Category Archives: Liberty

Scottish Declaration of Independence

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The Declaration of Arbroath (sometimes called the Declaration of Independence) is one of the great icons of Scotland and is in the form of a letter (in Latin) to the Pope from several earls and barons of Scotland asking him in rousing terms to acknowledge Scotland as an independent nation and to reject the claims of the English king. The Declaration of Arbroath is dated April 6th, 1320. The Declaration was ahead of its time as it sets out that the king (previously regarded as appointed by God) could be driven out if he did not uphold the freedom of the country. It later became a model for the American Declaration of Independence.

It sets out the long history of Scotland as an independent state and cleverly tries to persuade the Pope of the legitimacy of Scotland’s case. It’s most famous and most quoted passage (which I have framed in my study) is as follows:

“For so long as there shall but one hundred of us remain alive we will never give consent to subject ourselves to the dominion of the English. For it is not glory, it is not riches, neither is it honours, but it is freedom alone that we fight and contend for, which no honest man will lose but with his life.”

While the original Declaration was delivered to the Pope, a contemporary copy is held in Register House, Edinburgh. A translation of the full text is found here.

What’s more important, human rights or climate change?

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Just as President Obama’s domestic agenda disturbs many, comes word of his misguided – if not shameful – foreign policy agenda….

A Christian professor and author of note, wrote a short blog post on On Not Speaking Truth to Power —

Obama refuses to meet with the Dali Lama and 1143237_little_girlfigures opposed to tyranny. This is typical of the hard left. They refuse to support those who speak truth to tyrannical power; instead they curry favor from the powerful, as long as they are hostile to the West. This is unjust, perverse, and ungodly in the extreme. Wake up, America. Your president is a no friend of freedom, democracy, or “hope.”

Beyond the shiny spectacle of this “historic” president is an empty suit, political mantras (meaningless), a magic teleprompter, and a man who is putting America and its deepest ideals at risk for the sake of his neo-Marxist ideology.

What had triggered this?? He’d read an article by one of the senior statesmen of evangelicalism, Chuck Colson, on human rights (here). That article begins with some shocking revelations….

What’s more important to the administration’s foreign policy—climate change or human rights? The disturbing answer.

Many were shocked last February when Secretary of State Clinton said that pressing China about its human rights abuses “can’t interfere” with more important things — like “the global 1053013_great_wall_chinaeconomic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis.”

Even the Washington Post was shocked; its editors said Clinton’s comments were “misguided.” But now it seems that Clinton was only stating what was to be official Obama administration policy.

We saw this same attitude last month when Barack Obama declined to meet with the Dali Lama. The snub was an apparent effort to curry favor with Chinese leaders — leaders who deny religious liberty and human rights, not only to their own citizens, but also to Tibetans.
(read the rest here)

Friends, the need to pray for our country, and for those in power, has seldom been greater than in our own time…
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