Our picture today is the Iron Crown of the Lombards, which is said to be made of the nails of Christ's cross (the inner band, that is).
American "thinkers" are finally catching up to de Tocqueville - I guess over 150 years is just enough time? Our "perverse yearning for equality" is starting to turn heads, even American ones, at what we've become -
a gigantic dysfunctional corporation. Hate your work milieu? Want some time alone to yourself? Well, pretty soon, your work environment will grow to include all civic discourse (which, as Marx taught us, is nothing but economics writ large). Don't worry, "progressives" (name change after "liberal" became a dirty word, thanks to homeward bound roosting chickens) advocate
the annihilation of all
"intermediate institutions". After all, the reign of the atomized individual (with his sacramental rights to participate in modern dark Satanic rituals, such as after conception "contraception") is more important than anything else, especially benighted religious flim-flam.
Do you still think that Democracy means freedom? Many, maybe most, do. "Think" is the wrong word here. I think it's not so much a "point of view" (let alone a belief or a philosophy) as a reflexive "mindset". Now introducing
Bernays &
Lippman, two men of impeccable liberal-democratic credentials (and all benefits accruing thereunto) who most emphatically thought that You, the sovereign subject, were anything BUT free.
Here is the alternative, and there is really only one alternative (and not the "halfway house" of "Republicanism" either, although it is always conveniently forgotten that even Thomas Jefferson believed a natural
aristoi):
"I reject republicanism. At the head of races, above the elite, there is
Monarchy. Not all monarchs have been good. Monarchy, however, has always been
good. The individual monarch must not be confused with the institution of
Monarchy, the conclusions drawn from this would be false. There can be bad
priests, but this does not mean that we can draw the conclusion that the Church
must be ended and God stoned to death. There are certainly weak or bad monarchs,
but we cannot renounce Monarchy. The race has a line of life. A monarch is great
and good, when he stays on this line ; he is petty and bad, to the extent that
he moves away from this racial line of life or he opposes it. There are many
lines by which a monarch can be tempted. He must set them all aside and follow
the line of the race. Here is the law of Monarchy.” - Codreanu
Now, "race" here must mean something more than pure genetics, after all
Codreanu was half-German, not full blooded Romanian. What Codreanu is defending
is the idea (and ideal) of self-government as expressed through familial ties,
personal loyalties, and cultural "lines of force". All of which find logical
expression in Kingship (one could go on to talk of the King of Kings, or the
Empire, but now we are concerned with the "shields of the earth").
Here is an account of the martyrdom of
Charles II:
Far from being an upright quest for justice, the trial of King Charles is seen
by many as perhaps the greatest act of deceit in British history. Author C.V.
Wedgwood wrote that, “Cromwell’s faction was determined to kill the King mainly
because this symbolic act of revolution would satisfy discontents that might
otherwise be directed toward the more fundamental and more farsighted
constitutional changes sought by Lilburne’s Levellers”.Nevertheless, just or
not, King Charles I was taken before what was left of Parliament to stand trial
for his actions.To say that such an act was unprecedented is a vast
understatement. The King was accused of making war against Parliament, not the
actual nation, and no effort was made to show how this “Rump” (which had been
purged by military force) was a true representation of the English people.
Realizing this, His Majesty protested that this left his accusers with no legal
right to judge him saying, “you never asked the question of the tenth man in the
kingdom, and in this way you manifestly wrong even the poorest ploughman, if you
demand not his free consent”.
In other words, the King was made a scapegoat for usurpers who had a radical base to appease. Sound familiar? It should - this always happens in Democracies. Yet many Christians believe that we make an idol of the "king", a teaky-wood god which we crave for vanity and because of our desire to vicariously live out life as an "alpha-male". This suspicion is deep-rooted in Christianity, particularly in the West:
Source
"According to St. Jerome, however (in Matt., c. xxiii), some of the faithful in his day attached a superstitious importance to these aids to piety; he censures certain classes of women who seem to have, in some degree, identified sanctity with an exaggerated veneration for sacred relics: "Hoc quod apud nos superstitiosae mulierculae in parvulis evangeliis et in crucis ligno et istiusmodi rebus, quae habent quidem zelum Dei, sed non secundum scientiam, factitant" (That which superstitious women amongst us, who have a certain zeal for God but not of right knowledge, do in regard to little copies of the Gospels, the wood of the cross, and things of that kind)...."
No doubt, it is possible to overdo things and to worship the
Encolpion instead of the relic inside it or the transcendent reality beyond it. It is also possible to forget (in a secular world) that man was made for worship, that he must worship, and that if he cannot have his king, a dark father figure will come in by the back door as the real Father is ejected out the front.
Forthcoming posts will deal more directly with these objections, and others (such as the idea that human nature is basically evil, and cannot be trusted with "absolute power").
For now, we simply note that America is descending into a "soft totalitarianism".
More arguments in favor of monarchy.
Here is Kaiser Wilhelm's opinion of Hitler. It must not be forgotten that the monarchies presided over the suicide of Europe, but that the republican elements (nationalism) and the new mass democracies were even more enthusiastically in support of it than they were (the monarchies were all "kindred"), and in fact, in many instances, pushed their thrones into war as a pawn.
Here is an excerpt from a 1938 interview of Kaiser Willhelm II Ken magazine. In
this interview Kaiser Willhelm II expresses a very harsh opinion of then German
leader, Adolf Hitler. Kaiser WIllhelm II was known to have a strong
disliking of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist movement in general. However some modern historians try to convince us that he was a staunch National Socialist sympathizer. However as you can read his own words, you can see that nothing is farther from the truth. Here is what Kaiser Willhelm II had to say about Hitler and the National Socialist movement.
“There is a man alone, without family, without children, without God....He builds legions but he doesn’t build a nation. A nation is created by families, a religion, tradition: it is made up out of the hearts of mothers, the wisdom of fathers, the joy and the exuberance of children. [Of Germany under Hitler he says]....an
all-swallowing State, disdainful of human dignities and the ancient structure of
our race, sets itself up in place of everything else. And the man who, alone,
incorporates in himself this whole State, has neither a God to honour nor a
dynasty to conserve, nor a past to consult....
For a few months I was inclined to believe in National Socialism. I thought of it as a necessary fever. And I was gratified to see that there were, associated with it for a
time, some of the wisest and most outstanding Germans. But these, one by one, he
has got rid of or even killed....He has left nothing but a bunch of shirted
gangsters....
This man could bring home victories to our people each
year without bringing them...glory....But of our Germany, which was a nation of
poets and musicians and artists and soldiers, he has made a nation of hysterics
and hermits, engulfed in a mob and led by a thousand liars or fanatics....”
How ironic that the Catholic Church chose to move against monarchism within
its spiritual organization exactly as the outer world tired of liberalism
and bourgeoise!
Certainly Vatican II was also a Council of protest and contradiction, so to speak, a reaction of the liberal Church against the remnants of feudalism and monarchy inside the Church. Hence, the emphasis on collegiality in the government of the Church. Only by means of this Council did the Church officially accept the great conquests of the French Revolution and the liberation of the bourgeoisie: tolerance, liberty of religion and conscience, ecumenical openness, etc.However, the irony of History, she did so just when society was prepared to criticize the new forms of slavery produced by the liberal bourgeoisie.
Also ironic - continued arguments as to why American hegemony is a good thing take a monarchical turn: There Can Be Only One!
But why should this be? Unless, indeed, Monarchy is the actual pattern of real Nature? Sovereignty itself is derived from the unifying principle of monarchy.
