Ian Hamilton QC

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.

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.

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

My comment

Some say that we wan,
And some say that they wan,
And some say that nane wan at a’ man,

I know the jingle’s not complete. It doesn’t have to be.

Ten minutes of yon stuff show Scotland’s a different country.

All the best people ran off from the Battle of Sheriffmuir. I’m copying them.

Two weeks is a long time but it will seem longer.

How long, Oh Lord? How long?

While reading Thomas Cahill’s book on early medieval Irish Christianity I came across this gem. It was written in Irish Gaelic about twelve or thirteen hundred years ago and slipped between pages of Greek and Latin manuscripts that the monk was translating.

All writing is a lonely job. I dedicate Pangar Ban, stolen from Thomas Cahill with glee and delight, to my friend Alan Clayton who toils in the lonely hours to bring us Mediawatch at Mediawatch2010@aol.com 

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
  I and  Pangar Ban my cat,
  ‘Tis a like task we are at;
  Hunting mice is his delight,
  Hunting words I sit all night.

  ‘Tis a merry thing I see
  At our tasks how glad are we,
  When at home we sit and find
  Entertainment to our mind.

  ‘Gainst the wall he sets his eye,
  Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
  ‘Gainst the wall of knowledge I
  All my little wisdom try.

  So in peace our task we ply,
  Pangar Ban my cat and I;
  In our arts we find our bliss,
  I have mine and he has his.

Alan, yours is not a thankless task. Everyone who reads you thanks you, including I and Pangar Ban my cat.

Ian
  
  

By Ian Hamilton

Of all bodily functions sex is best. After sex a man feels relaxed, exalted, grateful. To waken with a beautiful woman and see slow contentment light up her face and have her snuggle into you is one of a man’s greatest joys. I suspect it’s the same for a woman. To take away that look by saying you’re ashamed of what you’ve just done is the most appalling blasphemy. Now Tiger has insulted every woman he’s ever shared his body with. He’s said he’s sorry. What a wimp!

He should be pitied. He’s been caught in the nip of an opening door. Society is now a new bedroom. Women are free. Women can make love either for pleasure or profit or both. Men are not taking advantage of them but treating them as the equals they are. I’m not talking about the street corner drab driven by poverty or a pimp. I’m talking of women as free as you and me. That’s why I blame Tiger for saying he’s sorry.   

How dare he ! He should have said, ‘What a wonderful time I’ve had. I’ve loved every one of you. Now my wife has found out and given me a black eye so I’ve got to watch my step’. Once he was a credit to us all. That’s changed. A lean-faced Christian on telly warned him that his golf swing was the envy of young men and that he should set an example to our youth.

Is the man mad? Do ministers not realise that every red blooded young man is more interested in how Tiger pulls young women than in his golf swing? Young women too are attracted not because he can hit a ball with a stick. It may be a primitive attraction because he’s an alpha male. It may just be that he’d be nice to sleep with. Whatever it is women love him. Now he’s been away for rehab. Rehab from what? Poor lonely chap; denying himself the only thing that could comfort him: and so many motherly women are waiting to do so! The rehab won’t work. He now offers a perpetual challenge to every young woman to show they can beat the psychiatrists.

And then there’s his wife, the only person in his seraglio who’s made a great deal of money out of sex. Of course she’s angry but she’s supposed to love him. Love means forgiveness. If she expected marriage to give her a monopoly of Tiger she expected too much. She might have made some enquiry beforehand. Marriage doesn’t change a man. He must aye have loved sex. She should have looked the other way. It was her fault just as much as it would have been his had it been her at it instead of him. Wronged celebrity wives represent a class of young women who see marriage as a door to wealth. With the husband they have it. If it doesn’t work then divorce is there as a massive insurance policy. Let the husband put a foot wrong and in come the divorce lawyers looking for millions. Examples abound.

It’s reasonable that a wife, who’s fed up with her man, should have a small settlement for herself and a big one for the children. But is divorce necessary? Tiger is the same Tiger except he’s lonely. Maybe he’s said, ‘Thanks my dear, wasn’t that lovely’, to a couple of dozen women but life has changed. It’s changed for wives as well as for single women. Wives also can play away to the fury of their husbands. One wee pill has changed society for ever. The monogamous marriage may be finished. I have been married for nearly forty years and I affirm that while sex is important the daily life with someone you love and respect is more important still. Women should not be apologised for. They’re worth far more than that.
 
Margaret, Wilma, Joan, Irene, Jessie, Nancy, Jean, Mary and all you other lovely young women: through you I address all womankind. Given the chance would you spend a night of tenderness with Robert Burns or Tiger Woods? You bet you would!

There’s one big difference. Burns never insulted a girl by saying he was sorry. He loved you all too much for that.

Tiger has let the side down. Tiger has missed a putt.

By Ian Hamilton

Before we read anything we must know who we are. Yet before we know who we are we must know how to think. In particular we must know if we can distinguish between good and bad.

Many months ago in this blog I asserted that children are born with an innate sense of right and wrong. One of their first gestures is to show possession. This is very rapidly followed by use of the word ‘mine’. This is nothing much. Even hyenas like Brown and Cameron have a sense of possession. Fortunately the next instinct of the child is a moral one. ‘Not fair,’ they say, applying a moral judgement to some deprivation inflicted on them and those around them. Morality is born in us all.

I am indebted to the Scottish Enlightenment for being able to notice this. Had I not been brought up in a home where such thought was in our nature I would have missed it. We think not OF the Enlightenment but because of it.  Scottish history begins with the Enlightenment yet no history has been written from its viewpoint. Instead we get linear histories as meaningless as the click of cogs on an ever rotating wheel. I do not think this is the right way to begin. History begins with ideas. Before we can properly assimilate it we need to learn how to think. Accordingly the first books on any Scottish bookshelf should be books devoted to the Enlightenment.

I should define what I mean by the Enlightenment. I mean that group of scholars centred mainly on Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Prior to them human thought was cursed by God. Only from God came the moral imperatives. That was our iron clad cast of thought.

A Church of Scotland minister, Francis Hutcheson changed all that. He came to Glasgow University in 1711 from his father’s Parish in Omagh. Later he became Professor of Moral Philosophy. He taught, ‘From the very frame of our nature we are determined to perceive pleasure in the practice of virtue, and to approve of it when practiced by ourselves and others.’ This was revolutionary. It broke the fetters shackling us to God.

The result was an explosion of thought. I list a very few of the many who thereafter looked to the natural world to explain what they saw and what was virtuous. They turned from belief to observation and reason. There was Hutcheson’s student, Adam Smith, the first economist. Then David Hume put the boot in on divine miracles: 

The Christain religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be attended by any reasonable person without one.

and for a cruncher,

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony is of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish.

Then there was James Hutton. His systematic geology, deduced from studying Edinburgh’s Salisbury Crags, screwed up God’s job description. The list goes on. It was as creative of new ideas as it was destructive of God. It even includes Charles Darwin who spent some time at the feet of Sir Charles Lyall at Edinburgh University. I am not sure that it has ended yet. Einstein kept a photograph of James Clerk Maxwell on his wall. We prefer that wee turd Bonnie Prince Charlie on our shortbread tins.

What are the books on the Enlightenment? Gey few. First there’s the American Arthur Herman’s How the Scots Invented the Modern World, entitled more modestly in Britain as The Scottish Enlightenment. Then there is Neil McCallum’s A small Country, a slender thing which scarcely mentions Hutcheson. Lastly there is Alex Broadie’s The Scottish Enlightenment published by whom else but Birlinn. There may be more but I don’t think so. (This will bring a torrent of contradiction.)

None of them is what I want. I want a Scottish history starting from the Enlightenment and going back through John Knox to the love of fairness and education among us unconquered Scots. Witness the medieval Act of the Scottish Parliament ‘Gif ony pair man’ * which established the first free legal aid scheme in the world. I was the last advocate to hold the title of Counsel for the Poor in Criminal Causes. The last for five hundred years. Unpaid. Proud! **

I want a history showing our depth and width. Across the road from my father’s workshop in Paisley was the Laigh Kirk. John Witherspoon preached there. It seems only yesterday that he left to be sixth President of Princeton University, teacher of liberty to the colonists, and signatory of their Declaration of Independence. American history is a branch of Scottish history. Some say it began at Arbroath; some that it begins with Frances Hutcheson and the teachers of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow University.

The disciplined study of physics begins here too. It was a Scot who founded the Cavendish. Even in my day at Glasgow the study of physics was known as Natural Philosophy, or Nat Phil to us students. I hope it is still so known. If I were asked to describe in a few words what the Enlightenment was about. I would say it is about the study of man’s relation to the natural world.

  Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
  The proper study of mankind is man.
Wrote Pope.

Francis Hutcheson went further. He taught us that the proper study of mankind is everything.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

* Pre Union Acts of Parliament are known by the first few words of their content. They were of course in the Scotch tongue.

Gif ony pair man……  If any poor man goes in front of the High Court without Counsel his conviction shall not stand.

** The Faculty of advocates appointed one of their members to be Counsel for the Poor in Criminal Causes. Until paid Legal Aid was introduced in 1965 it was the duty of Counsel for the Poor to see that anyone appearing in the High Court was properly represented, usually by doing the job himself. In these days we regarded law as a public service, not as a way to get rich.

I am immensely proud do have done something for nothing except for what Francis Hutcheson would have described as perceived pleasure in the practice of virtue.

April 3rd, 2010
By Ian Hamilton

Scottish history is a regulated industry. Any non academic writing a new history is defiled from a great height by those who regard the job as theirs.

 High on a branch of the ordure tree sits holy Tom Devine. ‘There is only one view of Scottish history and it’s mine,’ he says, his mouth clenched over many resplendent chins. Recently Neil Oliver published a popular book. On the ordure tree success is unforgivable.

 ‘Gardey loo, Neil!’

 Splaaaat!

It’s just over a hundred years since the first Professor of Scottish History was appointed to any university. Hume Brown was his name. I bought my copy of Hume Brown in November 1949 and for a year studied Scottish History at Glasgow from its two volumes. None other was drawn to my attention. That was the state of knowledge sixty years ago. Now history is bred in the bone of us all.

From the contemplation of the bones of our forefathers I turn to the English general election. There is a handful of seats in Scotland too but we still don’t matter much. We don’t rate time on the telly, or maybe they’re a little bit feart of us. Time is on Scotland’s side. As an old man I’ve seen much of it. In the nineteen-forties Scottish history was a dead end. Look at it now.

This raises the questions, what history is for? What are nations for? Without history you can’t have a nation. Without a nation you can’t have your own viewpoint. A nation is a prism through which to look at the universe. Inside a nation we fight our differences. Looking outwards we forget to fight and regard the long perspective of wonder itself. That’s something London has lost. Inside the M75 there lies a nation state. It gathers others’ wealth to it. It looks only inwards. That’s why its election is so dull.

 But back to history. It’s better than any Party Political Broadcasts.

Bonnie Prince Charlie was a wee Italian drunk. The right side won the battle of Culloden. Only fools wanted to restore the Stewarts. The reign of the second last Stewart was known as ‘The Killing Times’. He had you shot if you didn’t swear allegiance to London rule and its God. London doesn’t go that far today. It’s too busy admiring itself. (I would have said ‘wanking’ but Jeannette won’t let me.)

Talking of God it was us Scots who abolished Him. David Hume made His existence unprovable and James Hutton, with the first study of systematic geology, screwed up His job description. He did it by looking at the Salisbury Crags while Adam Smith was writing the Wealth of Nations. Meanwhile the Gentle Locheil was sending his surplus crofters into slavery in the Caribbean and leading his tribesmen to rise and follow Chairlie.  Hear the pibroch rise and fall? Truly a nation is made of many interpretations.

My interpretation is that the nation goes to the polls awake again however we vote. We have been long asleep. During that sleep a few of us were enriched by free trade within the British comity of subject nations, particularly by slavery. These times are past. History shows us how things change. We need no more tartan humbug invented by that charlatan Walter Scott with his silly clan chiefs, now called lairds, tripping over their cromachs on their way to their local Highland Games. Meanwhile London sits looking at nothing except the riches it gathers from the weak who refuse to look after themselves.

God, whom David Hume and James Hutton abolished, looks after those who look after themselves. As a nation we have given much. Read Arthur Herman’s book, How Scotland invented the Modern World *. While inventing it we also tried to reinvent ourselves. During the greatest upsurge of human thought since Classical Greece we tried to master the English language, learning it under the tutelage of an Irish actor. We thought our native Scots tongue inadequate. We’re always reinventing ourselves. We fight about it. It’s our hobby. The Enlightenment came despite the Union or because of the Union. Take your pick because none of us agrees.

Back to the election. A handful of MPs of one party or another will make not the slightest difference to the way we think. Yet it will make a difference to the pernicious doctrine of ‘London takes all’. Maybe it’s just worth while voting.

Far beyond any election one thing abides. Scotland has a duty to the world. That duty is to be itself.

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*Arthur Herman is an American Professor. He has searched and can find no Scottish family lineage and has no prejudice in our favour. His book was published in America under the title given above. Here the title had to be changed. It is called The Scottish Enlightenment. The American title might have frightened the horses.

How I wish I could go on! John Knox’s ideal of a school in every parish may have been to train maggot-minded Church of Scotland Minsters but once you start giving knowledge you can’t stop. It gave us the best educated people in Europe. It gave us the Enlightenment and it will give us whatever we have the courage to pass on to the world through the prism of our own viewpoint. Each one of us, human or nation, sees things differently. Maybe one of us one day will see the truth