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Flocken flyr. Foto: Astrid Nydahl |
Idag blir det en blogg som är helt engelskspråkig. Jag vill inte
kommentera dessa 1600-talsord - hämtade ur en längre text - utan låter dem stå som de en gång skrevs. Jag
inbillar mig att de är värdefulla också nu. Uppgifter om upphovsmannen finns
längst ner i bloggen.
There is a twofold liberty, natural (I mean as our nature is now
corrupt) and civil or federal. The first is common to man with beasts and other
creatures. By this, man, as he stands in relation to man simply, hath liberty
to do what he lists; it is a liberty to evil as well as to good. This liberty
is incompatible and inconsistent with authority and cannot endure the least
restraint of the most just authority. The exercise and maintaining of this
liberty makes men grow more evil and in time to be worse than brute beasts: omnes sumus licentia
deteriores. This
is that great enemy of truth and peace, that wild beast, which all of the
ordinances of God are bent against, to restrain and subdue it. The other kind
of liberty I call civil or federal; it may also be termed moral, in reference
to the covenant between God and man, in the moral law, and the politic
covenants and constitutions amongst men themselves. This liberty is the proper
end and object of authority and cannot subsist without it; and it is a liberty
to that only which is good, just, and honest. This liberty you are to stand
for, with the hazard (not only of your goods, but) of your lives, if need be.
Whatsoever crosseth this is not authority but a distemper thereof.
In 1645, John Winthrop, the deputy-governor of Massachusetts,
was impeached for interfering in a local militia election. Following his
acquittal, Winthrop delivered a short speech, “On Liberty”.
John Winthrop (12 January
1587/88 – 26 March 1649) was an English Puritan
lawyer and one of the leading figures in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the first major settlement in what
is now New England after Plymouth Colony.
Winthrop led the first large wave of immigrants from England in 1630, and
served as governor for 12 of the colony's first 20 years of existence. His
writings and vision of the colony as a Puritan "city upon a hill"
dominated New England colonial development, influencing the governments and
religions of neighboring colonies.
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