The similarites between our system of law and england's is not by chance. We left because of their tyrannical control and reformed the problems. Why now should we captitulate and go back to what we left. Every day they are headed more towards a socialist society and we should join the wagon train of eastern europe.
Civil rights, are you kidding. You are going to compare our great experiment in democracy, our melting pot as it is to a almost completely homogenous society that has been handed down the basis of its laws from rule of royalty. The very liberties they have managed to grasp onto is because of a few "crazy" revolutionist who we know remember as our founding fathers.
Btw you want to know why the pound is rising against the dollar, I'll give you a hint, call your congressman and ask him to quit printing money and handing it out to people who have already bankrupted their company. We are who we are because of our rebellion against england, not a thing we should quickly forget.
It goes without saying that while we as Americans believe man is endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, Property, and those natural rights encapsulated in the Bill of Rights that allow us to pursue Happiness unimpeded by government (i.e., as long as we don't violate the equal rights of others) --- the British allowed their government to assign them "rights" which could then be restricted or qualified out of existence at will by government ---- be it the despotic, capricious rule of the Crown or the tyrannical, arbitrary, Parliament majority, or for that matter, the UN.*
And so, near Concord and Lexington on April 19, 1775, when the British attempted to apprehend the leaders of the brewing rebellion, Samuel Adams and John Hancock, and intended to seize and confiscate the arms and ammunition the patriots had stored at Concord --- the shot was fired that was heard around the world. A band of armed patriots --- an organized militia with small private arms, the Minutemen of the revolution --- routed the mighty Red Coats, the disciplined and highly professional force of the British Empire.
Here is the historical background. After the Puritanical rule of the Lord Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), the British populace welcomed the restoration of King Charles II, condoning the pageantry and permissiveness within his court as well as tolerating the restrictive gun control laws he implemented in the realm. (i.e., the Game Act of 1671). The policies (and religion) of his brother successor, King James II, on the other hand, were not tolerated, and within a few years Parliament orchestrated the Glorious Revolution (1689) that ousted James II and established Parliament's supremacy over the Crown. Included among the Declaration of Rights (Feb. 13, 1689) which Prince William of Orange and his wife Mary, James II's Parliamentary chosen successors, had to agree to accept before they could ascend the throne of England was: "That the subjects which are protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions, and as allowed by Law." Notice in the statement the lack of equality of citizens before the law (i.e., Protestant vs. Catholic), the arbitrary government prerogative to restrict the natural rights of citizens, and the violation of Sir Edward Coke's wise dictum, et domus sua cuique est tutissimum refugium, "a man's home is his castle," and that a man has a right to possess arms to protect his property, himself, his home, and family. Ditto for Sir William Blackstone's (1723-1780) fifth and last auxiliary right of a citizen, the God-given right of a person to keep and bear arms for his basic and natural right of resistance to oppression and for self-preservation --- "So long as those [liberties of Englishmen] remain inviolate, the subject is perfectly free; for every species of compulsive tyranny and oppression must act in opposition to one or other of those rights."(1) Be that as it may, with the Declaration of Rights, the natural right to self-protection in England became subjected to arbitrary government infringement.
