The Monarchist 1.0
Defending the British Crown Commonwealth and the English-Speaking Peoples
[+] HONOURING OUR PATRON, SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL, VICTOR OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES
[+] HONOURING OUR QUEEN, ELIZABETH THE SECOND, ON THE 80TH YEAR OF HER BIRTH (1926 - 2006)
[+] HONOURING OUR KING, SAINT EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, ON THE 1000TH YEAR OF HIS BIRTH (1005 - 2005)
[+] HONOURING OUR HERO, LORD NELSON, ON THE BICENTENNIAL OF THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR (1805 - 2005)
[+] HONOURING OUR SONS, THE QUEEN'S COMMONWEALTH SOLDIERS KILLED IN THE 'WAR ON TERROR'
Chief Warrant Officer Robert Girouard, 46, Royal Canadian Regiment, Nov 27, 2006 (Afstan)
Staff Sergeant Sharron Elliott, 34, Intelligence Corps, Nov 12, 2006 (Iraq)
Private Jacob B. Kovco, 25, Royal Australian Regiment, April 21, 2006
[+] HONOURING OUR VETS ON THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE VICTORIA CROSS (1856 - 2006)
Friday, August 04, 2006
Canadians love their Scotch
The Scots are not exactly conservative when it comes to their national politics. Nary a British Tory can win a seat in all the lowlands and highlands of that culturally rich Celtic country. Scotland is a Labour stronghold, continuously frustrating the chances of rightward British hopes.
In this they resemble Quebec. Canadian Tories relentlessly beat their heads into a wall, trying to penetrate a bridgehead onto that most anti-conservative of federal bastions. To wit: For all of Harper’s stance in the Middle East, his fragile base is now at risk of collapsing in nationalist Quebec. There’s something impossible about conservative politics – should I say loyalist politics – inside fortress areas where competing identities flourish and national loyalties are complex.
But we’re the richer for it, aren’t we. Up until the British manifesto of 1759 (read General Wolfe’s pointed manifesto to Canadians), Canadians were French only. I would never give up Quebec for the sake of federal politics, because to do so would destroy the original sense of what Canadian means. Ditto for the British and for those of us who still care about our British identity. To dispense with Scotland would be to dispense with Britain itself. It would kick the stuffing out of any sense of remaining British.
That would never do. Canadians love their French and Scottish heritage, and would never countenance their destruction. It’s too deeply ingrained into the national psyche. The Americans got their Irish, we got our Scotch. New Scotland sits just north of New England, the difference being that Nova Scotia is constitutionally recognized as a Province of Confederation, New England merely a collection of American states.
We have more Scottish regiments than the Scottish Division of the British Army. They have the Black Watch, so do we. They have their Royal Highland Fusiliers, their Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, so do we. They’ve amalgamated their Seaforths, their Gordons and their Camerons; we’ve kept them separate. Canada has 15 Scottish regiments, Scotland, including their two Territorial, has nine (I have mostly populated all of these regiments under the right sidebar button, “Colonel-in-Chief”). Even these have now been re-organized under a single regiment, the Royal Regiment of Scotland, although each of their battalions will maintain their former regimental identity, as regiments within a regiment. Australia and New Zealand, by the way, have none. Only one company of one battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment is nominally Scottish.
So Canadians love their Scotch. Does it ever show.
POSTED BY: The Monarchist AT 12:51 p.m. | LINKS |
The Scots are not exactly conservative when it comes to their national politics. Nary a British Tory can win a seat in all the lowlands and highlands of that culturally rich Celtic country. Scotland is a Labour stronghold, continuously frustrating the chances of rightward British hopes.In this they resemble Quebec. Canadian Tories relentlessly beat their heads into a wall, trying to penetrate a bridgehead onto that most anti-conservative of federal bastions. To wit: For all of Harper’s stance in the Middle East, his fragile base is now at risk of collapsing in nationalist Quebec. There’s something impossible about conservative politics – should I say loyalist politics – inside fortress areas where competing identities flourish and national loyalties are complex.
But we’re the richer for it, aren’t we. Up until the British manifesto of 1759 (read General Wolfe’s pointed manifesto to Canadians), Canadians were French only. I would never give up Quebec for the sake of federal politics, because to do so would destroy the original sense of what Canadian means. Ditto for the British and for those of us who still care about our British identity. To dispense with Scotland would be to dispense with Britain itself. It would kick the stuffing out of any sense of remaining British.
That would never do. Canadians love their French and Scottish heritage, and would never countenance their destruction. It’s too deeply ingrained into the national psyche. The Americans got their Irish, we got our Scotch. New Scotland sits just north of New England, the difference being that Nova Scotia is constitutionally recognized as a Province of Confederation, New England merely a collection of American states.
We have more Scottish regiments than the Scottish Division of the British Army. They have the Black Watch, so do we. They have their Royal Highland Fusiliers, their Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, so do we. They’ve amalgamated their Seaforths, their Gordons and their Camerons; we’ve kept them separate. Canada has 15 Scottish regiments, Scotland, including their two Territorial, has nine (I have mostly populated all of these regiments under the right sidebar button, “Colonel-in-Chief”). Even these have now been re-organized under a single regiment, the Royal Regiment of Scotland, although each of their battalions will maintain their former regimental identity, as regiments within a regiment. Australia and New Zealand, by the way, have none. Only one company of one battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment is nominally Scottish.
So Canadians love their Scotch. Does it ever show.
POSTED BY: The Monarchist AT 12:51 p.m. | LINKS |
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