Tag: Britain

Commentary: The Surprising Origins of the ‘No Taxation Without Representation’ Slogan

Admin

Ask most Americans where the slogan “No taxation without representation!” came from and the likely response will be “American colonists protesting against Britain in the 1760s.” But the spirit, if not the precise letter of the phrase, originated more than a century before. Moreover, we can thank the Brits themselves for it. It started with something called the “ship tax.”

Since the early Middle Ages, English custom allowed the monarch to impose a special levy in times of war upon citizens who lived in coastal settlements. They could meet the requirement by providing ships, shipbuilding materials, or money for the Crown to build ships (hence the name, “ship tax”). Kings and Queens levied the “tax” as a royal prerogative, meaning they skipped the annoyance of securing the consent of Parliament as required in the Magna Carta of 1215.

Read More

Commentary: The Faith of Nations

Minnesota Sun Staff

In the faith of nations is their life and their undoing, much as it is with individuals. We may survive on the faith of others, but we cannot flourish any more than a child would when attempting to live out the dreams of his parents without making them his own. Faith is an intangible. The artificial intelligence of a computer might precisely calculate the chance of a success but it has no clue as to the value of failure. Faith can absorb both and then some. 

Read More

Commentary: America Gone Mad

Minnesota Sun Staff

After three weeks in Europe and extensive discussions with dozens of well-informed and highly placed individuals from most of the principal Western European countries, including leading members of the British government, I have the unpleasant duty of reporting complete incomprehension and incredulity at what Joe Biden and his collaborators encapsulate in the peppy but misleading phrase, “We’re back.”

As one eminent elected British government official put it, “They are not back in any conventional sense of that word. We have worked closely with the Americans for many decades and we have never seen such a shambles of incompetent administration, diplomatic incoherence, and complete military ineptitude as we have seen in these nine months. We were startled by Trump, but he clearly knew what he was doing, whatever we or anyone else thought about it. This is just a disintegration of the authority of a great nation for no apparent reason.”

Read More

First Person Receives Pfizer’s Vaccine as Britain Begins Mass Coronavirus Vaccination Effort

Minnesota Sun Staff

Britain’s National Health Service administered its first doses of a coronavirus vaccine Tuesday, becoming the first country to begin its mass vaccination effort.

Just after 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, 90-year-old Margaret Keenan became the first person to receive a fully authorized vaccine outside of a clinical trial, marking the beginning of a global campaign to end a pandemic that has infected over 65 million people and killed over 1.5 million across the globe.

Read More

UK Backtracks on Giving Huawei Role in High-Speed Network

The Associated Press

Britain on Tuesday backtracked on plans to give Chinese telecommunications company Huawei a role in the U.K.’s new high-speed mobile phone network amid security concerns fueled by rising tensions between Beijing and Western powers.

Britain said it decided to prohibit Huawei from working on the so-called 5G system after U.S. sanctions made it impossible to ensure the security of equipment made by the Chinese company.

Read More