Did you know that the British hereditary aristocracy is still around?
I had thought it had mostly died out, since the British government has handed out so few important hereditary titles during the last 75 years (and so few of any kind during the last 40).
But, no, the hereditary aristocracy still exists, though considerably less powerful and wealthy than it once was (this book details why). If you are interested in which peerages are still active:
Dukes
Marquesses
Earls
Viscounts
Barons
From The Tom Peters Seminar (1994), pgs. 109-110:
I've long been offended by the whining middle managers and professional staffers who tell me how tough they've got it. They're bound to their desks by dictatorial bosses who might demand their presence at any moment, they say. "Rubbish," is the way Reagan Pentagon staffer Richard Perle feels about such complaints.
"The question arises as to what authority you have. The answer," Perle said, "is you have to assume you have absolute authority until somebody tells you otherwise, until somebody stops you. Because if you try to derive your authority, your freedom of action, from any other source than yourself, you are not going to have any fun, and you are not going to get much done."
Perle claimed that he always "operated on the theory that it was within my authority to make decisions and do things and carry them out, right up until the moment that somebody was able to prove otherwise. And it's amazing how much you can get away with, how many people will acquiesce in that, if you seem determined and you seem to know what you are doing."
"[Y]ou have to assume you have absolute authority until somebody tells you otherwise, until somebody stops you."
"[I]t's amazing how much you can get away with, how many people will acquiesce in that, if you seem determined and you seem to know what you are doing."
If you wanted to sum up the Bush administration in a nutshell, you could do a lot worse than using those two sentences.
1. Marathon
2. Salamis
3. Euro 2004
(Not necessarily ranked in order.)
Love is not something you feel. Love is something you do. If you do not act upon a love you profess, then how real is that love?
If love of country—patriotism—is like any other love, then who are the patriots? If you measure love not by professions—by words, flags, bumper stickers, lapel pins—but by actions, then who demonstrates love for our patria?