King Charles’ Easter Message Accelerates Britain’s Fall – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

“Tis the times’ plague, when madmen lead the blind.”
William Shakespeare, King Lear

Last Friday marked the 250th anniversary of the Shot Heard Round the World. This was the first musket shot of the American Revolution, fired across the old North Bridge near Lexington. No one knows who shot first, the British regiment on one side of the bridge or the Minute Men on the other. But everyone knows what came of it — the birth of a great nation and the perseverance of another. Today, America is still rising after twice this century rejecting malevolent suicidal leadership. While Great Britain embraced it and is thus collapsing fast.

The tragedy affects not only the island’s population but all people like me who revere the country’s history and literature dating back a thousand years before the United States existed, indeed leading to its foundation. I’ll always have indelible mental images and lines from British fact and fiction:

King Arthur rousing his Knights of the Round Table (6th Century). Beowulf swimming deep into the lair of Grendel’s Hag mother (8th Century). King Alfred hiding in the swamp from the savage Danes yet dreaming of uniting England as a Christian nation (878 AD). King Henry II calling for the murder of Thomas Beckett (1170) — “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” King John either signing the actual Magna Carta (1215) or cursing the legendary Robin Hood. King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt or Shakespeare’s Henry V at Agincourt — “And gentlemen in England now a-bed/Shall think themselves accursed they were not here/And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks/That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.”

The present King of England, Charles III, had a decidedly less saintly message this past Easter, one as far as possible from Alfred’s unifying Christian vision: “On Maundy (Holy) Thursday, Jesus knelt and washed the feet of many of those who would abandon Him,” Charles wrote. “His humble action was a token of His love that knew no bound or boundaries and is central to Christian belief.… The love He showed when He walked the Earth reflected the Jewish ethic of caring for the stranger and those in need, a deep human instinct echoed in Islam and other religious traditions, and in the hearts of all who seek the good of others.”

Almost every portion of Charles’ message is wrong when not offensive. Christ did not wash the feet of “those who would abandon him.” He washed those of his 11 (absent Judas) Apostles at the Last Supper, none of whom abandoned Him (though Peter did deny him thrice that night) and most of whom died in His name. His love did know boundaries, like for those who would morally misdirect children — “It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.” And the deep human instinct echoed in Islam is not caring for the stranger but destroying the infidel ones.

In truth, the twit monarch’s words drip with anti-Christian and antisemitic venom. Former Chaplain to the Queen (Charles’ late great mother Elizabeth II) Dr. Gavin Ashenden ripped the statement. “It’s very offensive both for Jews and Christians to have this put together,” he said. “It’s as if there’s no distinction between Jesus the Savior and Mohammed the warlord.”

But there is a difference to the current UK ruling Liberal Party — and Christians are getting the worst of it. U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance had already slammed the British government for anti-Christian tyranny, like arresting a man for silently praying near an abortion clinic. Vance also blasted the UK policing on free speech — to little apparent effect. In a new Facebook video, Prime Minister Keir Starmer actually brags about mass arrests, many for oppositional social commentary. “Over 400 people now have been arrested. A hundred have been charged. Some in relation to online activity.”

Again, such a policy is anathema to British history and literature lovers, inspired by the UK’s contribution to victory in the Cold War. I devoured true stories about how MI5 (more glamorously known as Her Majesty’s Secret Service) uncovered Soviet infiltration in the premium spy agency, as by the traitorous Kim Philby and company. And fictionalized tales of anticommunist espionage by Ian Fleming, Len Deighton (The Ipcress File), and — despite annoying East-West moral equivalence — John le Carré (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy). To watch UK police and intelligence branches adopting the tactics of the communists they beat is especially painful.

The King and Donald Trump

The Trump Administration appears to have finally had enough. According to the UK Independent, a recent J.D. Vance speech to the Heritage Foundation suggests any U.S.-UK trade deal must be linked to Britain’s “hate speech” laws being repealed. “No free speech, no deal,” a Washington source said. “It’s as simple as that.” And this very much includes religious — specifically Christian — freedom.

Compare King Charles’ blithering multicultural Easter message to that of Donald Trump last weekend: “As we approach this joyous Easter Sunday, I want to wish Christians everywhere a happy, and beautiful, and blessed holiday. America is a nation of believers. We need God. We want God. And with His help, we will make our nation stronger, safer, greater, more prosperous, and much more united than ever before.”

Of course, Great Britain might not go along. But then thanks to its insipid leadership ever since Maggie Thatcher left 10 Downing Street, it’s a sad shadow of the force America faced across the old North Bridge 250 years ago.

READ MORE from Lou Aguilar:

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