Worth Repeating
I would like my kind readers to reflect upon the difference between the Bureau of Land Management, which controls an acreage of land larger than France and Germany combined, and is able to field a private army larger than that of Holland, but is run by entirely anonymous bureaucrats. If rumors are true, it is run for the benefit of deals with the Chinese concerning solar panels and rare earth minerals and relatives of high-ranking Democrats in the Senate.
Compare this to the Charter of the Forest:
In 1217, King Henry III signed the Charter of the Forest, which despite various amendments and replacement statutes remained in force in Britain for some three-quarters of a millennium, until the early Seventies. If Magna Carta is a landmark in its concept of individual rights, the Forest Charter played an equivalent role in advancing the concept of the commons, the public space. Repealing various restrictions by his predecessors, Henry III opened the royal forests to the freemen of England, granted extensive grazing and hunting rights, and eliminated the somewhat severe penalty of death for taking the king’s venison. The [National Park Service] have not yet fried anyone for taking King Barack’s deer, but it is somewhat sobering to reflect that an English peasant enjoyed more freedom on the sovereign’s land in the 13th century than a freeborn American does on “the people’s land” in the 21st century.
hat tip to Mark Steyn
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
