Message to my fellow shamelessly partisan propagandists:
I would submit that the best feature of Monday?s item in the Raleigh News & Observer about Gov. Mike Easley?s political operative accusing the John Locke Foundation of partisan bias was the prominent picture of our namesake. In the online version, he?s positioned just above Sen. John Edwards and State Auditor Ralph Campbell, which seems about right since they are evil Democrats and he was a good and loyal Republican.
Seriously, what was particularly impressive about Rob Christensen?s brief treatment of Locke is that he was careful to use the term ?in Europe? rather than ?in England? to describe where Locke conducted his philosophical and political work. That?s correct. Locke spent several years in Holland under an assumed name after being accused, no doubt correctly, of plotting to depose the Stuart monarchy. He returned to England in the wake of William and Mary?s journey there from the Netherlands in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He probably worked on some of his most famous writings while on the continent.
