Just Stop Oil Tries to Destroy Magna Carta

Older than Joe Biden and perhaps more brain-dead, too.

Two Just Stop Oil idiots took a hammer and chisel (it should have been a Hammer and Sickle!) to the protective glass case in which the Magna Carta was displayed. The attack took place at the British Library.

 

There are only four surviving copies of the Magna Carta. Four.

For those of you who don’t remember your civics lesson, the Magna Carta is the agreement between the nobles and the king of England that limited the king’s power and helped set Britain on the path to a parliamentary democracy. It was a small but crucial step in the evolution of our system of government.

Ironically enough, our word for such people is “vandals,” named after the group that helped bring down the Roman Empire, plunging Europe into the Dark Ages–which is exactly what these despicable people are trying to do again.

The glass case protecting the document appears damaged but not pierced. It likely has a nitrogen atmosphere within to protect it from decay.

The Just Stop Oil tactic of attacking priceless works of art and other artifacts is an attempt to duplicate the Taliban campaign to erase non-Muslim culture in Afghanistan. It is a tactic of cultural terrorists and, in my view, should be treated in exactly the same manner.

Just Stop Oil protesters have targeted the Magna Carta in their latest environmental stunt.

Two protesters, aged 85 and 82, cracked the glass case surrounding the royal charter at the British Library in central London on Friday morning.

The library holds two of the four surviving copies of the Magna Carta, with the others at Lincoln Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral.

Rev Dr Sue Parfitt, an 82-year-old Anglican priest from Bristol, and Judy Bruce, an 85-year-old retired biology teacher from Swansea, entered the British Library at 10.40am.

After they cracked the glass, Rev Parfitt and Mrs Bruce glued their hands together, demanding an emergency plan to stop oil by 2030.

A Just Stop Oil spokesman said: “Clause 39 of the Magna Carta is one of four clauses still enshrined in UK common law, a so-called ‘golden passage’ that states: ‘No free man is to be arrested, or imprisoned, or in any other way ruined, except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land.’

“Contrast that with civil law as it stands in 2024, where corporations are buying private laws in the form of injunctions that circumvent the people’s rights to a trial by jury for speaking out against the crimes of oil companies.”

I do not subscribe to the theory that such actions are better than attacks on people and more morally justified. Destroying a car or any mass-manufactured item does not subtract from humanity’s cultural inheritance. Destroying unique works of art or precious cultural artifacts directly attacks humanity itself.

While these women failed in their goal, I would treat them as I would treat any person who attempted a terrorist act. And, to be clear, if they were likely to be successful, I would support using deadly force to stop them.

Yes, I would kill somebody to protect a culturally significant artifact without hesitation. These artifacts belong to humanity itself, now and into the future. It doesn’t matter what country, culture, or religion the works belong to. Destroying anything of great cultural significance is an act of barbarity.

Just Stop Oil, by using these tactics, has declared war on humanity, quite literally. It is not our corporeal forms that define us as human beings, but rather being part of the great tapestry of human cultures. This is why we marvel at cave paintings from Neolithic times, literature and artifacts from ancient Egypt, Greek urns, and great works in museums.

We have an obligation to our descendants to defend their cultural inheritance.

We treat these terrorists far too leniently, as if they were spraying graffiti on a gas station wall or writing bawdy sayings in a bathroom. Handing out a fine and chastising them is atrocious.

Treat them like terrorists. That is what they are. And if they ever get close to actually destroying something of cultural significance, shoot them. Not because they are wrong on the issue–they have every right to be and spread their vile propaganda–but because they use terrorist tactics.