Wednesday, August 27, 2003

Whiggarchy! Isonomy! Fraternity!

Excuse me! Just Googling myself here.

Another obligatory explanation of the term "Old Whig". Here's more than you wanted to know.

An exerpt:

The designation Old Whig was first coined by Edmund Burke in his An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs. The canon to which Burke ascribed—the doctrine of the ‘ancient Whigs’6—was partly a product of the 17th century political conflict between Crown and Commons that culminated in England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688. United by a horror of arbitrary power, the Whigs, according to John Locke, fought for freedom of men under government . . . to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society . . . and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, arbitrary will of another man [as well as the principle that] whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any commonwealth is bound to govern by established laws promulgated and made known to the people and not by extemporary decrees.

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