Lloyd George – Friend of Liberty?

Today is the 90^th anniversary of Lloyd George's address to the American Club in London following the entry into the Great War of those United States.

Lloyd George praised the tradition of "never having engaged in war except for liberty." He called it a war for liberty, democracy, and the end of war. He uttered some baloney – resembling the Whig Theory of History – about rise out of autocracy for America, France, and now Russia.

The British Prime Minister did have some truth:

I don't mind saying that I rejoice even more in the knowledge that America is going to win the right to be at the conference table when the terms of peace are being discussed. That conference will settle the destiny of nations – the course of human life – for God knows how many ages.

A single conference didn't settle it, although the Versailles Conference was important, but Woodrow Wilson got to have his say about the post-war order, oh yes. Stalin, Hitler, and modern democracy, with its soft totalitarianism, oh yes. Something to rejoice about, oh yes!

Who is this Lloyd George to lecture about liberty? He and his comrades had emasculated the House of Lords, so it wouldn't be in the way of their agenda of expanding government. Who is this Lloyd George to lecture about Prussian militarism? Germany had tried to engage in world trade peacefully, but had been bullied by the Royal Navy. Who is this Lloyd George to promise liberty?

Where is my liberty? Has anybody else seen it the last 9 decades? Is it because I've only been around about a third of that time I haven't seen it? Is it because I haven't lived in a country party to the Great War I haven't seen it? No that can't be it, for I have. Or is it because I haven't seen the light of democracy I haven't seen it?

Where is that time machine?!?

Fort Sumter Anniversary

7 score and 6 years ago today forces of the Confederate States of America fired upon Fort Sumter of the United States of America, from which the state of South Carolina, where the fort was placed, had seceded.

The War to Prevent Southern Independence had begun.

The Old World's views of that war are quite interesting. Some sources are:

• Europe and the American Civil War
• Thomas J. Dilorenzo: European Views of the War To Prevent Southern Independence
• The Acton-Lee Correspondence
• Jordan et al.: Europe and the American Civil War (differs from the source above, out of print)

The South was aristocratic. The pre-1861 order in those United States was a decentralized order. There was much European sympathy with the South.

Among all the "Civil War Reenactment" groups that exists there is actually one reenacting the European perspective, namely the Société d'Europe.

One could wonder whether the North's eventual use of the "slavery card" simply was a move to prevent European intervention. If so, it seems to have worked quite well. The Old World stayed out of the conflict. It stayed out at its own peril.

The New World did not stay out when there was a conflict in the new half a century later. Ironically, it was a Virginian, Woodrow Wilson, who was to be at the helm.

Intervention in the economy. Intervention by war at home. Intervention by war abroad.

Having created the intervention level of the Progressive Era, isn't it the most natural thing in the world to go tell other peoples how to be free?

Cheaply to the Old World

Travellers should rejoice this week over the latest low fare airline news.

American residents with an interest in visiting the Old World – or what's left of it – will now probably in a year or a few years' time be able to do transatlantic flights as cheaply as at about USD 12.

Thus, the Habsburg Castle, the Hohenzollern Castle, the Austria Imperial Concert, etc. are within low cost reach. So is participation in the annual celebration of the birth of the Emperor Franz Josef in Giassico, Bad Ischl, and Millstatt.

Moreover, family, friends, and acquaintances will more easily be able to get together.

The Airline Hub also reports on O'Leary's recent PR move.

Now, I don't think it will be easy to get a USD 12 ticket. I once flew between Sandefjord and Stansted for GBP 4 plus taxes. Up to 15 kilos of checked baggage was included, and at that time there were no special regulations specifically limiting the food you could bring through security checks.

Expect low fare flights across the Atlantic in a few years. Expect the tickets to be considerably cheaper than they are today. Expect competition to bring prices down. Don't expect much to be included in your low fare ticket. Don't expect it to be cheap if you need a ticket on short notice at a particular time. Don't expect it to be cheap if you miss your flight.

Over all, prices will go down.

Cameron and Gore

The Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition now seems to have bought a metaphor of Gore's, namely "your house will be burning down." He also believes in the "consensus."

Please note that global warming is just one of the issues Cameron comments.



Not even the IPCC believes the alarmism of Al Gore, but obviously "conservative" politicians do.

Al Gore tried to take credit for the Internet. He has claimed credit for initiative in creating the Internet while in Congress. Now, that's pretty impudent, considering that the Internet actually has a history from before Gore entered the U.S. Congress, notwithstanding claims that Gore has been misquoted. How can Gore be trusted?

Gore has been caught in a not so low energy personal life style. See articles on his mansion (thanks to Mike Tennant) and jet travelling.

I commented before Easter on a recent visit of Gore's in the Oil Kingdom of Norway. He had a car brought by truck from afar, just so he could drive around town in an environmentally fiendly way.

Again, how is this man to be trusted?

It is frightening to think of how far this may lead us into government control. George III and Louis XVI would probably have gazed at how far we thus far have come. How much would they be gazing up ahead?

Procrustes, Liberty, Equality, etc.

The late Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn was a great polymath and a heroic defender of the Old European Order.

The Ludwig von Mises Institute has quite recently made his The Menace of the Herd available as PDF and Print-On-Demand. So also Liberty or Equality. For quite some time Monarchy and War (PDF) has been available. The Mises Institute also has an audio recording of a lecture.

Operation Parracide is available at Culture Wars. The Intercollegiate Studies Institute also has an audio recording.

Democracy's Road to Tyranny seems to have gone with the libertyhaven.com site, but the Google cache version can be found here.

Woodrow Wilson's World

Article by Byron W. King 2 years ago today on the Persona Non Grata of this blog brought to you.

Blair and Cameron

This video basically shows us what choices the electorate has with the new order of modern democracy.

All hail modern democracy! What would we do without it?

The Electoral College

The 17^th amendment to the United States Constitution brought direct elections of U.S. Senators. The amendment was ratified about a month into the Presidency of Woodrow Wilson. The Electoral College – although only a remnant from a time when there typically weren't popular elections for the United States Presidency – was left intact in the Wilson Era.

The Electoral College was subject to much critique and subsequent defense – in the Old World as well as in North America – in connection with the presidential election in the year 2000.

Bob Unruh at WorldNetDaily now tells us that legislators are working at abolishing, or at least undermining, the Electoral College.

As if those United States don't have too much democracy already. Let's pour more fuel on the fire!

Current Threat to Liberty

The Czech President, Václav Klaus, recently warned that environmentalism is a threat to "freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity." So WorldNetDaily reports.

This statement is welcome. The Czech President would, however, be well advised to drop the term democracy and, thus, achieve compliance with the principle of three terms.

See also President Klaus's statement on "Europeanism" before the Mont Pelerin Society (2005, The Brussels Journal).

Al Gore's Diesel

In this day and age, we have all sorts of demagogues. They wish to do what's best for us. They have, in the words of C.S. Lewis, the approval of their own conscience. Al Gore is one of these. I had an article on him some two months ago.

It turns out he's been to Norway. Luckily, I didn't find out before he had left. He recently visited Kristiansand, where he, of course, drove an "environmentally friendly" car. The only problem was that the car was transported from Oslo and back by truck. The truck spent 0.35 liters of diesel per kilometer – totally 230 liters for the return trip. That's about 0.1488 gallons per mile – totally some 60.76 gallons. Gore thus burnt off more than 60 gallons of diesel in order to drive around a Norwegian town in an environmentally friendly way.

So Norwegian radio station P4 reports (in Norwegian).

Parliamentarism in Writing

I have an article today at LewRockwell.com on the recent amendments to the Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway.

Forum threads (in Norwegian) related to these amendments can be found here and here.

Nepalis to the Polls

According to India eNews, Nepalis will be going to the polls over the issue of monarchy or republic on June 20.

Update: Also reported by BBC.