Australia (Part One) The Genesis

These two graphics best indicate the land masses of the three main Countries mentioned here. Effectively shown is that Australia, even though the population may seem small covers quite a large area, best indicated when the land mass of Australia is superimposed over that of the US, dramatically indicating that Australia has almost the same total area as the contiguous US mainland . If you take away the area of Texas from the total area of the US, then the two countries are of almost equal area. The total population of Australia is the same as for Texas. 304 million people populate the US. 22 Million populate Australia. Same area with only 7.2% of the population. Most of the population live along the Eastern sea board in those three States, from the North, Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”

If one line William Shakespeare wrote was the one most taken out of context, then this is it. The obvious thing is that this is the first of those ubiquitous ‘lawyer jokes’. However, nothing is furthest from the truth.
The line is from Henry VI. A gang uprising is trying to usurp the throne. One follower is Jack the butcher and he’s talking with the gang leader regarding what to do following the revolution. He quotes this immortal line.
The context is the opposite of what you think. The perception of Jack the butcher is that for a revolution to succeed, there needs to be anarchy followed by suppression of anything going against the principles those leading the revolution aspire to. What they need to do is to get rid of people who might actually be rational enough to explain to the masses that the revolution is just a play for power by a bunch of thugs. So Jack the butcher, along with his leader, perceive lawyers really are a threat to their taking over.
That’s the context of that line, to kill off the ones most likely to get in their way.

Right then, that’s out of the way.
What has this got to do with Australia then?
Again, I might seem to be going away from the subject heading, but it will all come back together. I just need to paint a picture rather than tell the bland facts.

Look again at that quote. Innocuous enough, isn’t it, now that it’s been explained.
Shakespeare wrote this line in 1591, a full 16 years before Jamestown, and thirty years before the Pilgrim Fathers landed.
Read it again.
Lawyers, in England, in 1591, and not just something new, but common enough to be in everyday language, besides the fact they were actually considered as the good guys.

The US, just like Australia owes a huge debt of thanks to England, grudging as that might be.

Why then?

Let’s look at major world powers, and I won’t go back too far.
The Egyptians were an early world power. Today’s Egyptians aren’t those Egyptians who built the Pyramids and led the World in thinking, construction, and other fields. Today’s Egyptians descend from invading hordes from the North who swept down killing all before them, and looting those Pyramids and other treasures to the extent that they no longer resemble what they once did, those smooth sided pyramids with capstones of pure gold.
The Greeks were a World Power and gave us so much culture.
The Romans led the known World, extending far afield, civilising the known World, before decadence, greed, and lack of will saw them fade.
The French, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Spanish would like to think of themselves as World powers, but they were only middle ranking powers, and if the truth be told, were the wrong sort of powers really, killing off the local inhabitants and taking all they wanted by force, and here you only need recall the Incas and the Aztecs.
Germany tried twice to become a World power, failing miserably.
Japan did the same and also failed.
China is an emerging World Power

The US has been a towering World Power for (arguably) around a century now, and with a vast number of years to come.

However, without doubt, the largest World Power there has ever been is Australia.

No. Sorry. Just joking.

The largest World Power there has ever been is England, and therein lies the reason we have a lot to be thankful for.

The English reigned as the largest power for almost a thousand years.
Wait a minute I hear you say. That’s a stretch.

They had democracy, and I mean real democracy, back as far as 1215. They moved away from Feudal Kingdom rule back then, something Countries still struggle with today. This is the genesis of modern parliamentary democracy. The standard go to model for democracy is that developed, practised, purified, and perfected by the English. They had that original Bill of Rights 900 years ago.
They still have a monarchy, but England is one Country where the Monarchy quite happily coexists with a Parliamentary democracy. The monarchy is a titular head, and can be traced back almost two thousand years in a direct line, accentuating another thing, that of accurate record keeping, realising some stuff just has to be kept for all time.

Education. All forms of the Arts. They had better thinkers.
When in danger, how come such a tiny Country was able to protect itself from Countries vastly more populous. They trained their Military better.
The English built the best ships, had the best Navy, one that ruled the seas for nigh on six hundred years. For such a tiny country, they punched well above their weight.
They say that the Sun never set on the British Commonwealth, and that was because they had colonies all across the Planet, and somewhere, the Sun was shining on British soil, all ruled fairly benevolently from Mother England.

Besides democracy, they gave us medicine, and virtually everything in our modern life can be traced back in one way or another to England.
Commerce. Trade, both local and global. Mining. They started the Industrial revolution.
It could even be arguably said they moved the World away from one religion, Roman Catholicism, and in that process moved religion out of the State, another thing some Countries are still struggling with today.
Time. Long stretch you say, but it was the English who, with the perfection of John Harrison’s clock that enabled English sailors to finally work out Longitude, revolutionising sea travel and making it something that could be done with a degree of accuracy previously unknown, so much so that all time is calculated from Greenwich Mean Time.

They gave us the Law, and lawyers and I’ll get back to that later when I finally get back to Australia.

However, the biggest thing the English gave us was just that. English. The language itself.
If the English had not been the original settlers on a large scale of the US, then the US would not be speaking that language to this day.
Now, because the US is the dominant World Power on virtually every level, if those other Countries want to deal with them, then those people just have to learn to speak the language. That alone has been the biggest thing of the last twenty or thirty years. Now it’s not uncommon for World leaders to actually speak English as a second language. If they want to get anywhere, then it’s just a must for them.

So, yes, we have a lot to be thankful to England for.
After all, they gave us Shakespeare, surely at the dawn of modern literature, and the good bard, well, he gave us that line, memorably misquoted throughout all time.

And that effectively brings me back to the lawyers.
It also still leaves you scratching your heads about what might seem a tenuous link to Australia.

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EarlyOzTony

Tagged: Egyptians, England, Feudal Kingdom, Greeks, Greenwich Mean Time, Henry VI, John Harrison's clock, lawyers, Longitude, Monarchy, parliamentary democracy, Pilgrims, Romans, United Kingdom, William Shakespeare, World Power

Posted in: America (USA), Australia, Bill of Rights, Great Britain, News and Views