There's no England now

All the stories have been told
Of kings and days of old,
But there's no England now.
All the wars that were won and lost
Somehow don't seem to matter very much anymore.
All the lies we were told,
All the lies of the people running round,
They're castles have burned.
The Kinks, "Living on a Thin Line", 1984

The YouTube video, graced with that song, is creative montage of England's glorious past--and unhappy present.

A couple of days ago, I heard Michael Savage play the same tune, not for the first time, from The Kinks' underrated "Word of Mouth" album.

Savage added snippets of dialogue from memorable speeches by Sir Winston Churchill. He played it in response to the results of a recent poll among Britons that discovered that 25 percent of UK residents believe that Churchill didn't exist.

Just two days later, Dr. Rowan Williams, the shameful leader of the Church of England, called for the recognition of Islamic law, sharia, to be given equal footing in the United Kingdom. He made the suggestion in a speech, which can be found here.

A spokesman for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown slammed the idea.

Our general position is that sharia law cannot be used as a justification for committing breaches of English law, nor should the principles of sharia law be included in a civil court for resolving contractual disputes.

The Prime Minister believes British law should apply in this country, based on British values.

Well phrased.

Other voices of sanity:

The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, is facing death threats following his warning last month about Muslim "no-go areas" in Britain.

And the Archbishop of York, Dr. John Sentamu, who has been fiercely critical of Muslim extremists, said last year that "the imposition of sharia law, Britain as a Muslim society - that will never happen."

But it's fine with Atkinson, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The goof goes on to compare potential UK sharia courts to Orthodox Jewish Beth Din courts which operate there.

Huge, huge differences exist between the two, however. Jews enter an Beth Din court voluntarily, and limit themselves to civil affairs. They're beneficial to society as a whole. In the early 1990s, a kosher caterer at a hotel I worked at botched a party, and for a while it looked like I'd be called in as a witness--but they ended up not needing me. The great thing about Beth Din courts is that every disagreement heard there means one less law suit clogging op tax-payer funded civil courts.

Muslim extremists don't recognize civil law, dismissing it as "man-made law." Sharia courts would certainly not limit themselves to civil affairs. Would a thief get a hand chopped off? Would adulterers be stoned? Williamson is not suggesting Muslims be allowed to use sharia in criminal cases, yet, but extremists, being well, extreme, once the door is open, there will be no stopping sharia law in the UK in my opinion.

If he had any sense of honor, Williams would resign immediately. If he doesn't, and if the legal means are there, the prime minister should fire him, and replace him with someone like the number two man in the Church of England, the aforementioned Archbishop of York, Dr. John Sentamu.

Related post:

First they came for The Three Little Pigs...

Technorati tags: UK Media history Church of England Islam religion Judaism sharia dhimmitude Archbishop of Canterbury anglicanism Gordon Brown The Kinks Winston Churchill