Hi there… OLD ROOSTER here and I heard the farmer talkin’ about this here fellow who’s doin’ a documentary on Magna Carta. Seems with this bein’ the 800th anniversary of this great equalizer, everybody is finally payin’ attention. Bout time, is all I can say.
You all might be wonderin’ just what the heck a Magna Carta is? Well if’n you don’t know I’m bout to tell you. This here Magna Carta is the foundation of the rules of law for the British Commonwealth and is the protection of all your “inviolable” rights. The farmer heard that word “inviolable” and he thought it was a pretty fancy word, when he heard it at that International Property Rights Conference, them OLA folks had last fall. Inviolable, he says means: never to be broken, infringed, or dishonoured.
Anyways back to Magna Carta. See there was this king and his name was King John. Now King John was bout the most orneriest, good for nothin’, no-good-nick there was. He thought he could just take everybody else’s property, their land, their money, kill people, take their eyes out if they killed a rabbit, cut their arms off because they took a stick to start a fire for warmth, and just about anything he darn well pleased. And he got away with this for quite some time, but then he really started to tax the rich folks. That’s when he got his comeuppance. See them rich landowners were called Barons and they had had enough of King John and his shenanigans so they went to war to put him in his place. And boy or boy did they ever, they whooped him at this here place called Runnymede.
See they had with them these here Letters Patent called Magna Carta or in plain English the “Great Charter”. After they whooped him, in June 1215, they made him sign this here contract statin’ that he, and his government, had to respect and not violate them inviolable rights and that he and them couldn’t do certain things. And those certain things was that he and his government cronies couldn’t take away:
- a person’s right to right to life, limb, and liberty,
- the right to move freely,
- the right to associate or not to associate,
- the right of religious freedom with the right of free speech,
- the right to bear arms for protection against Crown and government oppression,
- the right of private property which included the right to freedom of contract without interference,
- the right of woman to make their own decisions and to own their own estates
- stopped all that regulation like endangered species, wetlands, makin’ everybody’s property into “forests” and the like
- the right to inherit without interference
- and that he had to listen to his Barons, but even they couldn’t violate the people’s rights either, etc.
See Magna Carta didn’t make any new rights, it only put the king and his government on notice that they had to respect and uphold the natural rights of the people. It even established freedom of the courts cause they is supposed to always uphold the natural inviolable rights of the individual against government and the rest of the community. Under this here Magna Carta, even if something, like a wetland is maybe for the benefit of the rest of the community, the courts ain’t supposed to allow it, cause in takin’ somebodies property for the benefit of the whole community is to take away, not only that person’s rights, but everybody’s rights cause it can happen to anybody. So because of this here contract the courts is supposed to protect the individual’s rights, against the whole world, so they can protect everybody’s rights.
Anyways, back to this here fella who’s doin’ this here documentary on Magna Carta. He’s lookin for donations so he can afford to do this. His name is Prof. John Robson and he’s got hisself his B.A., M.A. in History University of Toronto, a Ph.D. American History from University of Texas, he’s a Journalist and Film maker, and he’s already done one of them documentaries called The Great War Remembered. He says he wants to educate folks on Magna Carta, so if you’d be interested in helpin’ him out you can by goin to this here Kickstarter site (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robson-pellerin/magna-carta-our-shared-legacy-of-liberty) or send cheques/money orders to:
Robson-Pellerin Communications
1554 Carling Avenue, Suite 38
Ottawa, ON K1Z 7M4
This is the OLD ROOSTER saying WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE, cause the government still uses Magna Carta to support their rights, but is tryin’ to tell us it don’t mean nothing. So if’n we don’t help get folks educated and get them told they do have rights then that coffee, like it always does with time, is only gonna get a whole lot more biter to drink.