Re: Nobility.... or not....

Brian Bilderback wrote:
> 
> Thomas Barclay wrote:
> 
[snip]
> >- Recognizing "Honour Nobles" (Peerages
> >granted for service) for what they are - simply
> >some people given a minor reward (a modifier
> >to their name, a bit of land maybe)
> 
> And from where is this land acquired?  Try taking someone's property
to give
> it to Lord Fauntleroy of Denver, and see how fast the buckshot flies. 
Try
> annexing it from a national forest, and you have a whole different set
of
> protesters.

People seem to have some very weird ideas regarding British
nobility, whether in its current form, historical forms and likely
future forms. Land isn't attached to an hereditary title, although
sometimes there is an enduring coincidence of ownership between
the title and the land. (Are people against inherited wealth?)
People are not dispossessed of land during the new creation of a
title (except perhaps other nobles convicted of treason).

Things are, historically, reversed. Once you had legally acquired
enough land around <somewhere> by purchase or inheritance to have
been, de facto, the lord of <somewhere> and clearly an important
person in the administration of the county *then* you would
summoned to parliament as Baron Somewhere, but you were *already*
a somebody.

Boss Hogg or Baron Hogg, what's the difference? Is anyone claiming
that the wealthiest ten percent of Americans owns a significantly
smaller percentage of America's wealth then the wealthiest ten
percent of Britons own of Britain's? I doubt that would be true.

[snip]

-- 
David Brewer

"It is foolishness and endless trouble to cast a stone at every
dog that barks at you." - George Silver, gentleman, c.1600