Mrs. Mary-Eileen Russell, a.k.a. Elena Maria Vidal, at her blog Tea at Trianon:
When Marie-Antoinette's brother, Emperor Joseph II, was visiting Versailles, some pro-American French lady kept badgering him about the colonists' revolt. Finally, the Holy Roman Emperor curtly replied: "Madame, I am a royalist by profession."previous
Today would have been the 98th birthday of Erik Maria Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn.
You might like to read the Acton Institute Obituary, Andrew Rogers' page on EvKL, or Dr. Enrico Peppe's review of Leftism Revisited.
May this great knight of Austria continue to rest in peace.
A reader has just recently responded with a question on taxes before the democratic republican age.
Based on footnotes in Hoppe’s Democracy the God that Failed, Peter Flora’s State, Economy, and Society in Western Europe 1815-1975: A Data Handbook should be a good place to start.
These books may also be of interest:
To my most recent LRC article a reader, Steve G., responds:
Democracy has its origins in pagan Greece and Rome. How can the Christian expect to exist in harmony and thrive in a pagan form of gov't?Published with prior consent of my correspondent.
Americans have [been] socially engineered to idolize democracy. The corruption of the American gov't is the [natural] result of pagan democracy.
So the answer?
The probem with most monarchies is the leadership has assumed a type of (god) status. The title of these leaders assume God titles i.e. My Lord, His Excellency, Your eminence. These leaders are still men and not Gods and should not be compared to as such.
I believe in Monarchies but a Christian monarchy leader should assume the title of chief. Therefore his status is under the rank of God, and even a king, and recognized by all as such. Still he would be the ultimate authority but not being referred to in the excellent godlike title. A chief was always under a king and since Jesus was the king of kings, this chief will should assume the proper subservient title and subservient role to God laws, and commandments.
That my friend is the proper way to begin a monarchy.
Congratulations to Prince Hans-Adam II and his consort Princess Marie on their ruby wedding anniversary.
Warm wishes to a Prince who – in our Wilsonian day and age – lives up to Kaiser Franz Josef's response to POTUS Theodore Roosevelt*:
to protect my people from their governmentand his consort.
The upcoming August 18 is the 177th birthday of HLIRM Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary.
Celebrations take place in Bad Ischl on August 16 (I've heard there's a mass on August 18 there as well), Cormons and Giassico August 17 through 19, and – supposedly – Millstatt.
The Austria Imperial Festival's web site is not updated from last year's event. This is not a good sign. The festival is not connected directly to Franz Josef's birthday. It takes place in the "monarchist nest" of Innsbruck. I had the pleasure of going to the festival in August of 2004, after which I wrote this. The year after I attended they cut the ball and they split the rest in two, having only the concert in August, and the rest in October, more specifically in connection with Emperor Karl's Feast Day. Sadly, this makes it less interesting for people travelling from afar.
Over at the Guardian, there's a relatively sensible piece on monarchy.
Prof. John Gray writes:
It has become part of the liberal creed that monarchy and empire are anachronisms. The first embodies the hereditary principle, which no modern thinker can accept as a legitimate basis of government, while the second represents something still worse - the subjugation of peoples who should govern themselves. In future, the world will be organised into self-determining republics where all citizens enjoy equal rights. When empires are no more and kings and queens have been retired from service there will be enduring peace, and freedom will for the first time be universal.
This fable has a certain innocent charm. It turns the ironies of history into a simple morality play, and in a time that demands emotional uplift before anything else it has a powerful appeal. Yet this liberal narrative involves a massive simplification of events, and the ideal of self-determination it articulates has proved dangerous in practice.
On this day in 1914, Wilhelm II and Nicholas II exchanged telegrams.
Thanks to a response to my most recent LRC article, I was made aware of a proposal regarding voting rights in Australia, which is more related to my recent posts on voting age and universal suffrage than the article. Not that that makes it uninteresting or without value. By no means!
The Australian proposal of introducing voting rights for all persons born, parents exercising them until their kids reach the majority age, resembles a proposal put forward by HIRH Archduke Otto in The Social Order of Tomorrow. The Archduke recommended giving the voting rights to the family provider. This sounds like something giving the family provider a stronger position vis-à-vis his rival the Provider State – a.k.a. the Welfare State.
Also, giving more voting rights to people with children will tend to give more voting rights to people who are more future-oriented.
However, with all due respect, I am skeptical.
The practical problem of deciding how two parents can decide their kids’ votes – or in the case of the Archduke’s proposal, in cases of doubt deciding who is the family provider – I consider minor compared to problems with the concept itself.
Firstly, the history of the expansion of the franchise has not exactly proven to be a history of increased protection of the individual vis-à-vis the government.
Secondly, in our present situation there is a considerable risk that more votes to families with minor kids will lead to a demand for more tax funding of parental leaves, schools, etc. I.e., there is a risk that it is the Provider State that will be strengthened, not the traditional provider.
Thirdly, when a political innovation is embraced by leftists, there is reason to watch out. I’m not saying that what leftists believe in necessarily is bad, but I’m saying that one needs to be careful.
Fourthly, assigning a vote to every citizen no matter the age, leaving it to a parent or guardian in cases of legal minority, strengthens political egalitarianism and the thought that one’s value as a human is dependent on the right to vote. Political egalitarianism needs weakening, not strengthening, and we need to rid ourselves of the concept that human value is somehow derived from the right to vote. One should also note that telling the government that “we need votes, otherwise we do not matter” also is telling the government how important it is.
I have an article on the future of the British monarchy at LewRockwell.com today.
Link to the Daily Express article is thanks to The Monarchist.
With the ongoing public debate about expanding the franchise to even younger people, it is time for a few quotes from Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn.
From Liberty or Equality:
[T]he democratic principle of "one man, one vote," viewed against a background of voting masses numbering several millions, only serves to demonstrate the pitiful helplessness of the inarticulate individual, who functions at the polls as the smallest indivisible arithmetical (and not always algebraic) unit. He acts in total anonymity, secrecy and legal irresponsibility.Also from Liberty or Equality:
While it is perhaps true that "one cannot fool all the people all the time," it seems that one can fool millions for centuries.From Leftism Revisited:
Sometime in the coming century, people will rack their brains pondering how nations with tremendous scientific and intellectual achievements could have given uninstructed and untrained men and women the right to vote equally uninstructed and untrained people into responsible positions.
In this oil kingdom, there is a certain push for expanding the suffrage even further. The push is for 16-years-olds to be included in the electorate. This might even lead to some 15-year-olds getting the right to vote, as today's limit of 18 years of age actually applies to the age one has at the end of the year. An election expert has even suggested a lower limit of 12 years of age.
Over at the Guardian, Jonathan Pyke argues for lowering the UK voting age to 16.
"Deogolwulf" responds excellently.
I would add a few points.
The voting age should be raised rather than lowered. Limiting the franchise further through other qualifications wouldn't be a bad idea either.
What is it with this suffrage expansion ideology? Do people seriously believe that the right to vote is the check on power? Trumphing all others in effectiveness? And that the disenfranchised are denied this very valuable protection? Hence, political equality must rule to the widest extent possible?
Please do wake up and smell the Malabar!
With the expansion of the franchise – and of democracy in general, for that matter – we have had expansion of the reach and the size of the state. The price for universal suffrage seems to have been very high indeed, for it is not far from obvious that the price is liberty itself!
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