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COMMENTARY
August 19, 2009
Motto for today
Today's sermon will be on a simple secular motto (in Latin), that my reader may not have seen in a long time, unless, like me, he has the eccentric habit of consulting 18th-century newspapers and periodical essays.But why would he not? Given the state of play here in the early 21st century -- in politics, business, religion, arts and letters -- it makes some sense to read very old newspapers. Even papers from a mere half-century ago, which superficially resemble the papers of today, are a relief to peruse. The worst anyone thought could happen, a generation or two ago, was the world blow up in a nuclear conflagration. Yes, those were the good old days. Our motto for today will be: "Semper eadem." In English: "Always the same." As I mentioned above, I know it from the gorgeous blood-crimson of the tax stamps that were once applied to British newspapers, and which add so much to their resale value today. The most beautiful of them, to my mind, were those from the reign of Queen Anne and just after. At the time, they added only a halfpenny to the price of such papers as the Spectator of Addison and Steele, the Tatler, or the Examiner. They carried not the usual royal motto in medieval French, "Honi soit qui mal y pense" (shame upon him who thinks evil of it); nor the old German, "Ich dien" (I serve); nor the "Dieu et mon droit" of Henry V (God and my right); but instead the casual, throwaway Latin of Elizabeth I. There was always drollness in it, as in all the best heraldic mottoes, though I think the nature of the drollness changes through the centuries. From the tax stamp, I'm sure the reader of Queen Anne's day was meant to infer that the halfpenny surcharge would be "always the same." But also, like justice itself, "the same for everybody" and not preferentially applied, or "graduated," or otherwise gratuitously and minutely varied, in the manner of most of our government acts today. Now, my reader may be aware I am a stalwart Jacobite and therefore not entirely comfortable in retrospect with the claim of either Anne, or the first Elizabeth, to the English throne -- though I hasten to add, perfectly contented with the claim of Elizabeth II to the throne of Canada. (And, honi soit qui mal y pense, for I was a Jacobite even when I was an Anglican; whereas, Catholics are all Jacobites by definition.) Notwithstanding, one may admire some qualities even of a governor one considers illegitimate. I admire, for instance, Elizabethan poor law (send them home to their own parishes), and the Elizabethan exploration policy (bolder than anything from NASA), and the Elizabethan arts policy (commissions, not subsidies). I even admire some aspects of the Elizabethan fiscal policy (avoid debt whenever possible; keep taxes down), though not her chief means of raising revenue (pillage of ancient Church estates; piracy on the high seas). Indeed, that which was most admirable in Elizabethan government was most medieval, and simply continued the ways things had always been done, since time out of mind. And, that which was least admirable was most innovative, most "renaissance" and modern. I thus admire the motto of old Queen Bess for the medieval notion it contains: the notion of "semper," or always; of constancy, faith. "Semper fidelis," in the old Catholic motto that survives today even as the watchword of the United States Marine Corps. "Always faithful" -- to God, to our country, to our countrymen; to our family and friends; and especially to our fellow warriors in the trenches; faithful to the true, the beautiful, the good; faithful "unto this last." Faithful, incidentally, to the very things that such unspeakably vile organizations as the ACLU in the U.S., and the "human rights" commissions up here, are dedicated to exterminating. "Semper fidelis" is an affirmation, a very personal commitment, and a constant reminder -- that we must never stoop to moral relativism, that we will never surrender that which makes us human in the highest sense, to that which would reduce us to the condition of grovelling animals. But, "semper eadem" belongs more suitably on the crest of a state, for in the world of government and law the aspiration should be to avoid any kind of surprise, fear or favour. As the guardian of our freedom, the state must remain "always the same;" and likewise, as the dispenser of public justice, it must strive to provide, quite blindly, "the same for everybody." The state must therefore be minimal, too: its functionaries stripped whenever possible of their audacious hopes, and ability to change things. For the state should be the means of last resort and not, as it has become, a voracious beast, with an ever-increasing appetite to control the souls of men, by appropriating their possessions. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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