UK celebrating 800th anniversary of Magna Carta

Magna Carta's 800th anniversary celebration | Toronto Star - Henry Stancu:

January 15, 2015 - "The Magna Carta turns 800 this June and England has invited the world to take part in a series of birthday celebrations throughout most of the year....

"Essentially a peace treaty between England’s King John (1166-1216) and a group of rebellious barons at odds with the unpopular ruler’s fiscal policies, the 'Great Charter' is considered the foundation of modern democracy and the cornerstone of western justice and liberty....

"The Magna Carta made everyone, including royalty, subject to the law. The bulk of the 63 clauses dealt with the series of grievances about ownership of land and taxation raised by irate barons and the English church against King John, but it was the 39th clause that granted all 'free men' the right to fair treatment and justice.

"Of course, only about 10 per cent of England’s population was considered 'free' under the feudal system of the time.

"Translated from Latin, the clause reads: 'No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.'

"It wasn’t even considered a prominent clause at the time, but its interpretation by future generations has made it the monumental declaration it is today.

"Those principles would later inspire the drawing up of constitutional documents around the globe, such as the U.S. Bill of Rights in 1791, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the European Convention on Human Rights in 1950.

"The famous decree had a rocky ride for a year as King John, who felt cornered into approving it, got Pope Innocent III to issue a papal bull declaring it null and void, but the king’s son and successor, Henry III, approved a series of revisions over the next decade as the monarchy continued to be at odds with the Church and the rebellious barons until the charter was accepted onto parliament’s roll of statutes in 1297.

"The revisions cut away about a third of the document’s clauses, but the 39th survived intact."

Read more: http://www.thestar.com/life/travel/2015/01/15/magna-cartas-800th-anniversary-celebration.html
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The first libertarians: the Levellers

England’s Levellers: The World’s First Libertarian Movement - Epoch Times - Roberta A. Modugno, Ludwig von Mises Institute:

March 27, 2014 - "The first-ever libertarians were the Levellers, an English political movement active in the seventeenth century. The Levellers contributed to the elaboration of the methodological and political paradigm of individualism, and they are at the origin of the radical strand of classical liberalism....

"Rothbard notes that '[i]n a series of notable debates within the Republican Army — notably between the Cromwellians and the Levellers — the Levellers led by John Lilburne, Richard Overton and William Walwyn, worked out a remarkably consistent libertarian doctrine, upholding the rights of self-ownership, private property, religious freedom for the individual, and minimal government interference in society. The rights of each individual to his person and property, furthermore, were natural, that is, they were derived from the nature of man'....

"Lilburne defended natural law as 'Nature and reason' and 'the grounds of all just laws' and that 'therefore against this Law, prescriptions, statutes, nor customs may not prevail. And if any be brought in against it, they be no prescriptions, statutes nor customs, but things void, and against justice'.

"Overton advocated religious tolerance, even for the much-reviled English Catholics, and also denounced the practice of impressing men into the army and navy as a form of enslavement.

"Moreover, the Levellers advocated property rights and the freedom to contract and trade, as against monopolies and privileges guaranteed by the state. They celebrated the benefits of economic freedom to society and opposed the government taxes, customs, excises, and regulations that inhibited competition." 

Read more: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/586090-englands-levellers-the-worlds-first-libertarian-movement/

250,000 Britons defy fox hunt ban on Boxing Day

Fox hunting ban: breaking the basic tenets of libertarian politics - The Information Daily.com - Tim Bonner, Countryside Alliance:

December 26, 2013 - "Today around 250,000 supporters of hunting, both mounted and on foot, will turn out for the Boxing Day meets of their local hunts.

"This incredible support for hunts has not wavered since the Hunting Act and shows the demand for repeal of this unfair and unworkable act, which was not born of concern for animal welfare, but rather prejudice against those people standing in fields across Yorkshire today.

"When Lord Burns, the chairman of the government Inquiry into Hunting with Dogs, ... uttered the famous line 'Naturally, people ask whether we were implying that hunting is cruel ... the short answer to that question is no' ... that should have signalled the end of the long and utterly futile debate over hunting, but it did not.

"In fact by that stage a total prohibition on hunting was inevitable because the debate had nothing to do with logic, evidence or animal welfare. It was instead an obsessive and bigoted attack on a group of people who were perceived to be carrying out the activity.... Parliament decided, in the absence of any evidence, to impose its moral view of the activity of hunting on those who took part in it."

Read more: http://www.theinformationdaily.com/2013/12/26/fox-hunting-ban-breaking-the-basic-tenets-of-libertarian-politics
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