The Price of Liberty

Mostly we know the story. A Roman Catholic, part of a despised and persecuted religious minority in England in 1605, was involved in The Gunpowder Plot. This operation was supposed to kill the House of Lords and King James I (of England, VI of Scotland) to make way for a Catholic monarch to take power and end the tyranny of the Stuarts and the nobility. Someone ratted the coup out, and on the night of 5 November, Fawkes and 36 barrels of gunpowder in the basement below the assembly room. After torture, he confessed and was executed. He was supposed to be hung, drawn, and quarters, but he broke his neck falling from the gallows.

He was not a republican (that form of English rebel came 40 years later) nor was he a democrat: he believed in monarchy, in accordance with the teaching of Rome at the time. Today, thanks to changing perceptions, movies like V for Vendetta and its use of Guy Fawkes masks (to be copied in hundreds of protests, especially in Anglophile regions), he is seen as a symbol of resistance against government tyranny.

His story, his perceived example, is an important part of British history, especially given the behavior of both monarchs and Parliament (not just Lords but Commons) in the last four+ centuries: the more forceful tyranny of Charles I, the English Civil War and rule by Parliament under the Protectorate, and on down to the present.

Want to think of something scary for Halloween night? Consider the modern American city.

In 2025, the handwriting is clearly on the wall. New York City is evidence of this, if we needed more. Whatever the results of next week’s election, it is clear that the City – and the entire urban area it anchors – is in serious trouble.

Why? We at TPOL submit that this is exactly what we should expect of parasites. Ultimately, most parasites kill their host/victim. And as a result, die themselves. Government and its officials and employees are those parasites on the American body politic. And stupid.

American cities (at least in their present form) are doomed. The more extreme of us would point out, “the sooner, the better.” The vast megalopoli are ungovernable; their economic systems function (barely) in spite of their governance and society; their societies are decadent and decaying ever more rapidly.

And virtually every action taken by governmental bodies adds to (and even speeds up) that process of decay. Even while they proclaim all the wonderful things they are doing. Are going to do. Have done.