Et tu, Anglo Nations?

                              

                                                       Et tu, Anglo Nations? 

                                Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 10/2/21

            Have all the English-speaking nations  of the world gone crazy? Before considering that question, hearken back to Shakespeare’s play titled Julius Caesar. In the play a number of senators have grown alarmed by Julius Caesar’s growing power. When their planned assassination of Caesar takes place on the Ides of March, they are joined by one of Caesar’s supporters and friends, Marcus Brutus. In joining the assassins, Brutus declares, “Not that I love Caesar less, but Rome more.”

            While Caesar is being stabbed to death by the senators, he sees Brutus lift his knife to deliver his blow. Caesar stares at Brutus and says “Et tu, Brute?” (“You too, Brutus?”) Their friendship was well known.

            Recall and survey mentally for a moment the rise to prominence of the English-speaking world. Ponder how a small island nation the size of the state of Alabama became a world power as she spread her language around the globe. Ask how in 1588 the tiny ships of England were able to defeat the huge Spanish Armada, determining on that day that North America would speak English, as would many islands, small nations, and a huge continent down under. Ponder why representative democracy has thrived in English-speaking lands.

            England - later dubbed “Greater Britannia” or Great Britain - is graded differently by different historians. Most, however, credit her with generally improving the lives of all the lands wherever her ships harbored. Faulted for imperialism, Britain even so spread her culture and influence. For centuries England cradled and spread the Christian faith. Producing great leaders, thinkers, and communicators became her habit. Eventually Britain would give her empire away, still leaving England as a world power. Could anyone argue that India, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia, to name a few, are not better off for being visited, touched, even shaped by British influence?

            Much if not most of that influence has been colored and characterized by Christianity. Wherever the Christian Gospel has gone, schools, hospitals, and orphanages have followed. Wherever the English language has gone, enlightenment has followed, particularly scientific advancement. The ancient Greeks were the first westerners, but the early modern British were the chief perpetuators of western civilization.

            But how fares western civilization today? How is it different from the governance, the amount of freedom, and the pursuit of happiness in the Middle East or Far East? How should we grade the Islamic countries, Communist China, or expansive Russia? How should we grade America on the holding forth of principles such as freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and individual liberty?

            To borrow a phrase from fellow columnist Bob Barr, western civilization “crumbles around us.” Barr’s words are fearful, yet they size up precisely what is happening not just in America but in all English-speaking nations. We are driven to ask, “Anglo nations, are you too going the way of totalitarianism and moral relativism?” Today there is evidence we all are, not with armies or bombs but with ideologies that are anything but subtle. England is run by a Prime Minister who is conservative in name only. Canada’s man at the helm is a cool young dude without a traditionalist bone in his body. The head of the Australian government, a Pentecostal with strong religious views, is a center-right leader, yet as with all other Anglo nations, Australia teeters toward bureaucratic tyranny. In America nurses, teachers, and cops are being fired for not getting a booster shot. Don’t tell me that Covid-fear and government checks aren’t being weaponized for political ends. 

            The crumbling of the west is not only a political event but a religious one as well. Defund the Police, open borders, profligate spending, centralized government, cancel culture, and the steady intrusion of socialism are all dangerous developments, but so is the social/sexual contagion (transgenderism, gender denial, sexual “openness”) that long ago reached our schools.   Our current president is contributing to that contagion. No longer a likeable, pragmatic politician, he is a sad, pitiful puppet of the leftists to whom he surrendered. Consider our abandonment of “one nation under God,” which is to say our religious underpinnings. The loss of a foundation means the fall of a structure,

            Is a turn-around at hand? Can populist electoral uprisings halt western civilization’s plunge? Can normal working folks defeat elitist hypocrisy and the sensate craziness of Hollywood which columnist Barr so aptly described? Will another attack send us to church, at least for two months, as the 9-11 attack did? Will western nations wake up, read history just a bit, and realize what’s happening in the world?

            English-speaking nations, blessed above all others, have always been leaders. It’s time they lead again instead of caving to the lovers of Old World medieval authoritarianism. 

 

Roger Hines

9/30/21