A depiction of trial by combat in Augsburg in 1409. |
My political assessment, from Australia, of the whole "Brexit" thing has been to fall out of my chair laughing as the so-called "United" Kingdom rips itself apart in a display of slapstick comedy not seen on the world stage since... no, this particular act of national suicide is actually pretty unprecedented.
Then I remember that there are real lives at stake and the most vulnerable -- the poorest and especially migrants -- are victims of this cruel farce. And I nod solemnly at how terrible it is. Then I burst out laughing again.
I'm sorry, it's objectively funny. It just is.
I mean we get to watch Boris Johnson be humiliated in ever more extreme ways every single day. And yes it's sad that huge numbers of people are getting screwed along the way, but honestly Ireland is kinda used to it by now and if you remove that tsunami of human misery from the equation, then you've got yourself some wholesome family entertainment called "Watch The Failing Toff Fall On His Face Again".
And look, I don't even like the European Union. It is a deeply undemocratic neoliberal torture house, as any Greek can tell you. I have zero love for it.
But responding with Brexit is like trying to get over a dose of the flu by injecting yourself with rabies.
And yes, here in Australia we are hardly in any position to laugh, having re-elected a government so insanely cruel, so avant garde with their torture regime, that Donald Trump shook his head in wonder and declared: "You're worse than I am!" Like, really.
But still.
My point is I have looked at Brexit with a kind of wonder usually reserved for winners of the Darwin Awards. It wasn't something I could understand in any rational way.
My point is I have looked at Brexit with a kind of wonder usually reserved for winners of the Darwin Awards. It wasn't something I could understand in any rational way.
I mean come on! Britain... Britain!...whinging about sovereignty??? They colonised huge chunks of every single continent!
And democracy??? Every law has to pass an unelected upper house and be signed into law by a born-to-rule inbred German! It doesn't pass the "this is batshit insane" test.
And democracy??? Every law has to pass an unelected upper house and be signed into law by a born-to-rule inbred German! It doesn't pass the "this is batshit insane" test.
Then I read one story that totally changed my perspective.
Before now, I never understood what true national oppression looked like. I could not grasp at how stifling and humiliating it is to have your culture, practised for centuries, squashed without a second thought by some overpaid bureaucrat in Brussels!
Not until I read the story about how some court had ruled that a decent English mechanic had his God given right as an Englishman to have his legal matters settled by the long-standing tradition of Trial By Combat ruled out by a court of law!!!
Trial By Combat, for those millennials too obsessed with which ever Kardashian they are following on Instagram to know, is a way of resolving a legal dispute by means of a fight to the death between the defendant (or any champion he or she appoints to represent them in the fight) and the prosecutor (or any champion they may chose to employ).
It has been practised in the once proud nation of England ever since 1066!!! Banning it is truly political correctness gone made, by any definition!
And some pedants will say, but this was a ruling by a British court, and anyway, it was introduced by the Norman Conquest of England by a bunch of Frenchmen, and also trial by combat was widespread across Europe as part of the feudal order that was part of Germanic law, but that is not the point!
The point is everyone knows the snowflakes of the European Court of Human Rights hate tradition! The British court in question must have known, when they made their ruling, that the ECHR would rule it out, while everyone know they allow beheadings and suicide bombings to take place every day under Sharia Law!
Just read this!
Mechanic Demanded Trial by Combat in Response to Parking Ticket
It’s safe to say that no one likes getting a ticket. But in England, a Suffolk mechanic, Leon Humphreys, then 60, took a next-level approach to challenging his $32 (£25) ticket in 2002, issued for failing to notify the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) that his motorcycle was off the road.
Leon Humphreys demanded trial by combat, citing medieval precedent.
He “claimed he was entitled to ask the court to establish his guilt or innocence by allowing him to fight to the death against a champion nominated by the DVLA,” reported the Ipswich Star.
Humphreys, of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, unemployed at the time, said that his choosing trial by combat meant he did not have to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty. However, the court decided to log his plea as “not guilty.”
The defendant offered to take on a clerk from Swansea with “samurai swords, Gurkha knives or heavy hammers.”
Humphreys told the media after his hearing: “I believe the right to trial by combat is still on the statute books. I can ask for it because the new Human Rights law gives ordinary people the right to use the law for their own purposes. I am willing to fight a champion put up by the DVLA if they want to accept my challenge – but they must remember it is a fight to the death.”
He continued: “The victor speaks in the name of God and justice so it is a reasonable enough way of sorting the matter out. I know I am in the right so I do not have anything to worry about. I am reasonably fit and not afraid of taking anyone on in a fight.”WELL SPOKEN MR HUMPHREYS! GOD BLESS YOU FOR INSISTING ON YOUR RIGHT TO NATURAL JUSTICE!!! Shamefully, such a cry for justice was ignored, with the article noting: "Not only did the court disagree, but the magistrates fined him £200 with £100 costs."
WHAT A FUCKING OUTRAGE!!! WHAT AN ATROCITY AGAINST JUSTICE!!! IF AN ENGLISH SUBJECT CANNOT CHALLENGE ANOTHER TO COMBAT TO THE DEATH TO RESOLVE ALLEGED CRIMINAL MATTERS THEN ARE ANY OF US, ANYWHERE, TRULY FREE??? I WEEP FOR ENGLAND, FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND FOR ALL OF HUMANITY!!!
'I don't need to read the papers or the tea leaves to understand. This world's been shaved by a drunken barber's hand...' You're singing our story, Slaid.
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