When Eggs Have Rights, Don't Make Omelettes.
What am I?
Reactionary—and proud of it!
Out-moded—and proud of it!
Middle-class—and proud of it!
Judgemental—and proud of it!
Intolerant—and proud of it!
But of what am I intolerant?
On what do I pass judgement?
Where does the middle lie?
What modes have passed me by?
Against what do I react?
Find out in these pages.
This site was originally intended to deal with issues of philosophy and science; it still does and will do so even more in future. Meanwhile, a more urgent project has taken priority: opposing the worst Government England has ever known.
Over m
y
dead body!
There are no circumstances WHATSOEVER under which I will accept
this Government's abominable ID card. Whatever punishment they might
impose for not accepting an ID card cannot be worse than accepting an ID card
from a Government willing to impose such a punishment for not accepting one.
I exist by my right, not by their permission. It is none of their business who I am.
But if I am doing nothing wrong, what do I have to hide? From someone I trust, nothing: from someone I do not trust, everything.
Why Village Hampden?
John Hampden was a leading figure in the English Parliament in the years leading up to the English Civil War. He opposed attempts by King Charles I to establish autocratic rule. Most famously, he opposed Charles' attempt to extend the imposition of Ship Money to inland counties, something that was later seen as a trigger for the War.
The issue was the familiar one of taxation without representation. Charles was unable to levy taxes without the consent of Parliament, but some taxes were allegedly not subject to this constraint, because they were so old that they pre-dated Parliament. Ship Money was one of these taxes (though in imposing it at all Charles was breaking a promise he had made to Parliament following the Petition of Right of 1628). It had been levied on coastal counties since Saxon times to pay for a navy. Charles argued, quite logically in fact, that since the navy protects the whole country from invasion, including inland counties, all counties ought to pay it. Hampden, from an inland county, opposed this, seeing an extension of an old tax as the same in effect as the imposition of a new tax. He therefore refused as a matter of principle to pay the tiny amount for which he had been assessed. Hampden had also famously been imprisoned a few years earlier for his refusal to comply with Charles' demand for a forced loan. Charles' attempts to take revenge on Hampden and four other Members of Parliament in an armed invasion of Parliament at the beginning of 1642 made it undeniable that Charles could not be trusted with any power. Charles insisted, however, on remaining in command of the army, then involved in dealing with a rebellion in Ireland. As Parliament now realised that it must be in charge of the army in order to be protected from Charles, it raised its own army. With each side having its own army, civil war was then inevitable.
Hampden became one of the early casualties of the civil war
that he precipitated, being killed leading a cavalry action in 1643 at Chalgrove
Field, a few miles from where I live. His name became a by-word for a man determined to resist a
tyrant.
After the Hanoverian succession in 1714, Kings increasingly delegated the Executive Power to a cabinet drawn from Parliament itself. This loss of the separation of powers has gradually led to Parliament's being more a source of tyranny than a bulwark against it.
Thomas Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard", which is set in the churchyard of Stoke Poges, also a few miles from where I live but in the opposite direction from Chalgrove Field, refers to one of the graves' being that of some Village Hampden, a small-time resister of small-time tyranny. The role of Village Hampden is an English tradition; every village seems to have one. The Internet allows this role to be extended to the defiance of much larger-scale tyranny. I have therefore chosen it as the title of this website. I am far from the only man using the Internet in this way; there are thousands of Village Hampdens out there on the Web. I just stumbled on the name.
I have neither the time nor the inclination to operate this site as a blog. In any case, there are plenty of bloggers already doing very good work to which I could usefully add nothing. Sometimes, currents events make me fume so much that I want to add a small note in the manner of a blog, and for this purpose I have opened a blog at this address:
http://villagehampden.blogspot.com
This is not updated daily—only when there is something in current events about which I wish to have a brief rant. Instead, on this site I focus on the ideas in the background. In particular, I believe that a particularly effective way to oppose the statists is to deprive them of funds—they are incapable of earning anything themselves. Therefore, a substantial part of this site is devoted to opposition to taxation and includes what started out as a book Taxation is Theft.
You can find out more about John Hampden from the John Hampden Society at this link:
(I am not a member.)
Where do I stand?
The political part of this website is devoted to the following propositions:
 | There is no such thing as a good politician; |
| Political correctness is destroying the English language—just like George Orwell predicted; |
| The Tyrant Blair is the worst ruler of Britain since Nero; |
| England is currently ruled by an Occupying Power; |
| Politicians treat us like livestock. We are being farmed; |
| A Police State is under construction; but it can be wrecked. |
| Nanny does not know best. |
| There ought not to be a law against it. |
The scientific part of the site is devoted to the proposition that something went wrong with science, particularly physics, in the twentieth century, caused ultimately by the same attitudes that are causing the problems apparent in political life.
The philosophical part of the site seeks to identify those underlying attitudes. This terrible thing that went wrong with the twentieth century, something has affected every aspect of life. In the twenty-first century we are going to suffer for it.
In these pages I present my views, some of them even original, on every subject that takes my fancy. There is, of course, a common theme, not confined to the sentiments above. I am trying to show what it was that went wrong and how it might be put right. I give examples of how this common theme operates here:
There are things you can do right now.Since many of the steps leading us towards a Police State are being taken, or at least assisted by corporations, here is something else that you can do:
And here is another little thing that you can do to help mess things up for the Government and make a point at the same time.
If you are insulted by any opinion I express on this website, please be assured that this is entirely intentional. Anyone who takes offence at anything that I have to say is someone whom I think deserves to be insulted—otherwise I would not have said it. On the other hand, if I have made a mistake of fact, I apologise unreservedly and will correct the error.
Contact details: steve[at]villagehampden[dot]co[dot]uk.
(How long will it be before spammers find ways of automatically turning that back into the real format for e-mail addresses?)
© Steve Sutton 2004, 2005