Skip to main content

"It came from Heaven Down"

I have always liked Denmark. I have many Danish friends. I like Copenhagen, I even like the Danish language, which seems to me to carry some echoes of English. The quiet, humorous Danes have created a steady, civilized country, which is proud of its achievements without being jingoistic. The Country is, to use that almost nineteenth Century word "worthy". High minded, honourable and kind.

Danish democracy is consensus based, but the country has not been afraid to make occasionally radical political decisions. Denmark is a country that, whatever its faults- and all countries have them- works.

Now, steady, stable and fair Denmark has come under attack. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the cartoons published in a Danish newspaper, the response is horrific. Danish Embassies have been attacked, people have been hurt and several even killed.

I believe in free speech- even the free speech of the Islamo-Fascists who would take my own free speech away from me. I am going to show my support for free speech and my support for Denmark by wearing a pin of the Danish flag. By doing so I will show my contempt for the violent savagery of those who can not even understand the strength and nobility of a free society.

I know a lovely land
With spreading, shady beeches Near Baltic's salty strand;
Near Baltic's salty strand;
Its hills and valleys gently fall,
Its ancient name is Denmark,
And it is Freya's hall
And it is Freya's hall

Comments

Edis said…
Title of your post of course refers to the National Flag, which 'Appeared from Heaven' to inpire the Danes when they were beating up Estonia... you do keep your interests close together!
2:09 pm
Bishop Hill said…
Good for you.
7:43 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Liberal Democrats v Conservatives: the battle in the blogosphere

It is probably fair to say that the advent of Nick Clegg, the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, has not been greeted with unalloyed joy by our Conservative opponents. Indeed, it would hardly be wrong to say that the past few weeks has seen some "pretty robust" debate between Conservative and Liberal Democrat bloggers. Even the Queen Mum of blogging, the generally genial Iain Dale seems to have been featuring as many stories as he can to try to show Liberal Democrats in as poor a light as possible. Neither, to be fair, has the traffic been all one way: I have "fisked' Mr. Cameron's rather half-baked proposals on health, and attacked several of the Conservative positions that have emerged from the fog of their policy making process. Most Liberal Democrats have attacked the Conservatives probably with more vigour even than the distrusted, discredited Labour government. So what lies behind this sharper debate, this emerging war in the blogosphere? Partly- in my ...
20 comments
Read more

Concert and Blues

Tallinn is full tonight... Big concerts on at the Song field The Weeknd and Bonnie Tyler (!). The place is buzzing and some sixty thousand concert goers have booked every bed for thirty miles around Tallinn. It should be a busy high summer, but it isn´t. Tourism is down sharply overall. Only 70 cruise ships calling this season, versus over 300 before Ukraine. Since no one goes to St Pete, demand has fallen, and of course people think that Estonia is not safe. We are tired. The economy is still under big pressure, and the fall of tourism is a significant part of that. The credit rating for Estonia has been downgraded as the government struggles with spending. The summer has been a little gloomy, and soon the long and slow autumn will drift into the dark of the year. Yesterday I met with more refugees: the usual horrible stories, the usual tears. I try to make myself immune, but I can´t. These people are wounded in spirit, carrying their grief in a terrible cradling. I try to project hop...
Post a Comment
Read more

Are the Liberal Democrats Libertarian?

A few days ago Cicero met with one of the better known figures in the Libertarian Alliance, Brian Mickelthwait . Brian writes for various blogs that I enjoy reading- including Samizdata . Ahead of our meeting Brain expressed "scepticism" about the Libertarian credentials of the Liberal Democrats: "My charge was that when you meet a Liberal Democrat you never know what he will believe. The one who talks to you is likely to say what you want to hear. But the others will simultaneously be telling other people with quite different views what they want to hear. So don't vote for these lying creeps." Political parties- all of them- are coalitions of people who quite often disagree with each other. Apparently we are not supposed to "air our dirty linen in public", but actually one of the reasons that the Liberal Democrats appealed to me was that they were prepared to talk about issues and policies amongst themselves in public. The eclipse of the Liberal Party...
18 comments
Read more