The Father.
By allymax
This year marks the 450th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, and this month September, the Catholic Papal visit from Pope Benedict 16th; the coming together of all Christians in Scotland. Both our Catholic and Protestant churches came together before in support of our SNP Scottish Government with Kenny MacAskill’s politically tremendous decision to release a terminally ill prisoner.
The Father.
By allymax
This year marks the 450th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, and this month September, the Catholic Papal visit from Pope Benedict 16th; the coming together of all Christians in Scotland. Both our Catholic and Protestant churches came together before in support of our SNP Scottish Government with Kenny MacAskill’s politically tremendous decision to release a terminally ill prisoner. When the church has to come out in such a high profile vocal support of its own government, then it shows Scotland is at a crossroads, politically, socially, and culturally. Church leaders Archbishop Mario Conti, Reverend Ian Galloway, and Cardinal Keith O’Brien vehemently supported MacAskill’s decision, with Cardinal O’Brien framing the moment in history so eloquently when his statement of open support read,
“In Scotland over the many years we have cultivated through our justice system what I hope can be described as a culture of compassion. How mature must a nation’s justice system be to cultivate a culture of compassion. What is the marker of such a point?”
Scotland’s politics, being at a national crossroads, it is necessary to articulate and qualify this statement from a political standpoint. Cardinal O’Brien’s question mistakenly cited ‘justice system’, in case of Scots Law. This being so, it is the veracity, paucity, or weight of wealth Scots Law has in the moral, ethical, and just proportional values, that will be the measure of the ‘cultivation’, and its ‘marker’.
First we verify and measure Scotland’s wealth of Christian ethical and moral values through a history of metaphorical landmarks. A small but potent snapshot of these ecumenical milestones chronologically start with our Pict and Celt ancestors, who, more than 2000 years ago, held deep, spiritual, ritualistic, even superstitious beliefs, in a higher order of all things pertaining to our lives, families, and society. Scotland was officially infused with Christian ethics, laws, and customs when St. Columba and St. Ninian brought Christianity and its rubric to the Highlands, and the Lowlands of Scotland, respectively, in the 6th century*. Medieval Scotland’s customs, ethics, and laws were eventually brought to its first official parliament, the ‘colloquium’ general assembly 1235. This assembly was heavily represented with church ministers because it was made up of the 3 estates, the clergy, feudal lairds, and city burghers; our church ministers, as functioning politicians, were very involved in Scotland’s politics, making laws, and guiding Scots culture and society.
We see the wealth of learned constitutional philosophy of Scots Law, hosted by deep Christian values of humbling acceptance of God’s grace, written in the Declaration of Arbroath 1320,
“The high qualities and deserts of these peoples [Scots], … gain glory enough from … our Lord Jesus Christ”.
The 16th century church in Scotland made it an edict for every Scots’ person to read the bible. Thus, the institution of the very first National Education policy anywhere in the world was administered by a Scots government. The Christian church put a minister in every parish to teach all the parish inhabitants to read, which diffused the light and energy of each minister’s morals, ethic, and customs to all Scots. Our Scottish Enlightenment in the 18th century saw a virtual renaissance of our divine scholarly thinking in reasoning through a myriad of scientific empiricism to find God. While Europe was questioning the need for God upon mankind’s innovations of science, Scotland was questioning the nature of that science through God; European Enlightenment=Man questioning God’s legitimacy through science. Scottish Enlightenment=God’s legitimacy questioning Man with science. More recently in the 21st century our Scottish Government Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, now using the rich, deep, and matured Christian pedigree of our Scots Law, found it relatively easy to use Scots Law to release a terminally ill man on compassionate grounds.
Therefore, our ancestors found Christianity and its rubric a good synergy with their own Pagan spiritual beliefs, and Christianity in Scotland was well received, quickly assimilated, and well nurtured in Scotland . Scots Law developed and matured over the centuries, untainted and undisturbed in ethics and culture, nurturing the rich depth of moral, ethical, and matured pedigree, developed from pre-Christian times, through medieval, renaissance, modern, and post modern culture, has evolved and matured over this long time. Scots Law fundamentally comes from all our well honed Christian ethics, morals, beliefs and values. Very few nations in the world can cite such an unconquered, unchanged, unedited wealthy legal heritage, and genuinely claim a mature Christian pedigree in its laws, customs, and society, dating back thousands of years.
Christianity and politics shapes the Scottish way of life, it is our heritable living prescription, it permeates our society, and structures our family ties, it pervades all our waken and un-wakened thoughts, it is our living will but we somehow take it for granted. We are so protracted by our daily lives that we become unaware of the church, its monumental girth, and its Gothic ornamental breadth. We walk past our heritage every day without really noticing and appreciating our historical inherited wealth. Time is testament and witness through Jesus’ own Home and Foreign Missionary St. Andrew, of whom, God’s ethics are ennobled on the white cross. Emissaries like Livingstone, Melville, Witherspoon, Hutcheson, Cameron, Brown, Buchanan, Duns Scotus, King Bruce, and King David also stand aloft in world history. Scotland’s societal structure is Christian, baptism, communion, marriage, even our laws are made so that we address our peers from the testament we hold promise of truth in the bible; we swear on the bible in our Scottish crown court processes. We literally bequeath our hearts, souls and minds openly to our society while God’s word quixotically controls all our sensibilities, served concurrently for the egotistical elites, and the Fine, of which, under God’s premise, are rendered mere ecumenical jesters. We thankfully ask for last rites through God’s love, and Jesus’ sufferings. We are given redemption and salvation through the grace of God. Scots, Scotland, and Scots law is truly a mature wealthy Christian nation, and pleasantly tolerant of other religions too; the terminally ill man was a non-Christian, a Muslim. Scots Law is the veritable mirror of Scots society, ideals and culture; Scots, and their laws, are pleasantly sincere, socially tolerant, and religiously indifferent. It is the Scots people, our heritage, and our society that has cultivated Scots Law.
Christianity in Scotland has supported our Scots Law legal system. It has ‘cultivated’ a deep, rich, and mature legal system for our justice officials to use. However, as we consider Cardinal O’Brien’s mistake, we spiral back down to those political crossroads Scotland is now at; we get to view another of Scotland’s public institution system, the justice system. This unfortunately, is horrendously tainted, and suffering, and needs to be repaired. It is the auspice, authority, and oppressive tool of the Westminster crown on Scots. It does the work of dividing the people by criminalizing them, classifying them, and commodifying them as fodder to maintain the elites in their resplendent lifestyles, at the tax-payers expense! The justice system, through its officials, is a multi-purpose Westminster crown oppressive tool. A perfect example of how Westminster tries to oppress Scots and its society, and how we fight back, is shown in the institution of our 3 verdict process. In 1728, Robert Dundas, a good Scottish lawyer, successfully convinced a jury to enforce its ‘ancient right’ to find a case on the whole case, rather than only the facts of the case. This allowed the jury to acquit Carnegie of Finhaven of murdering his friend the Earl of Strathmore. Finhaven, accidentally killed his friend while both were out gaming together. The Westminster crown prosecution tried to prosecute Finhaven for murder, when in fact it was an accident. The prosecution tried to force the case of proven on the facts, where the defense lawyer Dundas only had a legal premise to defend the facts. So Dundas successfully convinced the jury that it wasn’t murder, it was an unfortunate accident, and that to find on the facts is not deeply sufficient enough to deliver a fait verdict, so he successfully convinced the jury to find a ‘not proven’ verdict on the whole case rather than only its facts.
The justice system in Scotland will be the mainstay content of my next epistle, but just for now, how do we measure the wealth of Scots Law? We measure it by those who use it; Dundas and the jury coming together to facilitate Scots Law within the hearts minds and souls of the Scottish people. Our good SNP Scottish government through Kenny MacAskill. What would the outcome have been if we allowed Westminster to enforce our laws in Scotland ? Westminster, there-in lays another centuries old legal system, but a treacherous band of liars, cheaters, and deceivers that uses it; illegal wars, crashed economies, totalitarian policies that oppress, suppress, and criminalize their own peoples. There’s no point in having the best legal system if those that use it are going to abuse it.
Westminster continually poke their nose into Scottish affairs, they even try to change our millennia old Scots Laws. They chide, trash-talk, and deceive us and our national government. Westminster politicians mortgage their souls to the highest bidder, while corporate finance bastardises UK politics; commodified usury for the evangelical plebs. Westminster is the cesspit of deceit, derision, and denial, they are ethically, morally, and financially bankrupt, and they’re dragging us down with them. Scotland is at a political, religious, and social crossroads, we must not continue allowing Westminster to ruin us; enslaved to their ruinous, greedy, deceitful policies, we must break with Westminster and their evil ways and become our own independent nation again. We must choose independence, if Westminster thinks times are hard now, they ain’t seen nothing yet; a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
Cardinal O’Brien’s question of, “How mature must a nation’s justice system be to cultivate a culture of compassion. What is the marker of such a point?” That ‘marker’ is everything that makes us Scots from our heritage, in our actions. Christianity found a good synergy with our ancestor’s spiritual beliefs. Christianity in Scotland was well received, quickly assimilated, and well nurtured. Christianity and politics shaped our Scottish way of life; time as testament and witness, through Jesus’ own Home and Foreign Missionary St. Andrew; God’s own promise to the Scots, His white cross. Our own emissaries and renaissance thinkers; we verified and measured Scotland’s wealth of Christian ethical and moral values through our wealth of learned constitutional philosophy in Scots Law, hosted by deep Christian values of humbling acceptance of God’s grace. We have found it necessary to show this cultivation by articulating and qualifying Cardinal O’Brien’s question, instead of our travesty of a justice system, but rather in our Scots Law legal system. When MacAskill released this terminally ill convicted Muslim man on compassionate grounds, it showed Scotland can have no higher accolades than good, decent politicians, the SNP Scottish Government we already have. This is the marker, this is what God wants from us, “So God created man in his own image”. MacAskill was able to use our deep, rich, mature Scots Law to enact a true justice; that which was shown to the Christians by Saladin in 1187; this is where our God-given love transcends our sometimes contemptuous politics, ultimately and nefariously seen in the Unionists, and Westminster . Our SNP Scottish Government is our untainted inherited device through which our veracity and wealth of Scots Law is shown in our moral, ethical, and just proportional values, that we have measured and cultivated, as its marker. This is allymax signing off this epistle to all Scots, our Elders, the Holy Father, and all our Christian churches. We already have God-given politicians in Alex’ Salmond and his SNP Scottish Government; come together Scots’, let’s not give it back to Westminster.
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