Quote of the Month

Writes Mr. S.T. Martin over at his weblog St. Joan and St. Thérèse:

The cries go out in America to “bring the government back to The People.” This is precisely the problem, bringing the government back to The People. It is The (Same) People who are electing and then supporting the regimes that become dictatorial. This is the inherent contradiction in the “bottom-up” rule by The People. The People demand that they (and “they” first have to fight the most wretched political wars to decide which group’s views in the pluralistic cesspool will dominate) set the rules (established by the victor in the aforementioned pluralistic civil war). But the elected officials must then enforce the rules from above. This creates a never-ending series of flashpoints of mal-content with The People. The People are ever protesting and complaining that the rulers, in the way they enforce the “bottom up” rules from the top down, have “stolen” or otherwise mismanaged the Will of The People. So, The People elect new rulers and the cycle starts all over again. Not a single election goes by without The People saying that “it is time for change.” Recently, then candidate Obama even brought a certain politically macabre efficiency to the whole process by simply saying, “Change.” No need to explain. The People understood. And, with profound Aristotelian logical efficiency, The People got their democratically elected totalitarian.

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Monarchy and Democracy this Month

We bring you some quotes from this month.

Over at the American Conservative, writes Mr. Daniel Larison:

The core of democratic peace theory as I understand it is that democratic governments are more accountable to their populations, and because the people will bear the costs of the war they are going to be less willing to support a war policy. This supposedly keeps democratic states from waging wars against one another because of the built-in electoral and institutional checks on government power. One small problem with this is that it is rubbish.

Writes Ad Orientem:

In general as long as one refrained from treason and sedition or overtly trying to undermine the established church, paid your taxes (which in most monarchies were a pittance by today's democratic standards), and refrained from those crimes against persons and property that are universally proscribed in any orderly society, you were very likely to be left alone. Point in fact, many people went through their entire lives with little or no contact with the government.

Historically governments in monarchies were almost always much smaller than those which exist in today's enlightened democratic world. The influence of the Imperial Russian Autocracy on the ordinary lives of its hundred million or more subjects was minimal. Most historians of pre-revolutionary Russia argue that the country was ridiculously under-governed.

Writes Mr. Theodore Harvey over at his weblog Royal World:

The much-maligned Kingdom of Egypt (1922-53) was a golden age for Egyptian Christians (descendants of the original Egyptians) who were safer then than they have ever been since.

Writes the Mad Monarchist:

It was recently announced that the monarchist party “National Hope” will be banned from participating in the upcoming elections next month. Parties advocating monarchy are not allowed in Greek elections. There are plenty of republicans in the monarchies of the world (unfortunately) and many even get elected to office, but in republics it seems a monarchist, unlike the devil, will not be heard.

Radical Royalist has more on the Greek issue.

Maria of Russia

Congratulations to HIH Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna on her 20^th anniversary this month as head of the House of Russia!




Elsewhere: Royal World

Hungary Once More

Following up on a February report, Mr. Alexander Shaw defends, over at Andrew Cusack's blog, what's going on in Hungary.

Democracy and Anarcho-Monarchism

Over at the American Interest, Prof. Vladislav Inozemtsev recently reflected on democracy. He asks:

Was the rise of democracy the main driving force behind the development of contemporary liberal Western societies, or were long gestating developments in Western societies that fixed concepts of liberties and individual rights instead the drivers of democracy?

Further he states:

Rule of law preceded universal suffrage everywhere in the West. Democratic action both in Europe and America became more profound and consequential when large groups of people realized its utility for promoting their own interests. Only after what sociologists call “mass society” developed did the demand for democracy (reflected, among other things, in voting activity) expand dramatically.

Over at First Things, Mr. David B. Hart pondered the concept of anarcho-monarchism some time ago, saying:

I found myself reflecting on what a devil’s bargain electoral democracy is.

A Churchill Review

AB Royalist gives Churchill a piece of his mind – in two parts.

Equality and Evil

This month over at Alternative Right, Alex Kurtagic reflected on equality.

"Fair Share"

Over at Taki's Magazine previously this month, Jim Goad deplored the concept of “fair share.”

The Apennine Peninsula Nowadays

Earlier this month over at Taki's Magazine, Nicholas Farell reflected on the situation in Italy.

Paul & Krugman

Jeremy R. Hammond has a look at the economic views of Ron Paul and Paul Krugman:

H/T: Lew Rockwell's Political Theatre

Napoleonic Theme Park

A Napoleon theme park is being planned south of Paris. So BBC reports.

Construction is apparently to start in 2014. The chosen site is a bit over an hour's drive south from the center of Paris.

Napoloen? Yes, he founded a dynasty, and had it survived, it probably would have been better for France than the several republics.

However, he was a self-crowned usurper and warmonger, who dragged Europe into war. Much can be said, but his overthrow of the failed republic certainly was no genuine restoration.

That being said, this blogger welcomes the plans for the theme park. It should also be the first plan, sparking a lot of ideas.

There should also be a Bourbon monarchy theme park. In Austria, there could be a Habsburg theme park. With all the Habsburg nostalgia there, there absolutely should be a basis for such a theme park. Portugal – with its monarchist activism – could put up a Braganza theme park. Similarly, Brazil should have its empire theme park. Russia should have its Romanov theme park.

And what about a Chinese empire theme park put up in Hong Kong? Perhaps a monarchy theme park in the United Kingdom? What about combining it with a British Empire theme park? One part of it could present the royalist side of the English Civil War? Another part could present the losing side of the Glorious Revolution? Also, what about a United Empire Loyalist theme park in Canada? Where part of it would present loyalist perspectives on the conflict south of the border from which they fled – partly countering Americanist myth?

Maybe there even could be a Central Power perspective theme park on the Great War?

And last but not least, what about a non-emasculated monarchy theme park in Liechtenstein?

Perhaps a general monarchy theme park could combine all these ideas in one?

We could take it beyond monarchy as well. What about a theme park in the American South on what President Lincoln destroyed and how the rest of the world far more peacefully ended slavery?

Of course, theme parks are no replacement for restorations and retentions. Also, of course, a theme park partly celebrating the Stuarts is by no means a suggestion that the reigning house in the Commonwealth Realms be replaced.

Schiff and Napolitano on the Treasury Secretary

Lord North

Fourteen score years ago today (April 13 in the Julian calendar, assuming no transformation has already been made), Lord North was born.

Celente, Schiff, and the Money Madness

Happy Birthday, Your Britannic Majesty!

TSA Strip Protest

A man took it all out this week:

I'd say this was a bit over the top. I'd keep my swimming trunks on – at least. Let's not forget the value of decency in the fight.

American Foreign Policy and the "Enlightenment"

Recently over at the American Conservative, Leon Hadar wrote:

Indeed, it is difficult for Americans to understand that the so-called Enlightenment Project of the 18th Century — with its rejection of the received truth of religion and faith, of church and traditional authorities and its emphasis on individual rights and the liberating power of reason — which sparked a major philosophical and political revolution in the West and provided the ideological foundations for the establishment of the United States — has never become a unified and universal undertaking.

Further:

In fact, the growing power of the theocratic political right in the Republican Party, represented by presidential candidate Rick Santorum and his supporters among Christian Evangelists, conservative Catholics, and ultra-Orthodox Jews — who have expressed strong opposition to abortion, homosexual relations and even contraception — is a sign that even in the American Republic that enshrined the separation of religion and state in its Constitution, religious faith and traditions continue to play a major role in public life.

H/T: The Pittsford Perennialist

Kony

Over at LewRockwell.com not too long ago, Messrs. Daniel McAdams and Allan Stevo deplored the prospect of American military intervention in Uganda.

This weblog is of course opposed to the Wilsonian World Order and thus to those United States running around the world as an “almighty” policeman, creating intended and unintended bad consequences.

I of course also know that things have not always been very peaceful in this corner of the world.

That being said, East Africa is a bit more personal. I have fond childhood memories of the east bank of Lake Victoria. I certainly would not appreciate the consequences on the west bank of an American military intervention in Uganda.

Democracy and Dinner

Over at LewRockwell.com, writes Mr. Frank Karsten:

The problems of democracy are inherent. It’s like having dinner with a million people and deciding up front the bill will be split evenly. Everyone has a strong incentive to order more than he would individually, resulting in a huge bill that everyone deplores but no individual could do anything about. Democracy therefore has a very limited self-cleansing capability. Our politicians have a natural short-term outlook since they are only temporarily in office. They will overspend, overtax and overborrow knowing their successors will have to deal with the negative consequences. Besides that, they spend other people’s money anyhow.

The Titanic Foundered

A century ago today, the RMS Titanic foundered.

She was the ship that “could not sink.” As such she represented the belief in man's ability to master the elements.

A hundred years later we still struggle with the over-confidence in progress in man's mastery of the world.

Or was she really the ship that “could not sink?” Over at BBC, Ms. Rosie Waites reviews a few myths (via LRC).

Caucuses, Democracy, and Fraud

Last month a local GOP caucus in Missouri was conducted in a way that was very apparently fraudulent. Fox News had the story.

Of course, stories such as these are not good for American democracy.

I would like to bring up a perspective for this kind of incidents that are not often brought up. These incidents are not only bad because they don't really let the people decide, they are also bad because they provide a scapegoat. With this kind of incidents, people can always point their fingers at them and say if we have “real democracy,” everything would be fine.

Rick Santelli Collected

Mr. Rick Santelli on the money madness:

Napolitano and Stewart on SCOTUS

Judge Napolitano recently ranted against the POTUS on the issue of judicial review (via the Daily Paul):

Jon Stewart also has a take on the High Court of America (via David Kramer of the LRC Blog):

The Daily Show

Fear the Greatest Threat to Marriage?

Over at the American Conservative about a month ago, Ms. Eve Tushnet, reflected on the fear of marriage dissolution as its biggest threat.

The "Last Ottoman" Princess

Her Imperial Highness The Princess Fatma Neslişah, Imperial Princess of the Ottoman Empire and Princess of Egypt passed away on April 1.

She was the last surviving member of the House of Ottoman born before the fall of the empire.

May she rest in peace.

Elsewhere: Royal World

Queen Mother Funeral

A decade ago today, the funeral of the Queen Mother, consort of King George VI, Queen Dowager for a bit more than half a century, took place.


Elsewhere: Radical Royalist, Royal World

Happy Easter!

Quote of the Month (March)

Said Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Maria of Russia:

For the Imperial House to abjure the idea of a monarchy is as senseless as the Church abjuring faith in God. For me to betray the centuries-old ideals of our Ancestors for the sake of some short-term political advantage would be debasing, hypocritical, and dishonorable. I am sure that this is understood not only by those who share my beliefs, but also by those who do not.

I affirm my belief that legitimate hereditary monarchy is the only form of government that is divinely ordained, and I am convinced that it is compatible with any age, including our own, and could be suitable for and useful to our multi-national country.

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Reflections on Monarchy and Democracy Last Month

Writes Mr. Theodore Harvey over at his blog Royal World:

Germans would do well to listen to Prince Philipp, if their politicians and their rigid republican constitution will ever let them.

[...]

The beauty and glamor of a royal restoration would be exactly what Germany needs to finally repudiate the disastrous 20th century. The destruction of the German and Austro-Hungarian monarchies in 1918 led to nothing but suffering.

In reflections on the traditionalism of the Prince of Wales over at the American Conservative, Mr. Rod Dreher writes:

Others, though, see in Charles a visionary of the cultural right, one whose worldview is far broader, historically and otherwise, than those of his contemporaries on either side of the political spectrum. In this reading, Charles’s thinking is not determined by post-Enlightenment categories but rather draws on older ways of seeing and understanding that conservatives ought to recover. “All in all, the criticisms of Prince Charles from self-styled ‘Tories’ show just how little they understand about the philosophy they claim to represent,” says the conservative philosopher Roger Scruton.

Also at the American Conservative, writes Mr. Daniel McCarthy:

The political side of this is worth thinking through as well: the Framers designed a Constitution that rested exclusively on popular rule; Kendall is helpfully clear about that. There was no hereditary element to the Constitution, no established religious element either. The people were the source of all power in government, regardless of whatever higher power might lie behind or speak through the people. But as Kendall showed, this was popular government modulated in such a way as to permit a natural aristocracy to have great sway — certainly Madison and Jefferson expected that enlightened lawyer-planters like themselves would be the people’s natural choice for their leaders. While being entirely popular in fact, in spirit the new Constitution would be a mixture of aristocracy and the popular principle.

In practice, what we have two centuries later is a combination of the degenerate forms of those types: we have something closer to a mass democracy than a federal republic, and the influence of a landed and well-read aristocracy has given way to what Aristotle would have recognized as a money-minded oligarchy. The putative “aristocrats” of old Virginia certainly knew how to use wealth as well as reputation to get their way; today, however, commercial wealth speaks more loudly than the Framers had expected, and 18th-century notions of character and reputation have fallen before modern concepts of charisma and celebrity.

Again at the American Conservative writes Prof. Paul Gottfried:

Allow me to set the record straight. The greatest outrage in Reppetto’s account came from the Wilson administration, which turned the US into perhaps the chief supplier of arms to the Allied side. Wilson’s decision in 1915 to allow American arms manufacturers to sell to both sides was a belligerent act directed against the Central Powers. Only one side was in a position to acquire American arms, because Germany at the time, as everyone knew, was being blockaded. The English blockade, which was aimed at starving the Germans, arguably in violation of international law, also kept arms from reaching Germany and its ally Austria-Hungary.

Over at Taki's Magazine, Mr. Charles A. Coulombe reflects on the situation in Hungary:

Why would the rulers of today’s world care about public Christianity, heterosexual marriage, and freedom from infanticide in one small European backwater? Because they always fear a return of the ancien régime, no matter how inconspicuous it may appear. And given the Hungarian government’s two-thirds majority, it apparently represents the views of their countrymen.

A review of Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined over at the weblog Foseti:

Pinker likes democracy. His understanding of its workings are remarkably consistent with those taught in my fourth grade social studies class. He is convinced that modern government is not as obsessed with conquest as governments of the past and that democracy is “one of the greatest violence-reduction technologies since the appearance of government itself”. I respectfully disagree with him on these points. America – the government of America – has been among the most successful conquerors of all time. Only a few of the countries in the world don’t essentially sing to the American tune these days. America’s wars of conquest – the Civil War, WWI and WWII – are readily apparent. It’s fine to conclude that “democracies” are less violent, but you should at least mention the fact that democracy’s enemies have a tendency to be brutally exterminated every time they pop up.

A conclusion from a GOP election judge over at the blog ImNotHerzog:

Now, on the one hand, this confirms every reactionary’s worst fears about mass democracy and low information voters. On the other hand, she did know that it was important not to vote for Obama, so maybe there is hope for November!

The Mad Monarchist writes:

We are coming up on election time in the most powerful, most successful republic in the world -the United States of America. Once again we are being told that THIS election is the most important election of our lifetime. Now, I don’t like to go so far as those who snidely quip that if elections actually mattered they’d be illegal but, honestly, the truth is not terribly far from that. Elections are, to a large extent, illusory. The United States government knows that, they knew from the beginning that democracy would have limits and could not and should not be applied in any and all cases. That is part of the reason why there is an Electoral College and it is why, originally, only landowners could vote and senators were appointed by the states rather than popularly elected.

The Mad Monarchist also writes:

When you look at history and see what happened, nothing could be more obvious than that the world should be embracing monarchy joyfully and gratefully. When the British monarchy fell they got a military dictatorship under Oliver Cromwell who made practically everything illegal. When the French monarchy fell they got the Reign of Terror, when the German and Austrian monarchies fell they ultimately got Hitler, when the Russian monarchy fell they ultimately got Stalin, when the Chinese monarchy fell they got the bloodiest civil war in history and then Chairman Mao, when the Iraqi monarchy fell they ended up with Saddam Hussein and the list goes on and on and on. On every continent, with very few exceptions, the story is always the same. Moreover, it is not as though people got rid of their monarchies and ended up with something that was a little worse, it was almost always *infinitely* worse. You would think, after even just one or two of those examples, the people as a whole would have caught on by now!

Somewhat related, Tea at Trianon has a post on Downtown Abbey.

POTUS vs. Kaiser

95 years ago today, the Persona Non Grata of this weblog signed the war declaration passed by the Congress of those United States for a formal state of war with Imperial Germany.

A Funeral in Madeira

90 years ago today, Emperor-King Charles of Austria-Hungary was brought to his resting place in Madeira – following his passing four days earlier (funeral date according to Thomas Wilhelm Schwarzer).

Elsewhere: Royal World, Radical Royalist, Once I Was A Clever Boy

H/T: Daniel McAdams (video)

Poll Results: What Do We Make of What's Going on in Hungary?

The results for the poll, asking what do we make of what's going on in Hungary, ending at midnight between March and April, are as follows:

Total votes: 68.

• A true positive, reactionary development: 42 (61%)
• A mixed bag: 8 (11%)
• Who cares?, the Wilsonians will put them in their place anyway: 8 (11%)
• The Germany of the 1930s is being repeated: 5 (7%)
• None of the [other alternatives]: 3 (4%)
• A mere personal power grab: 2 (2%)

A new poll will be up soon.

A Safe World?

Five years short of century ago today, the bête noire and the Persona Non Grata of this blog gave his speech to Congress, asking for a declaration of war.

Madeira Ninety Years Ago

90 years ago today, Blessed Charles of Austria-Hungary passed from this world on the island of Madeira.

This is the first anniversary without Archduke Otto amongst us. In fact, it is the first anniversary without amongst us Charles, Zita, or any of their immediate descendants. May they all continue to rest in peace.