ID cards debate today. An overly-powerful executive trying to impose its will on the people, claiming it has the right even though nearly four fifths of the population either outright oppose it or don’t care who rules, reminded me of a certain spat from the mid-17th century which also kicked off (at least in part) thanks to the executive claiming the right to lock people up without trial and stifling freedom of speech.

Not that we’re going to end up with another civil war, obviously, but still. I was then reminded of one of my all-time heroes of political writing, the frequently unprincipled genius that was Marchamont Nedham. To wit, some words of wisdom from 1656’s The Excellencie of a Free State:

“It is pity, that the people of England, being born as free as any people in the world, should be of such a supple humour and inclination, to bow under the ignoble pressures of an arbitrary tyranny, and so unapt to learn what true freedom is. It is an inestimable jewel, of more worth than your estates, or your lives…

“the first insurrection [in the Roman Republic] was occasioned by the usury and exactions of the great ones; who by their long continuance in power had drawn all unto themselves: so the second was occasioned by the lordliness of those ten persons, who being elected to do justice, according to the laws, made use of their time, only to confirm their power, and greaten themselves, by replenishing their own coffers, ingrossing of offices, and preferring their own kindred and alliances: and at length, improved self-interest so high, that they domineered, like absolute tyrants, advancing and depressing whom they pleased, without respect of merit or insufficiency, vice or virtue; so that having secured all in their own hands, they over-ruled their fellow-senators at pleasure, as well as the people…

“the main interest and concernment both of kings and grandees, lies either in keeping the people in utter ignorance what liberty is, or else in allowing and pleasing them only with the name and shadow of liberty instead of the substance… The truth of it is, the interest of freedom is a virgin that every one seeks to deflour; and like a virgin, it must be kept, from any other form, or else (so great is the lust of mankind after dominion) there follows a rape upon the first opportunity…

“when government is managed in the hands of a particular person, or continued in the hands of a certain number of great men, the people then have no laws but what kings and great men please to give: nor do they know how to walk by those laws, or how to understand them, because the sense is oftentimes left at uncertainty; and it is reckoned a great mystery of state in those forms of government, that no laws shall be of any sense or force, but as the great ones please to expound them…

“for Satan had a new game now to play, which he managed thus: First, he led a great part of the world away with dangerous errors, thereby to find an occasion for the prelates, to carry on the mystery of their profession; and so, under pretence of suppressing those dangerous errors, they easily screwed themselves into the civil power…”