Written by Michael Dunn
I expect that almost everyone who reads this has seen the film “The Fugitive”, starring Harrison Ford as Dr Richard Kimble (the wrongly convicted innocent who escaped and became ‘the fugitive’) and Tommy Lee Jones as Deputy U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard, Kimble’s pursuer. Tense stuff in those days.
For me the crunch scene was when the marshal chased Kimble into the bowels of a building from which there seemed to be little chance of his escape. “Give it up, Richard,” called the Deputy Marshal. In desperation Kimble called back to his pursuer “I didn’t kill my wife!” The Deputy Marshal shouted back: “I don’t care!”
What an awful thing to say, you might think – until you recognise that his job was simply to catch his man. That was what he was paid to do and that was all he cared about. Everything else about the case was not his concern and, in his eyes, could be ignored until he, the marshal, had completed his task. Perhaps we should keep that thought in mind next time we come nose-to-nose with myopic officialdom, but I’ll leave it to you to apply as you think fit.
Recently I’ve been listening to a man who seems to have come to grips with these things, and I’ve concluded that too many of us live our lives this way. We are often ignorant (don’t know), sometimes ignore-ant (don’t want to know) and, occasionally, we are both, and arrogant to boot. (Arrogant, ignorant, ignore-ant). Sometimes we simply follow a false trail of supposedly reasonable propositions . . . and then we find that we are ignorant or ignore-ant and/or arrogant! On top of everything else . . . . ignore-ants usually don’t care, just like the Deputy Marshal Gerard. They’re sometimes referred to as ‘jobs-worths’.
I’ve written elsewhere about the folly of doing the same thing over and over and expecting to obtain a different result. It just doesn’t make sense, does it? I’ve also noted that so many of us want to see changes in our world, but we don’t want to change. We want someone or something else to change but not us, if you don’t mind.
Desirable changes don’t happen by non-participation – meaning we won’t obtain the changes we want to see without taking part in the action. If we don’t participate, we shall simply see the change that somebody else wants and we probably won’t like it. Their changes will be done to us. Briefly and brutally, it is a matter of: “Put up, or shut up.”
The spade work was done for us 800 years ago and down through the centuries the results won by the baron’s rebellion against tyranny by their king have been visited and revisited, tested, and retested. (People vs. The Crown, if you prefer).
Now for the truly exciting bit. What those men and women achieved, and King John conceded, is as vital today as it was then. It is called Magna Carta 1215 and it is the basis not only of our Constitution but the Constitution of USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and others. It assures us of our lawful rights and privileges which cannot be taken away – unless we allow them to be taken away.
Sir Winston Churchill put it this way:
“We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-Speaking World and which, through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, Habeas Corpus, Trial by Jury and the English Common Law, find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.”
My question to you is: Are you ignorant or ignore-ant of your inheritance? Do you care? Somebody once told me their definition of hell:
“On your last day on earth, the person you became will meet the person you could have become.” — Anonymous
Now there’s a thought! Here is another one: “Rudeness is the weak person’s imitation of strength.”
Some people might disagree with my interpretation of our essential law and that’s O.K. But let’s not be abusive, profane, boorish while we disagree. Not you. Not me. There was a time when none of us thought the way we do today. Then we changed. Now we no longer do what we’ve always done and that’s worth thinking about, too.
Photo by Kurok_Alex 
Very thought provoking.
‘Desirable changes don’t happen by non participation’. True enough.
The change we WANT indeed NEED is that ‘The State’ stop interfering in our personal liberties. Our liberty, that is, where so long as I do not interfere with someone else’s liberty and rights, I remain free to order my life as I choose.
Isn’t that all we can ask for? Isn’t that what has been taken from us?
And isn’t that the basic problem of all dictatorships.
They are all based on the idea that ‘The State’ decides what must be done, down to every last detail of how our lives are run.
It is only if we go back to the idea of MINIMAL STATE Interference in our individual lives, that we each have a chance of making the changes that we want – in our own life.
That’s how I see it anyway. ‘The State’ includes the bureaucratic machinery that runs things.
Isn’t it because we knew ‘The State’ had become too powerful that we started calling the E.U. the E.U.S.S.R. or likening it to Hitler’s Germany?
If we forget our inheritance, it won’t simply be lost; someone will come along with a false version of it, and we won’t be able to argue.
Here in Scotland, the nationalists are very big on the pre-Union notion of popular sovereignty: the idea that in England, the King was sovereign, but in Scotland it was the people. The King of England, but the King of Scots. Which is true, as far as it goes. However, they use this to insinuate that prior to 1707, Scotland was some kind of happy communitarian proto-democracy while the English tradition is one of tyranny and submission to the Crown. A tradition, moreover, which has overwhelmed Scottish liberties under the Union.
All of which, I don’t need to tell you, is a gross misreading of history. In practice, the truth was very nearly the opposite: the Stuart succession brought a high-handed “l’état, c’est moi” attitude to an England whose powerful tradition of limiting the power of the Crown dated back to Runnymede in 1215, and set in train the events which ultimately led to the Civil Wars and the Glorious Revolution.
But too few of us have the knowledge, or the gumption, to say so. The point being that they, with their false insinuations, are participating; those with the truth aren’t.
Thanks Sam Duncan. Welcome.
I’m not well informed about Scottish history. You may be able to help me on one point.
We know James V1 of Scotland 1st of England was acceptable to England because he was Protestant.
But hadn’t James Stuart become king of Scotland after many battles and skirmishes between Catholics and Protestants?
Or was it rather battles between different clans rather than religion?
Either way, you are right in what you say. The Stuarts brought the high handed ‘I am the State so I am all powerful’ attitude with them. It came to a head with Charles 1st. (Oops no pun intended!)
Anyway. What I’m asking you is what was the background to James V1 of Scotland coming to the throne of Scotland?
A lovely article. Some things are simple but not seen. Walk back the way you came and see the world differently. We are being told about ‘the greater good’ and safety. Those concepts are being used to take away our independence. If we are not free to be individuals what are we? Ants?
As long as I ‘Do No Harm’ then my choice is exactly that, mine.
Indeed Kim.