RIP Margaret Thatcher

The Iron Lady is dead at 87:

Baroness Thatcher, Britain’s first woman prime minster, has died after suffering a stroke at the age of 87. Her children Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother Baroness had died peacefully following a stroke this morning.

I had the privilege of meeting her once. In my youth, I considered her a great and courageous leader of a nation in decline. I now consider her to be one of history’s tragic figures, who through naïvety and an inclination to take words at face value, betrayed the country she loved and sold its sovereignty for nothing more than empty economic promises. In light of how the European Common Market has finally revealed itself to be the fascistic, anti-democratic union the skeptics always believed it would become, one will read few sadder words in an autobiography of a world leader than these:

“We had to learn the hard way that by agreement to what were
apparently empty generalizations or vague aspirations we were later held
to have committed ourselves to political structures which were contrary
to our interests.”

– Lady Margaret Thatcher, “The Downing Street Years”

Dr. Sean Gabb, a UK libertarian, has more on Thatcher’s legacy, which is considerably different than you will likely glean from the conservative paeans you will be seeing in the Republican media today.