mohican Posted May 22, 2015 Report Share Posted May 22, 2015 http://theweek.com/articles/555709/prin ... nservatismNo candle in the wind for CharlesPrince Charles' letters reveal a quirky, old-fashioned brand of conservatismMichael Brendan DoughertyFor a decade the anti-monarchist British newspaper The Guardian fought for the release of letters Prince Charles wrote to government officials, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair. The prince was lobbying the government, and so these letters collectively received a sinister name: the "black spider" letters.Was Charles pinning parliamentarians down on certain votes? Was the palace engaged in a quiet, pen-and-ink coup against democracy? Would a future King Charles become a meddling, overbearing tyrant?If only!A small batch of 27 letters was finally released after much fighting between Buckingham Palace and the government. Prince Charles was indeed revealed — but as what?Brendan O'Neill, one of the sharpest writers on the scene, believes that — ironically, deliciously, hilariously — Prince Charles was exposed as a Guardianista, a man who shares the same preening environmentalism, anti-corporatism, and diet fad-ism of the fashionable left. It isn't surprising that an aloof royal, a future divine king, should valorize the countryside, elevate the natural over the manmade, and be sniffy about fat plebs. It's somewhat more surprising that the supposedly liberal Guardian shares pretty much all those views. [spiked!] But in focusing on their shared qualities, it would be easy to miss the truth. Far from being a full-throated Guardianista, Prince Charles is his own kind of conservative: an ecological preservationist, an arch-traditionalist, and a tiller and keeper of the soil, rather than a devotee of capitalistic creative destruction.In his letters, the prince lobbies specifically for the toothfish, a species of cod he worried was being overfished to the potential decline of the species (and a classic English dish). He criticizes the "education experts" who he feared were turning children into "better robots," rather than fully capable and enquiring human beings. He worries that British armed forces were being given inadequate equipment for the tough job they were doing in the war on terror.Prince Charles' conservatism is characterized by "trusteeship," rather than the more modern concept of ownership. The latter assumes that the possessor of a property is entitled to extract all its market value, even if it destroys the use of that property and its goods for all posterity. Charles, ever a royal, allies himself to posterity's interests. The prince's overwhelming concern for conservation comes forward in his letters to the secretary of state for Northern Ireland: "As usual I repeated myself — yet again — as regards the potential value to be realized from the regeneration and re-use of redundant historic landmark sites." In the same letter he promotes the settlement of Poundbury, a community that was being built on lands belonging to Duchy of Cornwall, according to the traditionalist principles of town-planning and architecture he holds dear.On this subject, the prince can be scathing. In the 1980s, he compared the result of modernist architects unfavorably to the Battle of Britain. "You have to give this much to the Luftwaffe: When it knocked down our buildings, it didn't replace them with anything more offensive than rubble," he writes. Did you notice that for the prince, these are "our" buildings? Lovely.Conservatives are most likely to object to Charles' environmentalism. He very early turned his own farmland toward organic production. Charles is also a devoted believer in climate change. Commenting on the prince's conservatism, Rod Dreher wrote in 2012: In the black spider letters, Prince Charles is found criticizing supermarkets, which were rapidly displacing older markets, grocers, and butchers, and whose effect on farmers has mostly been one of squeezing the profit out of the business. Given his other concerns, it is likely Charles worries about collapsing biodiversity and flattened food-ways under the standardization of large market actors. Charles worries about the entire market ecology of food production.At the same time, a kind of anti-leftist ecological concern peeks through. Charles wanted farmers to be able to cull the population of badgers, which had the protection of legislation created by animal-rights activists.The monarchy's sympathizers might say that it is precisely because Charles' position is partly insulated from corporate interests and moral fads that he is able to take a longer view of issues related to England's countryside, its architectural patrimony, its historical sites, and the environment.Far from revealing an overweening royal authority or a disconnected left-wing scion, Charles' letters show a gentle, far-seeing, if unfashionable monarch. In a sense, Charles quietly exercises the highest role a monarch can play in the modern administrative state. He is an insistent voice for tradition's value to posterity, and an advocate for the men (and fish) that the market, or the bureaucratic state, would overlook and destroy. On a moral and spiritual level, Charles believes that civilization isn't sustainable unless humanity finds a way to live in balance with nature. For him, climate change is the ultimate judgment on a civilization that has rejected limits and fetishized economic growth and material prosperity over spiritual values. [The American Conservative] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mohican Posted May 22, 2015 Author Report Share Posted May 22, 2015 Black spider letters https://www.gov.uk/government/collectio ... epartments Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mohican Posted May 22, 2015 Author Report Share Posted May 22, 2015 Prior to reading this I didn't know a lot about Charles. I still don't know a lot about Charles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DieHardBrownsFan Posted May 22, 2015 Report Share Posted May 22, 2015 England has the best fish and chips. Served with peas and thick cut fries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gftChris Posted May 26, 2015 Report Share Posted May 26, 2015 Prior to this coming out, we (in England) all thought of him as part hippy part old fashioned conservative. Turns out that was pretty accurate, and that he is who he shows himself to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Westside Steve Posted May 26, 2015 Report Share Posted May 26, 2015 Prior to this coming out, we (in England) all thought of him as part hippy part old fashioned conservative. Turns out that was pretty accurate, and that he is who he shows himself to be. like a lot of people his age I guess. WSS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Browns149 Posted May 26, 2015 Report Share Posted May 26, 2015 Prior to this coming out, we (in England) all thought of him as part hippy part old fashioned conservative. Turns out that was pretty accurate, and that he is who he shows himself to be. Did the letters explain why he prefered an old hag ,his wife now, over Princess Diana, a beautiful women? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DieHardBrownsFan Posted May 26, 2015 Report Share Posted May 26, 2015 Did the letters explain why he prefered an old hag ,his wife now, over Princess Diana, a beautiful women? Diana was a whore. And I'd hardly call Diana a beautiful woman. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-508191/Dianas-mother-called-whore-sleeping-Muslim-men.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LogicIsForSquares Posted May 26, 2015 Report Share Posted May 26, 2015 Diana was a whore. And I'd hardly call Diana a beautiful woman. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-508191/Dianas-mother-called-whore-sleeping-Muslim-men.html She was a British 8. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Browns149 Posted May 26, 2015 Report Share Posted May 26, 2015 Diana was a whore. And I'd hardly call Diana a beautiful woman. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-508191/Dianas-mother-called-whore-sleeping-Muslim-men.html Charles cheated on her with an old hag. And yes Diana was way better looking then the current wife She was a British 8. And the current wife is a -20 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Cysko Kid Posted May 26, 2015 Report Share Posted May 26, 2015 She was a British 8. That's like am American 4. Kate Middleton is a British ten. That's a six here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Westside Steve Posted May 26, 2015 Report Share Posted May 26, 2015 Samantha Fox WSS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Cysko Kid Posted May 26, 2015 Report Share Posted May 26, 2015 Yeah she's got huge boobs but she's a butterface. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Cysko Kid Posted May 26, 2015 Report Share Posted May 26, 2015 Elizabeth hurley is the hottest British chick I can think of Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Westside Steve Posted May 26, 2015 Report Share Posted May 26, 2015 https://youtu.be/Of4uTbZnfr8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Browns149 Posted May 26, 2015 Report Share Posted May 26, 2015 Kate Beckensale is pretty hot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Westside Steve Posted May 26, 2015 Report Share Posted May 26, 2015 Elizabeth Taylor was born in England. WSS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Cysko Kid Posted May 27, 2015 Report Share Posted May 27, 2015 Ok Kate Beckinsale is pretty hot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MLD Woody Posted May 27, 2015 Report Share Posted May 27, 2015 Keeley Hazell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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