One if by Land, Two if by Sea

British Euroskeptic Richard North is in a pissy mood today -- and that's when I like him best: Going Backwards.

. . . given that the political classes are both so inept and detached from the realities of everyday life, it has come to pass that the only meaningful political activity left to ordinary people is to watch politicians squirm. The more one can engineer such situations the better, which makes voting BNP the obvious option. It is equally destructive, but has the same entertainment quotient as dismembering flies.

Eventually, one hopes, dissatisfaction will build up to such an extent that it will turn a quiescent, cowed population into an active, rebellious force, which will re-impose democracy on the political classes, and demand change. But, like many, we are not holding our breath.

What is particularly depressing, at the moment, is that we lack a credible opposition though which our energies can be channelled. A bad government is tolerable, to an extent, if there is prospect of change and there is hope of something better on the horizon.

But when we have both government and opposition refusing to engage on the issue, then we are deprived of any “legitimate” mechanism for expressing our dissatisfaction through the democratic system, and no means by which we can secure change. Parliament, therefore, ceases to be an expression of the will of the people, but a barrier to it.

. . . Thus, in terms of our campaign against the European Union, we are going backwards. No longer is there any mainstream political party which will even address the concerns of a huge proportion of its electorate.

This echoes similar sentiments from last week:

On the ground, what we see, progressively is the growing inability of government simply to govern, whether at local or national level, combined with a complete take-over by the apparatchik – rule by officials, whether at local, national or supranational level. And, in this process, political parties and politicians seem irrelevant to the extent that it matters not what colour they come in – they are simply not worth voting for.

In effect, therefore, it is the vote that has been debased. No longer is there any direct (or even indirect) relationship between casting a vote in the ballot box and securing change at any level of government.

I derive no satisfaction from it, but I can't help being reminded of the Stamp Act, the Boston Tea Party, Sam Adams' circular ("no taxation without representation,") Patrick Henry's famous speech ("give me liberty or give me death,") and, inevitably, the battle of Lexington & Concord.

North's own book details the astonishing destruction visited upon Britain over the last 30 years by the kleptocracy in Brussels, from which the American eye discerns one thing in particular: we went to war against the British over far less.

The aging parent, who might have learned from the child, has instead chosen to learn all the same lessons anew. The child forgives, but despairs. Godspeed -- and let us know when you need guns.