"Where Law Ends, There Tyranny Begins."

Every now and then, it seems to me, all of us would do well to look back at the history that brought about our Democracy, and be proud to say: spreading Democracy ...even spreading the thing called Western Civilization, is worthy of our unflinching support. Let me quote from a 1770 speech by William Pitt. It goes like this: "It is to your ancestors ... that we are indebted for the laws and constitution we possess. Their virtues were rude and uncultivated, but they were great and sincere. Their understandings were as little polished as their manners, but they had hearts to distinguish right from wrong; they had heads to distinguish truth from falsehood-, they understood the rights of humanity, and they had spirit to maintain them." Then William Pitt went on to discuss what must be done to defend Democracy. Suppose, he said "A breach has been made in the constitution -- the battlements are dismantled - the citadel is open to the first invader - the walls totter-the place is no longer tenable. What then remains for us but to stand foremost in the breach, to repair it, or to perish in it?"

I look at our refusal to face our illegal immigrant problem ... our hesitation to stand strong in the world for Democracy, and our refusal to fight for what we believe and the liberty we enjoy, and I am reminded that this is the William Pitt oration from which history often quotes its closing line that goes this way: "...where law ends, there tyranny begins." Where law ends, there tyranny begins.

This is Gordon Sawyer, from a window on historic Green Street.