sharp criticism from Canada’s staunch ally Israel.
And the later post about the G8,
Just a Quote
“Regarding sexual orientation or, more accurately, what we are really talking about, sexual behaviour, the argument has been made … that this is analogous to race and ethnicity…. (For) anyone in the Liberal party to equate the traditional definition of marriage with segregation and apartheid is vile and disgusting.” – Conservative leader Stephen Harper, 2003.
Alone among G8 leaders, the Canadian Prime Minister refuses to embrace the U.S. President’s plan to begin peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis on the basis of a return to Israel’s de facto borders as they existed before its 1967 war with neighbouring Arab countries – a precondition, accepted by Arabs and by many previous Israeli leaders and Canadian governments, that would be necessary to get Palestinians back to the table.
Mr. Harper made his opposition to that position clear through a spokesperson shortly after Mr. Obama’s Middle East speech last week in a pre-G8 briefing, making him the lone leader in the G8 not to back the U.S. preconditions.
