Empress-Queen Zita

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

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.

Sir James Fitzjames Stephen

A 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."

Daniel McAdams and Others on the NSA

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

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

St. Thomas Aquinas

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

On Kingship

Frederik Stang 206

Two 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.

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.

previous

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.

Yngvar Nielsen Passing

In 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 19^th and early 20^th century.

Passing of Bertrand de Jouvenel

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