Saturday, May 28, 2005

Patriotic and Folk Songs of the Anglosphere

I should note here that this list has a definite American bias in so far as I know those songs best and these come from my play list.

National Anthems

Advance Australia Fair
http://www.hamilton.net.au/advance.html
God Save the Queen
http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Shores/5636/godsave.html
this is not a very good web page, the info on the order of the writing of the verses is not correct, but it was the best I could find with music and text.
http://www.contemplator.com/england/godsave.html
another version
God Defend New Zealand
http://www.navyband.navy.mil/anthems/new_zealand.htm
O’Canada
http://www.singforcanada.ca/anthem.html
The Star Spangled Banner
http://www.contemplator.com/america/ssbanner.html

Folk and Other Patriotic Songs

America the Beautiful
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/america.htm
Ballad of the Green Berets
http://www.brownielocks.com/balladofthegreenberetsWAVE.html
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/b/h/bhymnotr.htm
The Battle Cry of Freedom
http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/bcry.html
Danny Boy
http://www.ireland-information.com/irishmusic/dannyboy.shtml
Hail to the Chief
http://bensguide.gpo.gov/3-5/symbols/hail.html
Heart of Oak
http://www.contemplator.com/england/heartoak.html
Land of Hope and Glory
http://12121.hostinguk.com/Glory.htm
Marine Corps Hymn
http://www.contemplator.com/america/marine.html
Over the Hills and Far Away
http://www.contemplator.com/england/overhls.html
Rule Britannia
http://hereditarytitles.com/Page9.html
Scotland the Brave
http://cityofoaks.home.netcom.com/tunes/ScotlandTheBrave.html
The Cruel War (and many other songs)
http://www.redcoat.org/Songs/music/english/englmenu.htm
The Girl I left Behind Me
http://www.contemplator.com/england/girl2.html
Tramp Tramp Tramp
http://www.contemplator.com/america/tramptramp.html
Waltzing Matilda
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/matilda.htm
The World Turned Upside Down
http://www.contemplator.com/england/worldtur.html
Yankee Doodle
http://www.contemplator.com/america/ydoodle.html

Hymns

Abide With Me
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/a/b/abidewme.htm
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/b/h/bhymnotr.htm
Eternal Father Strong to Save
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/e/t/eternalf.htm
a great additional verse for space travel by R.A. Heinlein is
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1162.html
Jerusalem
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/j/e/r/jerusalem.htm

Friday, May 27, 2005

Letter to the WSJ re socialist letter to the editor

I wrote the following as a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, but decided to print it here instead.

"I was shocked to read the strait communist-Trotskyite line on Stalin’s terror put forward, by David North of the Socialist Equality Party, (“The How and Why of Russia’s Stalinist Terror” WSJ opinion page May 25) in this day and age. Mr. North pulls the normal socialist trick of context dropping to make it look like socialists were the major victims of Stalin.

While it is likely true that the majority of the one million victims of the Purges of 1937-1938 were party members, these were by no means the sum total of the victims of Stalin or of the soviet system. To take only one example, what of the six and a half million kulaks (better off peasants) slaughtered as part of the collectivization program. Mr. North of course will defend himself by saying that he and his Trotskyite comrades were opposed to Stalin. But the cold fact is that V.I. Lenin, Trotsky and their communist revolutionary brethren had managed to kill five million soviet citizens even before Stalin became general secretary of the Communist Party.

The Romanoff dynasty had ruled Russia for hundreds of years with a heavy handed authoritarianism that was the scandal of prewar Europe. Lenin has the dubious distinction of being one of the few figures in world history that could make the Romanoff dynasty look good by comparison. He and Trotsky have all too often, escaped the judgment of history because they were followed in power by Stalin, one of the three greatest murderers in the history of the world. Sir Winston L.S. Churchill summed up the proper judgment of Lenin when he wrote, “the Russian people’s second greatest tragedy, his birth, their greatest tragedy, his death.”

The fact that Mr. North and his friends are unwilling to face, is that as a form of collectivism, communism can have no other result than mass murder because it devalues the individual and blends people, in the minds of its adherents, into an amorphous collective. The members of that collective are both the justification for and the victims of a revolutionary socialist party. They are the justification, since having no voice except that of the individuals that make it up, a collective is ripe to be the justification for any gang fascist or socialist that claims to speak in its name. Its members are the victims since the collective is used by socialists and fascists to destroy the reality of the individuals that the collectivists lump together. The novelist Ayn Rand described what this collectivist perspective reduced humans to, “Hundreds. Thousands. Millions. Millions of What? Stomachs and heads and legs and tongues and souls, and it doesn’t even matter if they fit together properly. Just millions. Just flesh.” Once people are “just flesh,” in the minds of their rulers any atrocity can be perpetrated upon them in the name of a twisted ideal.

Mr. North and his comrades are understandably in denial about the full horror of the socialist system, because if they admit to themselves even for a moment that more people have been killed during the 20th Century in the pursuit of their ideal, than the total population of Great Briton, they would have no choice but abandonment of their views or suicide.

The rest of us however, must, because our lives do in fact depend on it, face the facts. Revolutionary socialism in China and the Soviet Union alone killed tens of millions of human beings. That does not count the tens of millions killed by other communists in Cambodia, Korea, Vietnam and in other communist and socialist states, or the tens of millions killed by their collectivist brothers the fascists and national socialists, or the 15 million killed in the Second World War started jointly by the communists and fascists. In total the four most murderous regimes of the 20th century, the Soviet Union, the Peoples Republic of China, Nazi Germany, and Nationalist China all to one degree or another socialist and all certainly collectivist managed to slaughter 120 million human beings.

The plain fact is that power kills. As a state becomes more powerful and less democratic the more it kills. It is time for the people of the United States, the English Speaking Nation, and the World to say, 120 million dead is enough. "

For those interested the statistics on democide can be found here.

Monday, May 23, 2005

Canada is Dead - Long Live Canada!

Walsingham made an excellent and moving post about the on going crises in Canada and the American Revolution at the Monarchist. His central point is that the Liberal Party's defiance of the constitution has broken his faith in the Confederation. However Canada like all states of the English speaking nation is more than a state, it is an idea expressed in the Canadian verse of God Save the Queen. "And let our empire be loyal, united, free, true to herself and thee.." That idea will not die even if the confederation does. There is an excellent old expression that applies to this situation, "the King is dead - Long Live the King!" It is with this sense of rededicate to the idea that is the essence of Canada, that I named this post, and I hope that Walsingham and all those who are loyal to Her Majesty, the Constitution, and the Canadian idea can join in dedicating themselves to the future of their corner of the anglosphere with the words, "Canada is Dead - Long Live Canada!"

AUN! Thoughts: Happy Victoria Day

I want to wish all our friends in the United Kingdom and throughout the Crown Commonwealth a happy Victoria Day!

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

AUN! Opinion: Martin the Usurper

I have thus far refrained from commenting on the political scandal and resulting political situation in Canada, because I think it unwise to comment to freely on other states political affaires. I am against the national coverage of celebrity criminal trials in the U.S. for the same reason.
However, the situation in Canada has now risen to the level of an on going constitutional crisis and I feel compelled to speak. Prime Minister Martin and his Liberal Party are holding onto power seven days after they have lost the confidence of parliament. Now I am no expert on the Westminster system, but even I can tell that the question of the motion that the government lost Tuesday being a procedural one is a red herring.
The idea of the Westminster system is that since the crown, a) cannot legally raise taxes without the consent of parliament, b) therefore cannot in fact govern without a majority in parliament to raise money and spend it, c) therefore a government (the crown’s ministers) only has legitimacy in so long as it can command a majority in parliament to do the government’s business.
If after the vote against his government, Mr. Martin had been able to introduce and pass a major peace of legislation, then it might be arguable that the vote on Tuesday was procedural and of no significance. Given the fact that actually his government has lost control of the house, the vote is of more than procedural significance.
Since Mr. Martin’s government can in fact no longer control parliament, it has according to Westminster principals lost the confidence of the nation. It is therefore incumbent upon him to resign and call for new elections, so that a government with the confidence of the nation may be formed to lead the people of Canada.
For Mr. Martin’s government to spend money without “the common council of the nation” is contrary to Magna Carta, the foundation of all of the governments of the English speaking nation.
Since tradition and precedent are part of all of our systems of government it concerns the whole of the English speaking nation when the government of one part of it, ignores the traditions that have been an integral part of our free system of government.
The crises also shows why it is contrary to the proper functioning of the Westminster System for the governments of the dominions to recommend the Governor General. It would be better for the Crown to appoint either a member of the royal family or a well known apolitical member of Canadian society.
In fact I believe that her majesty would do well to send a prince or other royal to each of the crown commonwealth states to act as Governor General for 20 years or so. This would allow the member to put down roots in the local community. This would likely increase the popularity of the crown by making it more of a local institution.
With her majesty scheduled to be in Canada this week, maybe we will see some action taken to uphold the rights of parliament and disassociate her majesty from the usurpations of the Martin government.