“As a corollary of the principles of unity and indivisibility of the nation, the revolutionary governments had nevertheless wanted to impose French alone. From January 14, 1790, it was the language of all legal texts, old and new, which involved a costly translation policy. The Convention even suspected the use of idioms of being counter-revolutionary, with Barère writing in a report: ‘Federalism and superstition speak Low Breton, emigration and hatred of the Republic speak German; the counter-revolution speaks Italian and fanaticism speaks Basque’. A French teacher was appointed in each municipality and Abbé Grégoire was able to present to the assembly a complete report ‘on the need and means to annihilate patois and universalize the use of the French language’. The result of an ambitious survey of correspondents spread throughout the country but which did not have the expected results (only thirty-six answers), this report gives good indications of what the linguistic map of Napoleonic France should be ten years later.”
Bold and italics by me
Source: Thierry Lentz, Les langues de la France napoléonienne
In so far as it is an institution intended to achieve, for the benefit of the greatest number, the social reforms to which landed suffrage is opposed, universal suffrage is powerless; especially if it pretends to legislate or govern directly. For, until the social reforms are accomplished, the greatest number is of necessity the least enlightened, and consequently the least capable of understanding and effecting reforms.
What could Egg have done to better institutionalize his pro-smallfolk reforms? As in, what measures could he have taken to prevent at least some of them from being roled back by his sucessors (and Tywin)?
Well, it's kind of hard to speak to that with any degree of specificity when we don't know what his "reforms and .. rights and protections" included:
what kind of reforms were they (legal, land tenure, something else?)
what kinds of rights did they include (medieval law has a lot of different kinds of rights, for example),
what kind of protections are we talking about (protection from feudal incidents, or from corvée labor, or from the lord's monopolies)?
Because there might well be different legal or political strategies involved in each case. In some cases a royal proclamation would work, in other cases perhaps an inclusion in an update of the legal code would be a better strategy, in yet another case a charter with no defined experation might be the way to go, etc.
As to your second question, I think the biggest thing he could have done was to do a better job raising his kids, because as his many woes involving their marriage choices and abdication crises demonstrates, he didn't do a very good job either getting them to obey him or share his political project.
While I've written before about the advantage of (hereditary) monarchy in that political succession is relatively stable and predictable, one of the real downsides of (hereditary) monarchy is that, because so much of public policy is dependent on the will of the monarch, you can get very sharp reversals of policy when the son disagrees with the father, and those reversals last more than just a fixed term - they last a tifetime or more.
To make my feelings regarding Jedi Order reformations perfectly clear:
There are several (and in Legends, many) reforms that I think would be nice to see for the benefit of the Jedi and their everyday life. A good example of such reforms can be seen in blue sunshine's Desert Storm stories.
But there is only one (1) reform that would have really saved the Jedi from Sidious: pack up everything and run like hell. That was not an option for several reasons, the most important being that it would have been unconscionable (and, of course, that they had no reason to do so).
Not socialist in a “I won’t have to work” type of way but socialist in a “I’ll still be working but I won’t be worried I won’t make the rent” type of way. In a “billions won’t be hoarded by one person” type of way. In a “janitors, fast-food workers, child care workers, preschool teachers, hotel clerks, personal care and home health aides, and grocery store cashiers, will live comfortably” type of way. In a “the sick and elderly will be cared for” type of way. In a “no child should work” type of way.
Scripture of the Day—March 28, 2024
Josiah, the Child King and His Reforms
Part 3 of 3 from the Bible’s King James ER Version
UPON HEARING PROPHETESS HULDA’S PREDICTIONS—YOUNG KING JOSIAH MAKES MORE REFORMS:
2nd Chronicles 34:29-33 - Then the king sent and gathered together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem,
And the king went up into the house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests, and the Levites, and all the people, great and small; and HE READ IN THEIR EARS ALL THE WORDS OF THE BOOK OF THE COVENANT THT WAS FOUND IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD.
And the king stood in his place, and MADE A COVENANT before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to KEEP his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes, with all his heart, and with all his soul, to PERFORM the words of the covenant which are written in this book. And he CAUSED ALL THAT WERE PRESENT in Jerusalem and Benjamin TO STAND TO IT. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers.
JOSIAH KEEPS PASSOVER IN THE 18TH YEAR OF HIS REIGN:
2Ki 23:21-26 - And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the passover unto the LORD your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant. Surely there was not held such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah; But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this passover was held to the LORD in Jerusalem.
SOME OF JOSIAH’S REFORMS 2ND Kings 23:6-11:
1 And he brought out the grove from the house of the LORD, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people. [the GROVES were not trees—but cubicles enclosed by curtains, wherein those who came to the temple—could adulterously worship images of the goddess Ashteroth.] And he broke down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.
2 And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba, and brake down the high places of the gates that were in the entering in of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a man's left hand at the gate of the city.
3 And he defiled Tophet—that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.
4 And he took away the HORSES [Strong’s Hebrew definition # H5483 & H6571—vehicles with rapid flight; part of a cavalry] that the kings of Judah had given to the sun [H8121 & H1053 - a prison facing the east with notched battlements (parapets at the top of a wall of a fort or castle, that has regularly spaced squared openings for shooting through)], at the entering in of the house of the LORD (this was in the suburbs, so it had to be at the entrance to a tunnel which led to the temple), by the chamber of Nathanmelech the chamberlain, which was IN THE SUBURBS, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
CONCLUSION - 2nd Kings 23:24-26:
Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the LORD.
And like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him.
Notwithstanding the LORD turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him-with.
New: Bersih 6 - Anytime the crowd can storm the streets
Street protests may resume with Bersih 6 in waiting if the government does not buckle up to press for reforms that were promised by the PKR in particular, the party of the PM Anwar Ibrahim. Bersih has warned that its sixth major demonstration is just a trigger point away and could take place within this term of government if Putrajaya does not buck up.
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Letter from Napoleon to his brother, Jérôme. A really interesting letter as I think it clearly displays his unique idealism:
My concern is for the well-being of your people [Westphalians], not only as it affects your standing and my own, but also because of the impact it has on the whole condition of Europe. Do not listen to anyone who says that your subjects, being so long accustomed to servitude, will fail to feel gratitude for the freedoms you bring to them. The common people of Westphalia are more enlightened than such individuals would have you believe, and your rule will never have a secure basis without the people’s complete trust and affection. What the people of Germany impatiently desire is that men without nobility but of genuine ability will have an equal claim upon your favor and advancement, and that every trace of serfdom and feudal privilege... be completely done away with. Let the blessings of the Code Napoleon, open procedures and use of juries be the centerpiece of your administration... I want all your peoples to enjoy liberty, equality, and prosperity alike and to such a degree as no German people has yet known.... Everywhere in Europe—in Germany, France, Italy, Spain—people are longing for equality and liberal government... So govern according to your new constitution. Even if reason and the enlightened ideas of our age did not suffice to justify this call, it still would be a smart policy for anyone in your position—for you will find that the genuine support of the people is a source of strength to you that none of the absolutist monarchs neighboring you will ever have.
Source: Napoleon to Jérôme, November 15, 1807, in Napoleon, Correspondance générale, ed. Thierry Lentz (Paris: Fayard, 2004), VII: 1321.
English translation: Alexander Mikaberidze, The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History
Industry reacts to gas power plans and electricity market reforms
UK Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho has set out plans to build new gas power stations to avoid what she described as the “genuine prospect of blackouts”.
In a speech today, Ms Coutinho made the case for investing in unabated gas power into the 2030s to maintain electricity supplies when renewables are unable to meet demand due to weather conditions.
“Without gas backing up renewables, we face the…
So I've had to have this conversation a lot with people, so i'm writing it out here. Reformism, in politics is a lot like palliative care. Is that morphine going to cure someone's broken leg, no it isn't, but that doesn't mean you should just leave them in agonising pain while you reset the leg. In the same way reformist measures to lets say improve working conditions, or provide housing for the poor, or provide universal healthcare, probably aren't going to solve the underlying structural causes of injustice under capitalism, and yes those underlying structural causes are important and need to be addressed. But they sure as hell will make a lot of people's lives better, will ease an incredible amount of human suffering, and to say that doesn't matter and isn't worth fighting for is just as fundamentally immoral as denying someone painkillers because it won't fix their injury.
Revitalizing India's Cities: Giving Them Their Due - A Call For Financial Reforms - IMPRI Impact And Policy Research Institute
Tikender Singh Panwar
India’s cities and towns are starting to crumble under the weight of the unjust recommendations by previous finance commissions. Will the XVI finance commission be sensitive towards city governments?
The XVI Finance Commission (FC) has been constituted and we are in the middle of the XV FC recommendations. The financial architecture woven around cities under the XV FC has…