"The assault on freedom in Britain in the name of social welfare is an illustration of something that the American founding fathers understood."

The incomparable Theodore Darlymple contemplates "freedom" and what's gone wrong in the UK:

- Reality shows: they transfix the audience because the are both "both terrible and fascinating, rather like a rattlesnake".

- Tony Blair: he is a "ferocious and inveterate ... enemy of freedom... Perhaps the most dangerous thing about him is that he doesn’t know it: he thinks of himself, on the contrary, as a guardian of freedom, perhaps the greatest such guardian in the world."

- Criminal offenses: In the last 10 years, the Blair government has created 3,000 new criminal offences (more than one per work day), by "administrative decree appropriate to a dictatorship".

- Juan Domingo Peron: "great political philosopher". Mr. Blair's Third Way, with its "distinctly fascistic overtones", reminds Mr. Darlymple of Peron...

- The importance of "virtue": ..."only a population that strives for virtue (with at least a degree of success) will be able to maintain its freedom. A nation whose individuals choose vice rather than virtue as the guiding principle of their lives will not long remain free, because it will need rescuing from the consequences of its own vices."

Read the whole thing at the New English Review.

[Tony Blair] [freedom] [Britain] [UK] [virtue] [fascist] [Juan Domingo Peron] [reality show]