Monday, March 31, 2014

Quote of the Month

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

I dislike Vladimir Putin because he is not a monarchist, not because he is not a democrat. We need to get rid of the ridiculous neoconservative notion that every country on earth should necessarily be a democracy; autocracy seems to be what's natural for Russia.

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Randoms of March

The Mad Monarchist reflects on World War One – and on France.

Bryce Laliberte says:

Most people aren't given the ability to think for themselves because society doesn't need most people to think for themselves.
Over at The American Conservative, C. Boyden Gray, former U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, visits the thinking of Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, and others.

Over at Conflict & Security, Peter Banham examines the Sultanate of Oman.

Over at Royal World, Theodore Harvey says:
Egalitarianism ruins everything. A real reform would be to restore all the hereditary peers and expel the fake "life" ones.

Haydn 281

281 years ago today*, Franz Joseph Haydn was born.







* There apparently seems to be some uncertainty as to what the exact date was.

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Wool Anniversary

Today is the septennial anniversary of this weblog. Seven years ago today, this blog was launched.

Since this blog was launched on the day of the promulgation of the constitutional amendment making parliamentarism a part of the written Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway, whose bicentennial anniversary is this year.

Yours truly is, BTW, working on a forthcoming book, to be published this year, in connection with the bicentennary, as project manager, editor, and contributor. The book is to be released later this year, and the central question we pose is whether the Constitution really gives us freedom. It will be published in Norwegian.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Burke & Paine

Over at The American Conservative, Jesse Norman reviews Yuval Levin's The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Left and Right.

Jon Stewart Takes on Judge Napolitano

Judge Andrew Napolitano on The Daily Show:




BTW, yours truly does not support the above idolizing of the American Revolution.

Professor Thomas DiLorenzo is interviewed in the aftermath of Napolitano's appearance on the show (H/T: The LRC Blog):


Friday, March 28, 2014

Godfrey Bloom on the Money

MEP Godrey Bloom speaks out on the money madness:






H/T: The Daily Paul

Thursday, March 27, 2014

The Center Attracts

This video explains the Nash equilibrium (it may also explain political parties tendency to move to the center, and also give priority to center – or not-so-loyal – voters):




H/T: The Daily Paul

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Byles & Lecky

This date marks the birthday of two notable gentlemen, albeit with births more than a century apart and in two different calendars, to be especially noted in this 225th anniversary year of the first inauguration of George Washington as chief executive.

On this date in 1706, 308 years ago, Mather Byles was born.

Two dozen years short of two centuries ago today, William Edward Hartpole Lecky was born.

Mather Byles supported the Loyalist cause during the American War for Independence. He spoke out with these words:

Which is better - to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away or by three thousand tyrants one mile away?
W.E.H. Lecky was an Irish statesman, historian, and political theorist. He wrote of the American rebellion:
The disruption of America from the British Empire was largely due to the encroachments of Parliament on the ancient prerogative of the Crown; and no small part of the success of English colonial government is due to the class of men who have been appointed governors.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

AJP Taylor at 108

In this centenary year of the outbreak of World War One, 108 years ago today, A.J.P. Taylor was born.

Amongst what the notable historian wrote was:

Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country for ever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he bought goods at home. For that matter, a foreigner could spend his life in this country without permit and without informing the police.

Monday, March 24, 2014

Departed the Homeland

Feldkirch Bahnhof 1899Half a decade short of a century ago today, the Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Family arrived at the Austro-Swiss border in an Imperial train and departed Austria – under the protection of the icon of this weblog, Lt.-Col. Edward Lisle Strutt.

At Feldkirch, the Emperor-King issued the Feldkirch Manifesto, declaring the November 11 power renunciation – so often referred to as an abdication, but erroneously so – null and void, and denouncing the authority of the republican government.

Fünfundneunzig Jahre Interregnum sind genug!

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Departed Eckartsau

Kaiserliches Jagdchloß Eckartsau (photo by J.K. Baltzersen, September 18, 2011)Five years short of a century ago today, the Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Family departed the hunting lodge at Eckartsau, where the Emperor-King and his family had been in internal exile since the end of the war, under various protection, the last three and a half weeks led by this weblog's icon, Lt.-Col. Edward Lisle Strutt.

The family left for external exile in the Helvetic Confederation in an Imperial train, also under the protection of Lt.-Col. Strutt, after the latter's clever defeat of Karl Renner's abdication demand.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Ibsen at 186

In this Norwegian constitutional bicentennial year, 186 years ago today, Henrik Johan Ibsen was born. Incidentally, it is also World Storytelling Day.

Please feel free to visit or revisit my centennial article on Ibsen.



Over at The American Conservative, Noah Millman has some reflections on A Doll's House.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

High Church

Over at The American Conservative, Gracy Olmstead reflects on the future of High Church Christianity.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Daniel McAdams on Ukraine

Daniel McAdams interviewed on RT:


Saturday, March 15, 2014

Friday, March 14, 2014

Empress-Queen Zita

A quarter of a century ago today, Her Imperial and Royal Majesty Empress-Queen Zita passed from this world in her 97th year. She had lived roughly half a month short of 67 years as Empress-Queen Dowager.




Thursday, March 13, 2014

Woods, Gutzman, and SCOTUS

Dr. Tom Woods interviews Professor Kevin Gutzman:



Note in particular the mention of how the suffrage is to be the only protection against government.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Sir James Fitzjames Stephen

Sir James Fitzjames StephenA dozen decades ago today, Sir James Fitzjames Stephen passed on.

Wrote Chilton Williamson, Jr.:

Even so, [Stephen] -- believing as he did, with Tocqueville, that mass democracy was the inevitable future, whether it worked or not -- maintains that he has nothing to recommend as a substitute for universal suffrage. The old ways, many of them as bad in their own time as new ones are in ours, were being swept away "like haycoocks in a flood." "The waters are out and no human force can turn them back." Only, "I do not see see why as we go with the stream we need sing Hallelujah to the river god."

Monday, March 10, 2014

Daniel McAdams and Others on the NSA

Karen Hudes and Daniel McAdams on RT's CrossTalk with Peter Lavelle discussing the NSA:


Saturday, March 8, 2014

Russian "Liberty"

97 years ago today, the February Revolution broke out in the Russian Imperial capital.




International Redstockings Day

In the passing year we have seen much madness. For instance, the quest to send women to the front marches on.

Enjoy these videos:





Please check out Tea at Trianon and The Thinking Housewife on this day. These blogs are goods places to start if you need an antidote to the feminist fantasy of history.


Previously: Redstockings Day

Friday, March 7, 2014

St. Thomas Aquinas

840 years ago today, St. Thomas Aquinas passed away.





On Kingship

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Frederik Stang 206

Hans Christian Olsen: Frederik StangTwo centuries and half a dozen years ago today, Frederik Stang was born.

In this Norwegian bicentennial year, it is worth noting that the system of government that basically ended in the constitutional struggle in the 1880s bore his name.

Monday, March 3, 2014

Quote of the Month (February)

Writes Mr. William S. Lind over at The American Conservative:

An unfortunate legacy of the Cold War is the negative attitude some American conservatives yet harbor toward Russia. Conditioned for decades to see Russia and the Soviet Union as synonymous, they still view post-communist Russia as a threat. They forget that Tsarist Russia was the most conservative great power, a bastion of Christian monarchy loathed by revolutionaries, Jacobins, and democrats. Joseph de Maistre was not alone among 19th-century conservatives in finding refuge and hope in Russia.
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Randoms of February

Over at The American Conservative, Wilfred M. McClay reviews William Murchison's The Cost of Liberty: The Life of John Dickinson. Dr. McClay in particular notes:

As the historian Forrest McDonald has speculated, Dickinson, who was admired even more than Jefferson for the eloquence of his pen and was an older and more seasoned man, might well have been the one invited to draft the Declaration—if only he had signaled a willingness to “swallow his scruples and voted for independence.” Had that happened, McDonald continued, the Declaration “would have been based upon English constitutional history rather than, as was Jefferson’s, upon natural-rights theory—with vastly different implications.”
Also at The American Conservative, Paul Robinson reflects on how Russia could have stayed out of the Great War. Writes Dr. Robinson:
Durnovo disliked the Franco-Russian alliance. Republican France and Tsarist Russia had nothing in common. The conservative German Empire, by contrast, was a much more natural ally.
Over at RadixJournal.com, Dr. Sean Gabb makes a case for the English landed aristocracy.

Over at More Right, Samo Burja gives some arguments for monarchy.

At same weblog, Michael Anissimov debunks modernity.

Over at The Mad Monarchist, Alberta Royalist gives a review of BBC's Cousins at War.

Says Mr. Theodore Harvey over at his blog Royal World:
The world is a mess. Everyone deplores it. But not enough people yet draw the obvious conclusion: Modern Political "Progress" Is Not Working!
Utters Outis Nusquam:
Modernity did not replace tradition with reason, it replaced tradition with opinion polls.
MEP Daniel Hannan reflects on where Nazism belongs on the political spectrum.

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Yngvar Nielsen Passing

Professor Yngvar NielsenIn this Norwegian constitutional bicentennial year, two years short of a century ago today, Professor Yngvar Nielsen passed on.

Yngvar Nielsen was an advisor to and friend of King Oscar II. He was a tutor to the King's sons. Professor Nielsen was a historian, and politically, he belonged to the losing side of the constitutional “evolution” of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Passing of Bertrand de Jouvenel

Bertrand de JouvenelIn this Norwegian constitutional bicentennial year, 27 years ago today, Bertrand de Jouvenel passed away.