Peter Hitchens on Monarchy, Religion, and Culture

Economic Wisdom in Video Games

H/T: The Daily Paul

Bill of Rights Passes Congress

225 years ago today, the United States Congress proposed the Bill of Rights.

SCOTUS at 225

225 years ago today, the SCOTUS saw the light of day.

Christopher Bruun at 175

175 years ago today, Christopher Bruun was born.

He had a pamphlet against the union dissolution in 1905 published abroad that same year. In the pamphlet he spoke up against the concept that the majority is in the right:

George III Coronation

253 years ago today, George III of the United Kingdom was crowned.

Tea at Trianon provides a quote.

More Police State

Scotland to the Polls

Today Scotland goes to the polls over the issue of independence from the United Kingdom. Even 16-year-olds are admitted to the polls. What a wonderful brave new world. Royal World says the next item on the agenda is the abolition of the monarchy. That is likely to be correct.

Popper Passing

A score years ago today, Karl Popper passed away in the metropolis on the Thames.

Siege at Savannah

235 years ago today, as a precursor to the Siege of Savannah, General Jean Baptiste Charles Henri Hector, Comte d'Estaing captured some British ships.

Falsen at 232

232 years ago today, Christian Magnus Falsen was born. Falsen was one of the leading men at Eidsvold. He was a proponent of aristocratic and monarchical power. However, at the Constitutional Convention at Eidsvold in 1814 he was soft on popular sovereignty. He did recover from such thoughts after a few years.

Severin Løvenskiold

Two years short of eight score years ago today, Severin Løvenskiold passed away.

Løvenskiold was governor of Norway until his demise in 1856. He was a delegate at the Constitutional Convention at Eidsvold in 1814, said to be the most reactionary representative, even supposedly rejecting the principle of popular sovereignty.

Mencken at 134

134 years ago today, H.L. Mencken was born.

In November, the H.L. Mencken Club hosts its 2014 conference – October 31 through November 2.

Mencken is indeed needed in this day and age. His Notes on Democracy is full of witty wisdom.

Pauls and Farage on ISIS

H/T: The Daily Paul

Ambassador Dumba

One hundred years ago today, the United States Secretary of State Robert Lansing demanded Austro-Hungarian Ambassador Konstantin Dumba recalled.

Robert A. Nisbet

Two years short of a score years ago today, Robert Alexander Nisbet passed on.

A Selection from August

Over at LewRockwell.com, writes “Bionic Mosquito”:

Barzun identifies the Great War, and at it roots the transition from classical liberalism to a socialist society, as the beginning of the end for Western civilization. It seems to me that we are now living through the final convulsions, as witnessed by the remaining centralizing structures acting and reacting almost reflexively to maintain and extend control in the face of the inevitable progression toward decentralization.

Also at LewRockwell.com, writes Ryan McMaken:

Europe during the bourgeois century was certainly no utopia. The new cities were filled with disease, pollution, and crime. Medical science had yet to achieve what it would in the twentieth century, and of course, standards of living remained low when compared to today. But even if we consider these problems, which plague many societies even today, the enormous gains made for ordinary people, thanks to industrialization and the rise of free trade, were fostered all the more by the rise of classical liberalism which actively sought to avoid war, political repression, and economic intervention as the means to a more prosperous society.

Too at LewRockwell.com, writes Eric Margolis:

As a former soldier and military historian, I’ve always felt that WWI was the most tragic conflict in modern history: a totally avoidable madness that wrecked Europe’s glittering civilization and led directly to World War II, Hitler and Stalin.

Tea at Trianon provides a quote regarding August of 1914.

Over at his weblog Royal World, Theodore Harvey gives some thoughts on democracy. More August musings from Royal World.

Says Peter Hitchens in a Mail on Sunday column:

The best thing would be to get the old hereditaries back, but our media and political classes are too stupid and malevolent to allow that.

At his blog, Mr. Hitchens also says:

The Wiki Man continues to dispute clear facts about the British declaration of war on Germany in 1914, available to any interested party, claiming that they are matters of opinion.He even suggests that (despite it being well known to everyone interested that it wasn't so) that the Commons did vote on our entry into war. They did not. I understand that this *seems* incredible to anyone used to the modern age, and to anyone who thinks that our entry to war was an open and honest process. But it is by grasping that these unbelievable things actually happened (or did not happen) that we understand that the entry into war was not open or honest. There was no obligation to Belgium. Parliament had no opportunity to vote on the war until after it had irrevocably begun.

Independence of Brazil

Four squared dozen years ago today, the future Emperor Dom Pedro I proclaimed the independence of Brazil.

Quote of the Month (August)

Writes Dr. Paul E. Gottfried over at The Unz Review:

If one could go back in time and tell these delegates they were founding a global democracy based on human rights, and that they were putting the US on a course toward converting the entire planet to something called “liberal democracy,” they would have viewed the speaker as mad.

previous

Convening of the Continental Congress

A dozen score years ago today, the first Continental Congress convened.

Roth 120

Six score years ago today, Joseph Roth was born.

Tolkien Passed

41 years ago today, J.R.R. Tolkien passed from this world.

The King's Man

125 years ago today, Christian August Selmer, Norwegian Prime Minister of King Oscar II, who fought with His Majesty against the usurping Parliament during the “constitutional crisis” of the 1880s, passed away.