Francis Hutcheson

July 28th, 2010

He died in 1746, the year of a minor dynastic battle.

Why has every Scot heard of Bonnie Prince Charlie and almost none of Francis Hutcheson?

He was the greatest thinker since Aristotle. His most famous pupil was Adam Smith, although they disagreed on a system of ethics. His influence on the American Declaration of Independence was profound. James Witherspoon, who signed the Declaration, attempted to refute Hurcheson’s theory that humankind was born with an innates sense of good and bad. Hitherto ‘Good’ could only be defined by God. Hurcheson set our species free from the divine monopoly excercised exclusively by the priesthood and in Scotland by the Ministers, known to us as ‘the Black Craws’. Henceforth we were free to think for ourselves. This led inevitably to David Hume whose clear reasoning abolished God.

In a book that has never been published I assert that the first intellectual excercise of a child is one of posession: ‘That’s mine,’ says the child. The second is more important, ‘That’s not fair,’ it says, making a clear moral judgement. The latter is at first only applied to itself but soon to its group and then wider still and wider. Not until it is indoctrinated does the child have any sense of God. Hutcheson’s way of thinking has made Ministers redundant, which is probably why we are not taught about him. He freed us from the curse of God and the evil necessity of indoctrinating our children.

I carried out an experiment. Of my four children one was baptised in the Church of Scotland; one in the Church of England; one in the Church of Rome and one was kept unbaptised as a control. All have behaved differently but none of their behaviour can be attributed to their baptism or the lack of it. It would be outrageous if three out of the four went to Hell because of the curiosity of their father.

David Hume would have chuckled.

Ian

WEAK KNEES AT WESTMINSTER

July 24th, 2010

By Ian Hamilton

We don’t expect much from Westminster and we don’t get much. They have reserved foreign affairs to their own contemptible corridors of power and found there is no power left.

Look at how they crawl to these wretched Americans. Because they are the most powerful nation in the world the Yanks think they can bully us smaller ones. Their Senate summons an English cabinet minister to one of their hearings and instead of telling them to ‘get lost’ he makes excuses.

The same Senate, now flushed with insolence, attempts to summons Scotland’s First Minister and look what happens. Is there a word of protest from the UK Foreign Secretary or from the UK Prime Minister? Of course there isn’t. England acts as a conquered country. It can’t protect us. Remember America refuses to let their servicemen give evidence at UK inquests even when it’s their fire that has killed a Scottish soldier. If only we had charge of our own foreign affairs we would say what everyone thinks. We would say, ‘Scottish Ministers are answerable to the Scottish people, not to any foreign government with the notion to interfere.’

Well done Alex Salmond! Well done *Alan MacAskill! Right or wrong you will answer to the people of Scotland and to nobody else.

 * Of course you should be Kenny.  That’s why I said ‘right or wrong’.

My apologies, Kenny.

Ian

Open Letter to Kenny MacAskill

July 22nd, 2010

Dear Kenny,

Once I had a discussion with a judge. We agreed that criminal law must include mercy. As one writer puts it, ‘The quality of mercy is not strained.’

Today two comments appear on your action on releasing Mr Megrahi. The first is the headline in the Scotsman newspaper:-

Wriggling MacAskill tries to get off the hook

The second is a comment from Anne Baird on my piece below. I do not know Anne Baird.

Here is what she says

This is what astounds me about the noise I’m hearing now. Megrahi provably has prostate cancer. The general complaint seems to be that he’s failed to die quickly enough and mercy was therefore inappropriate.
If there is a God, may he preserve us from this simplistic thinking. Cancer is death on a long fuse. The longer the fuse, the longer the pain and debilitation, the greater the awareness of the clock ticking through the fog of dysfunction, nausea and analgesia. Even where the best of care is provided, it’s a slow motion mincer. The mercy shown by Kenny MacAskill seems to be all the mercy he is to know. Mercy has not otherwise come Megrahi’s way. Guilt or innocence is irrelevant by this time. The universe has decided on extended torture and to aid and abet that by withholding all comfort would be an atrocity.

Cameron is wrong, twice. It does him no credit to misunderstand mercy and he’s just plain out of order criticising the decisions of the Scottish nation.

One or other of these is the voice of civilisation. I believe Anne Baird’s is that voice.

Yours sincerely,

Ian Hamilton

 

Cameron the Coward

July 21st, 2010

By Ian Hamilton

Cameron sooks up to Obama the President of the most powerful country on earth.

To do so he blackguards Scotland.

He breaches the tradition that a politician doesn’t criticise the Queen’s Government to foreigners.

And who are these foreigners?

They own the warship that shot down an Iranian airliner killing 290 civilians and then gave the ship’s captain a medal.

They suspended their human rights law and still have a concentration camp on Cuba.

They use judicial torture-chambers banished in Scotland six hundred years ago.

They keep one in eleven blacks in prison.

One in 27 Hispanics in prison.

One in forty-five whites in prison.

They have the largest prison population since Nazi Germany.

One in 31 of the total population is in jail or on probation or on parole.

They call themselves, with unconscious irony, ‘The Land of the Free.’

I don’t want anything to do with this country except to show them that justice and humanity go together.

 

 

FAREWELL

July 1st, 2010

Farewell Anne Baird who in comment No 53 to my last piece asks kindly for more.

Alas there will be no more.

Thank you for your kind enquiry.

I and Bangar Ban my cat grow old.

For him: ‘This new age is breeding a nimbler race of mice.’

For me: It takes energy to be a nuisance and I have run my course.

Ian

A TIME TO STOP………………No More Minutemen

April 29th, 2010

By Ian Hamilton

There is a time to do and a time to stop. I have reached the time to stop.

In calling for a register of Minutemen I sought to ascertain who would be available if Scotland’s institutions were smothered by Westminster. The smothering of the TV debates was an example. Public protest and civil disobedience became justified. We have no control over Westminster. Westminster and its acolytes deny us a voice. Our only reply is to take to the streets in public protest. Unfortunately it is too late to do so for this election. An old man can dream dreams. He hasn’t the strength to organise the dreams into action, and privately I fear men of action. I seek only a way to let the people show their own feelings as I would show mine.

Moreover the reply to my call for Minutemen and women has frightened me. I have a list of what might be described as a private army. It would be so easy for some unscrupulous person to attempt to turn this into a civil militia. This is the very reverse of what I intended. The result of the call has been so great that I have had to seek help from someone who knows about IT to sort out my computer.

However let this experience never be forgotten. The Scottish people are no longer powerless. The use of computers and other modern technology has changed everything. We have seen it in the unscrupulous use of television by the Unionists in this election. The call for help on one old man’s personal blog has shown there is an answer. We must use the power of the blog only as an answer and never as a power on its own. It has no inherent right except to give power to the oppressed. Whatever our personal feelings it would be wrong to affirm that we have reached that stage in Scotland. We have free political parties. We have an SNP government. Occasionally, as by the BBC, our rights are infringed. That is a time for civil protest. Beyond such events we are frustrated; we are not oppressed.

Yet times may change. Maybe the call for Minutemen has helped to change them. We are no longer powerless. The power of a widow has been shown as greater than the power of a Prime Minister. An even greater power is that of a small nation taking to   the streets in silent protest. That is democracy at its strongest.

To the Minutemen and women I say this. By showing how easy it is to bring Scotland out into the streets you and I have taken part in our own silent protest. When oppressed we can easily occupy the streets and make the country ungovernable. May that time never come! If it does this Minuteman experiment shows we will be ready for it.

Power in anyone’s hands frightens me. Power in my own hands frightens me most of all.

THE MINUTEMEN

April 27th, 2010

By Ian Hamilton

When the American Colonies fought for their freedom they countered  organised might with Minutemen. Minutemen carried on with their work but undertook to take action at short notice. Today in Scotland we have need of Minutemen and Women. I am not talking violence. I am talking of civil disobedience….of legal disobedience.

Under normal circumstances we have the courts to protect our civil rights but these are not normal circumstances. Since devolution there is no law to protect us from Westminster. Westminster is an English Parliament; English in tradition, vastly English in membership.

Think on this.

Every political institution in Scotland has been created by the English Parliament. What it creates it can take away. This applies not only to Holyrood but to the whole framework of our local government. It applies to every function we hold jointly with England. They have the say. We have permission to agree.

We have just seen how it applies to the BBC. We are a democracy but the state broadcasting system elects to give a voice only to the Unionists. This is manifestly unfair. Yet the Court must administer the law as it is handed down from England. Our say is silence.

Do not think I exaggerate. The BBC is only one example. In a private debate on Calman I heard an English academic say blandly that the Scotland Act would be repealed if Scotland successfully insisted in an international court that it was Scotland’s oil. This would mean that Holyrood would cease to exist.

What would be our remedy? Other countries have their Supreme Court. England has one which struggles constantly with its government. Canada, Australia and the United States have them. Alone in the free world Scotland has neither law nor court to protect our political institutions. Our power, like our sovereignty, lies only in our people.

And our people are an unorganised rabble.

In the piece below I called for a demonstration outside the BBC. I could still call for such a demonstration but I would want to be sure it was organised. We have organised such things before. CND has its protest marches and meetings. Arrests have followed but very few prosecutions. The right to protest is a real right. The arrest of Church of Scotland Ministers at Faslane has made arrest ‘respectable’. I boast of mine.

But CND are organised.

When the BBC uses the might of the United Kingdom to silence us at elections…..when the English political parties use their strength to push through legislation hostile to Scotland such as the Poll tax……when night after night hostile attacks are made on Scottish independence by state subsidised bodies such as the BBC…..in short when the United Kingdom does anything hostile to Scotland we need to call out our own Minutemen and Minutewomen in protest and in civil disobedience.

Once in my long life the people have risen themselves. That was in protest at the Iraq war. The English Parliament betrayed us then. It will always betray us. They do so daily with Trident. It is too deadly to have in an English port. They force the shame of it on us.

The exclusion of the Party of Scottish Government by the BBC should be an alert to us all. The years leading to independence may be years of turmoil.  We will increasingly be in conflict not with the English people but with Westminster. They have too much to lose….their seat on the Security Council…..……our oil…….our ports for their navy……..and above all their face. They cannot understand that we want nothing more than to be friends.

Let us prepare for civil disobedience. Our duty of obedience is to the law not to our rulers. Let us circulate our email addresses as Minutemen. Let each of us keep a list and when needed the press of a key will call all who want to come. No such list can be private. Let us all exchange our lists with each other. Here’s my email ianvr764@gmail.com

Who will join?

Head your email:

Minuteman.

Our just war must be non violent. Let there be no illegality.  Westminster may not see it that way. There may be arrests.

So let it be.

 

The right to be heard

April 25th, 2010

 

By Ian Hamilton

There are no more important laws than these governing an election. These laws are made at Westminster.

Despite Scotland’s recognition as a separate country the BBC has denied us a place in the electoral debate. Coverage has been given to the three Unionist parties. No equivalent coverage has been given to us. This makes the election a sham.

The Atlantic Charter of 1941 set out the war aims of my generation. Among these was the right to self determination of small nations.

As a result many young Scots, I among them, volunteered for armed service to sustain this right. I have never forgotten this nor swerved from it. We disdained conscription.

The three Unionists Parties offer us their brand of financial management. None offers us a principle.

The right to be heard in free speech is a principle. This is particularly so at election time.

Let the law decide.

If London made law decides against us then let us, who get free TV licences, picket the BBC entrances. On arrest let us refuse to be bailed and go on hunger strike. If released let us resume our pickets.

The right to be heard at election time is a principle worth fighting and dieing for. We who have only a little time left should lead the way.

Is there any support for such direct action?

Ian Hamilton

I posted this second thought as a comment on the day the SNP action was due to be heard.

Ian Hamilton
http://www.ianhamiltonqc.com | ianvr764@gmail.com | 81.131.83.220

Whatever the result of today’s court case I realise that there is no hope of organising a demonstration outside the BBC between now and polling day.

To be effective this would need to be at the weekend which gives only three days. Everyone I could turn to for help is busy working fior the election.

However civil disobedience of one sort or another is something that must be prepared for in advance and I shall be writing about it in a future post.

I bit off more than I can chew here. But I would rather bite off too much than not bite at all.

Ian