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2009 | Folk

“A prince can mak a belted knight, a marquis, duke, an' a' that, but an honest man's aboon his might, guid faith, he mauna fa' that."

Trivia

• Lionel toured the world with his band ‘Blackeyed Biddy’.
• Moffat, UK's own Lionel McClelland was a musician, composer, singer, songwriter, poet, storyteller and reciter of poetry in the Scots language.
• Lionel was very active in teaching traditional music in schools, some of his poetry and song, now being part of the school curriculum.

THE HOT TAKES

Luke Tatum

This song warms my heart. Don't take the powerful too seriously! Better to be a genuine man or woman, to build relationships worth a damn. The alternative is the political means, otherwise known as theft, or plunder. The ruling class ain't all it's cracked up to be. If you crave power, you lose in humanity.

Sherry Voluntary

Ok, so this song takes a bit of translation, but it is basically a song saying that being honest and poor is better than being respectable and dignified and a part of the dishonest, theiving political class.

"The pith of sense and pride of worth / Are higher rank than all that." from a Standard English translation.

Having a core of good character and intellect, are of greater value than being a ruler of some sort. I do agree.

Nicky P

For me I look at this song as saying the first order of business is to be the best person you can be. All the nonsense layers of collectivization piled on top of it are useless if you crumble as a person. I see this as a better put example of what Ayn Rand was really trying to get across in her writing. For libertarians it's not our place or responsibility to make decisions for the rest of the world. We only have jurisdiction over ourselves. Some might say we have an obligation to do right by ourselves but I'm not sure that matters really. What we can say is that communities built around strong human capital will always fair better than those that undermine those who would seek greatness. I'm not saying you need to care but empirically it sure looks true even by the standards of those who wold pretend otherwise. The individual is more important than the bondage of selling yourself into slavery of power.