The Democratic Farce, A Personal Account

Yesterday was the nation's first primary, right here in the state of Texas. This is not usually the sort of thing I bother with but many have argued that local elections are the most important of all and, regardless of that, I had a cousin on the ballot who would be very cross if I didn't drag my bones to town and vote for him (he's bigger than me). So, I went to town, marched into the parish hall and voted in the Democrat primary. They "warn" you on the ballot that you must be a registered Democrat to do this and are not allowed to vote in any other primaries (meaning the Republican one). You may have already noticed the first absurdity in this farce we call the democratic process. Why on earth would someone as radical-far-right-wing reactionary as yours truly be voting for the most leftist of the "two" American political parties? The short answer is; because they are the only game in town. The longer answer is; because demographics have consequences, even more than elections as it turns out. If you want democracy, these are the facts you are going to have to deal with.

Even in the supposedly "deep red" state of Texas, which everyone regards as a bastion of conservatism, pretty much all the urban areas are solidly Democrat and pretty much anywhere up to and including 100 miles of the Mexican border is also solidly Democrat and I would fall deep within that particular area. Because of the demographics of where I live, the vast majority of the population votes Democrat in every election, no matter what the circumstances are, no matter who is on the ballot. This has been the case for so long that the Republicans do not even bother to run candidates anywhere near where I live as it would simply be a waste of resources. This area is lost to them, they know it and they know it is not coming back. Because of this, you also have to be a Democrat in order to run for local office and appear on the ballot. This applies to my cousin who had to run as a Democrat despite being to the right of Rush Limbaugh. If you're not a Democrat, don't even bother trying. So, where I live, thanks to demographics, you have the "freedom" to vote for the Democrat...or the Democrat when it comes to local elections.

For anyone in an area such as this, who is a typical American conservative, it means you will be allowed no part in choosing who the candidate should be for the party you are certain to be voting for in the general election. This actually annoyed me somewhat this time as I would've liked to vote against George P. Bush just to be on the record about that, however, I could only vote for who is Democrat opponent will be and because of the demographics where I live that vote will count for absolutely nothing as it will be a proverbial drop in the bucket, a single grain of sand on the shore. I should probably also point out that the vast majority of Democrats on the ballot, again, because of the demographics of the area, had no opposition. They were not running against anyone, so it was really a waste of paper at the very least. For those keeping score, that means that you have a "choice" of only one party and a "choice" of only one candidate. I suppose those leftist protesters who are always chanting, "This is what democracy looks like!" might have a point, because what goes on at the polls in my area certainly doesn't look like democracy. The damning thing about the entire liberal model is that none of this is out of order, it is all perfectly legal.

Being well acquainted with this farce, I long ago stopped taking any of this seriously. The liberal model is supposed to be well-informed voters making sober decisions based on the merits of the candidates and their own rational self-interest. Human nature, however, doesn't work that way and so you get what we have in south Texas which is tribal voting. And who can say it shouldn't be? With a "choice" between candidates that each belong to a party I despise, neither of whom, in most cases, I know anything about and do not care to, why not simply vote for the name that sounds most similar to my own? You cannot realistically say you expect otherwise. Deep down, everyone knows this I think. Imagine, for example, a voter in southern California who is a Vietnamese-American. The candidates on the ballot are:

   - Alfredo Gutierrez

   - Pedro Ramirez

   - Juan Gonzales

   - Nguyen Van Sam

   - Alberto Garcia

Do you really think there is much doubt about which one he is most likely to vote for? It is a farce, a farce designed to fool people into thinking they have greater control over the government than they would with, oh, say, a king for example. After all, where I live, as you can see, demographics make all the difference and that demographic change was one which neither myself nor any previous generation here was ever asked to vote on. That, I think, says it all.

The Limits of Tolerance

It was on this day in 1594 that Henri IV was crowned King of France at Chartres Cathedral, about 50 miles southwest of Paris. He is remembered as a tolerant king, one who was vilified by the intolerant of his own time but more respected after his death as people became more dispassionate and, perhaps, more tolerant themselves. For those who are not experts in French history, if they know at least the basic facts, they will recall that King Henri IV is most famous for having been a Protestant but who converted to Catholicism in order to be king, supposedly saying that, “Paris is worth a mass”. I cannot help but think that part of his popularity in recent times is due to his reputation for not taking religion very seriously. This is, needless to say, completely wrong. First of all, I would not swear on the Gospels that Henri IV ever said that nor do I think his conversion was driven entirely by ambition or political concerns. I may not swear to it either but I think it is at least highly possible that his conversion, even if prompted by politics to a degree, was genuine.

What earned King Henri IV his reputation for tolerance was that, even after his conversion to Catholicism, he issued the Edict of Nantes which granted freedom of religion to French Protestants. Needless to say, there were Catholics who were upset by this but, then again, one can also still find Catholics who are critical of King Louis XIV for revoking the Edict of Nantes. For many, whether tolerance is a positive or a negative seems to be a rather subjective question. In the case of France, tolerance seemed to be the only solution to their problem. The edict came at the end of the long and brutal Wars of Religion in France, the last being known as the “War of the Three Henries”. This saw Henri (IV) of Navarre and the Protestants battling against Henri Duc d’Guise and the Catholics with King Henri III in the middle, all fighting against each other, none being strong enough to defeat the other two. France was being shredded by these conflicts and since there seemed to be no end, tolerance was the answer Henri of Navarre found. In order to be king, he would become Catholic but he would also insist that Protestants be free to worship as they pleased so long as they remained loyal to the king and loyal to France, which in those days were taken to be the same thing.

One reason that Protestantism was able to take hold in France was because of the degree of tolerance that existed in the Catholic leaders of the country such as the famous King Francis I who tolerated the Protestants at first only to later come to regret it as a faction, primarily aristocratic Protestants, began to aim their opposition at the monarchy. There were similar problems across Europe as Protestantism spread throughout the continent. However, one will notice that similar wars of religion did not occur in places such as Spain or Italy. It is interesting to look at the realms of the House of Habsburg in this time which included both Spain and Germany. In Spain, the rather unfairly notorious Inquisition made sure that Protestant ideas never found a firm foothold, whereas in Germany, ruled by the same monarch but under a very different political system, this was not possible. The decentralized nature of the first German Reich meant that Martin Luther was able to defy the German Emperor and King of Spain right to his face at the Diet of Worms and freely walk away without being arrested thanks to the protection of his local prince Frederick III, Elector of Saxony.

The result was that while Spain had no wars of religion, Germany had plenty of them, culminating in the disastrous Thirty Years War which left central Europe in ruins for decades. The fact that tolerance can make things worse instead of better was not lost on the Protestants themselves. Despite their persecution at the hands of intolerant Catholics, for what they called, ‘following the dictates of their conscience’, once in power they were not prepared to fully embrace tolerance themselves. In countries such as England or The Netherlands, while the Church of England or the Dutch Reformed Church had special status, they were generally tolerant of Protestants who did not adhere to these churches but that freedom of religion did not extend to Catholics. It is obvious to see why. Such tolerance would lead to division which would lead to conflict, sometimes decade after decade of ruinous conflict that could devastate entire nations. Today it often seems necessary to repeat the obvious; differences cause problems. Differences about the fundamental nature of society, the world, loyalty and so on can certainly cause very, very serious problems.

These lessons are not only to be drawn from the monarchies of the Old World. They were seen just as often in the United States of America. On the religious front, Maryland was founded as a Catholic colony but not enough Catholics wanted to move there, so they were tolerant and allowed Protestants in as well. As soon as the Protestants became a majority, they decided to be tolerant of everyone except Catholics. In the political sphere, when the thirteen original colonies won their independence, they were not prepared to be very tolerant of those hated loyalists who had taken the side of the King in London. As I have proposed before, I think this was one reason why the United States did not suffer the same chaotic fate as Mexico post-independence. In America, the people who were different were gotten rid of so that everyone who remained were basically in agreement on the fundamental, republican, nature of the new country. Thus there were no royalist coups in America. Other differences and thus other problems arose in due time and there was not an abundance of tolerance. The concept of the rights of the states in America was based on tolerance, a ‘live and let live’, almost libertarian sort of attitude. Yet, just as those opposed to slavery would not tolerate it in another state, so too with a long list of successive issues all the way up to gay “marriage”. Making it legal in their own state was never enough, ALL states had to make it legal and if the people would not do it willingly, the courts would do it by force.

This all underlies a fundamental point I have tried to impress upon people many times. Tolerance is rare and tolerance on the part of governments is practically non-existent. No ruling power ever has or ever will tolerate anything which is a direct challenge to them. They will not tolerate any sort of attack on that which they hold most dear. In Muslim countries, this means that anything anti-Islamic will not be tolerated. It is why, in Germany or Austria, questioning the Holocaust is not tolerated. It is why the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy would not tolerate opposition to their ruling parties. It is why Thailand does not tolerate disrespect toward the monarchy, because that is the foundation of their society. Liberal regimes today, be they republics or monarchies, tend to think they are immune from this. Not so. The rulers of Great Britain, for example, allow republican groups to attack the monarchy because the monarchy is not fundamental to their world view at all. Most European countries, the United States, Canada and so on do not have something so obvious as Islam in Iran or the King in Thailand but they very clearly have a narrative that is fundamental to their worldview and they will tolerate no opposition to this narrative.

Because of liberalism, they have to be more duplicitous about this than Chairman Mao on the left or General Franco on the right but they are just as intolerant as either of those examples were. They must show some restraint in order to maintain their charade but we have all seen the truth. If you challenge the narrative, you will be vilified, lose your job, perhaps even face criminal penalties. Your life can be destroyed for doing this because when it comes to that which they hold most dear, they are just as intolerant as any Spanish inquisitor, Soviet secret policeman or Nazi Gestapo agent. This is a fact of human nature. We can be tolerant but generally only for select periods of time and when all other options have failed. Even then, the tolerance doesn’t really stay but rather becomes unnecessary. The reason for this is that when something is tolerated for long enough, it generally becomes accepted and, even when it is not, the ultimate end is that people stop believing such differences matter and replace them with new ones. Religious tolerance did not lead to Protestants and Catholics truly respecting each other. It led to people just giving up on Christianity altogether. Monarchies which tolerate republicans has not led to republicans embracing the monarchy out of gratitude but rather an increasing number of people being indifferent to their monarchy.

Tolerance is a lie and, all too often, a fatal one.

A Monarchist Hero for Today

Picture in your mind (I doubt it will require much imagination) this scenario which I certainly see. You have a European country, a monarchy, which seems to have had it. The country is being overrun by foreign invaders, the people are demoralized, the religious leaders seem to be as often as not taking the side of the invaders, your monarch does not seem to be much of a monarch, inspires no one and seems more intent on simply securing a comfortable life than saving the country. The populace is divided and many people seem to simply be looking out for their own selfish interests and not for their society, their nation, as a whole. If you see the things that I see, you might think I am talking about any number of countries today. The Kingdom of Sweden might be a good guess. However, I have no doubt some of you already know that I am actually describing the Kingdom of France in or about 1429 AD. It certainly seems highly reminiscent of the present day in a number of ways, though just as certainly radically dissimilar in more.

France was in a state of crisis and a great and ardently monarchist, pious champion stepped forward to save it. That person was, of course, an illiterate, teenage, peasant girl from Domremy in northeastern France. Acting on revelations from God, she went to the French monarch, King Charles VII; though she referred to him as the “Dauphin” because he had not been crowned and was, frankly, not acting very kingly; and told him that she was on a divine mission to see him become a proper King of France and to drive the foreign invaders (the English) from their sacred soil. The two spoke privately and the existence of God and some sort of divine intervention is absolutely the only rational, reasonable answer because, after a short, private, meeting between the two, Charles VII made this illiterate, teenage, peasant girl the commander of the armies of France with his blessing to go forth and meet the enemy, as it happened, the formidable English army besieging the city of Orleans. Joan, known then as the “Maid of Lorraine” or the “Maid of Orleans”, rallied the dispirited French, hurled herself into battle, was grievously wounded in the process, but won a stunning victory, smashing the English army and lifting the siege.

The war turned around, Joan and her army cleared the English from the Loire valley, saw Charles VII properly anointed and crowned in the cathedral at Rheims and then, after hitting a bit of snag at Paris, went on to further battles in the course of which she was captured by the forces of the Duke of Burgundy, sold to the English, put on trial by a Church court, declared a heretic and burned at the stake in 1431. In the aftermath, however, the English-Burgundian alliance collapsed, the Duke of Burgundy switched sides, the English were driven out of France and King Charles VII became the ruler of a united country. None of this would have been possible without Joan of Arc. Few dispute that had she not lifted the siege of Orleans, France would have been doomed. The traditional coronation solidified the loyalty of the people behind Charles VII and more than anything else, Joan of Arc revived the French national spirit which had completely broken down after so many years of fighting, so many internal divisions and a number of humiliating defeats at the hands of England.

All of this is clearly impressive but why does it make Joan a model hero for monarchists today? It seems to me, there are a number of reasons. For one, Joan revived the French national spirit, giving them back their proper sense of themselves as French, identifying with their nation and not simply their village, town or province which might just as easily belong to the English king as the French king of the Duke of Burgundy. She mad the French proud to be French again, made them believe in their unique identity and purpose. This is something, it seems to me, everyone needs more of today in practically every country. That goes for traditionalists, conservatives and right-wingers just as much as those of the liberal, leftist or revolutionary varieties. The left hates their countries for what they were, which is fine as they wish to destroy them anyway. However, the right tends to hate their countries for what they are and this is deliberate for you will hardly have much zeal to fight for the salvation of your country if you do not love it. Joan lived in what was possibly the darkest period in the history of France, she could have easily been discouraged, but she fought for the France that could be, that should be and looked beyond the divided, dispirited country that was.

Also, very much like today, Joan had to confront traditional institutions that were less than ideal. However, she had a quality that made her immune to the damage this could cause. Joan of Arc possessed a type of loyalty that seems exceedingly rare in this day and age, even among many who call themselves monarchists or royalists. The King she fought for was hardly inspiring by most accounts. Was he even the rightful king anyway? Plenty at the time would argue Charles VII had no right to the throne at all, perhaps because they believed in the legality of the claim of the child King Henry VI of England, which was not based on nothing let us not forget, or because they considered Charles VII to be of illegitimate birth. For them, his cousin, the Duke of Orleans (another Charles) was the legitimate heir to the throne. So you had an English child on one side with a treaty signed by the previous king of France that made him heir and on the other side the son of said king who many believed not to be his actual son at all. Joan did not get bogged down in all of that, though she had the benefit of divine revelations.

The primary point though is that Joan was loyal to a king who was, under the best of interpretations, not as loyal to her in return. If you only know the story of Joan of Arc from the numerous films, you would probably be inclined to think Charles VII to be a real villain and regret the fact that Joan had fought so hard to see him placed on the throne. He is often portrayed as outright betraying her to the enemy, selling her out in order to be rid of her. People who have studied Joan of Arc far more than I have do not usually go this far but will say that it remains essentially unknown why Charles VII did not do more to try to save her. Personally, I see no evidence that the King set her up to be captured but neither did he go to great lengths to save her which is why I say he was not as loyal to her as she had been to him. Nonetheless, like the Biblical injunction to “obey not only the good and the gentle but also the harsh”, this did not matter to Joan. She never faltered in her own loyalty, she fought the battles that made it possible for the king to do what he needed to do and she urged him toward the proper course of action but her loyalty did not depend on the King acting as she saw fit or of him reciprocating her commitment.

You could say much the same for the relationship between Joan of Arc and the Roman Catholic Church. She was to her last breath utterly devoted and faithful to the Church which persecuted her, falsely accused her, condemned her and finally sent her to a fiery death. In the years that followed her verdict was overturned by the Church and the bishop who presided at her trial was excommunicated but this was all after the fact (and it still took 500 years to have her canonized, which is rather lengthy even by Catholic standards). It could have been no comfort to Joan at the time and yet, even while surrounded by Catholic clerics and scholars, most presumably in sympathy with the foreign invaders of France that Joan was fighting against, she still maintained her belief in God and the Church of which her beloved country was the “Eldest Daughter”. In an even more perverse way, we often see this today and Joan of Arc sets the example of being faithful even if those charged with upholding that faith are extremely unfaithful.

Joan of Arc had her priorities in order; to restore the king, expel the foreigners, unite the country and obey God. If you believe (and I do) that she was on a divine mission from God, this means that these were also the priorities of the Almighty, which is something anyone claiming to be any sort of Christian should take very seriously. She did not hate the English, she pleaded with them to leave peacefully, even to join with her in fighting heretics and unbelievers, but she was adamant that France belonged to the French and not to the English. The wellbeing of her people was more important to her than the wellbeing of foreigners. She fought for her king, even if he was not the ideal monarch. I am sure it would have been easier to fight for someone like King Louis IX but a St Louis is rare, Charles VII was the man God had placed in her life. She fought for him anyway and if he or the Church did not do what they were supposed to, that was up to God to deal with. All she could do is show them the way and that is exactly what she did. This is important for monarchists today to learn from. If you are not happy with modern monarchs currently reigning or in exile, I sympathize but a King Edward III, Louis IX or Otto the Great are rare and if you are waiting for the ideal king to come along and save civilization for you, I am afraid you will be waiting for a very long time.

Joan of Arc did not wait. She took action. But, you may be saying, she was a saint and had God on her side. True, but who is to say God is not on your side too? God spoke to Joan of Arc, God may be speaking to you too but you just are not LISTENING!

The Repercussions of Regicide

Today, once again, we mark the anniversary of the regicide of His Most Christian Majesty King Louis XVI of France. It is not, at this point, necessary to go through all the details of this monstrous crime, as that has been done before (relevant links will be below). However, I thought it might be worthwhile to make brief mention of what the repercussions of this event have been, which are present even to the present day. Obviously, there were immediate consequences in that most of the crowned heads of Europe immediately went to war with the First French Republic simply on principle. Even the British, and King George III felt that King Louis was suffering for having supported the American rebels in their war against him, immediately went to war with the French even though the Kingdom of France had been England's most long-standing enemy. France suffered immediate and terrible consequences for this. Even the United States immediately changed their point of view of the French Revolution when King Louis XVI was killed. Practically every major monarchy in Europe immediately became an enemy and even the Americans were no longer willing to be friends with a regime that would murder an innocent and powerless man.

Everyone knows about the Reign of Terror, the massacres, the repression and the long succession of wars that followed this event. However, there were broader and more far-reaching consequences that no one could possibly have foreseen at the time. For one thing, the permanence and sacrosanct nature of the monarchy was destroyed and that is something that is seemingly impossible to recover. This is why, I think, the British monarchy consistently decreased in power since the regicide of King Charles I, even though the monarchy was willingly restored. The French monarchy was restored, more than once, since the regicide of King Louis XVI but, as we know, none of these restorations lasted. The radical elements of French society knew that they had taken down one king and that set a precedent that they could take down others and so they did. It set up a very long-term destabilization of France as a country. The way modern France has become so famous for its strikes and a populace, particularly in Paris, being known for their temper tantrums all goes back to the regicide of King Louis XVI.

We also see today the huge explosion of the non-French population in France so that today about 20% of the population of France is not French. In terms of religion, France has the largest amount of Muslims as a percentage of the population of any country in Europe. It is also worth keeping in mind that the immigrant population has about twice the rate of natural growth as the native French population. For myself, I do not think this state of affairs is unrelated to the regicide and the French Revolution. In the first place, as I have said before, it is a logical next step for people who claim that the bloodline of their rulers does not matter, getting rid of monarchy, to then believe that the bloodline of the population being ruled does not matter either, which is the attitude held by those in power today. Similarly, by the overthrow and regicide of King Louis, the precedent was sent for the people changing their ruler to one more to their liking (or at least so they thought), it then also stands to reason that the rulers of republican France today can decide to change the population of France and replace it with another more to their liking.

Bertolt Brecht supposedly said, of the Communist regime in East Germany, that they might dismiss the current electorate and appoint a new one. He was being sarcastic to make a point but that seems to be something the modern liberal elite of western countries thinks is not only possible but a positively brilliant idea. In the aftermath of the regicide of King Louis XVI, I cannot see it any other way as being directly responsible for the current state of affairs. The downfall of monarchy, in France as elsewhere, set the standard for national authorities being changeable with no direct, personal ties of blood and history with the country and it is simply taking this to its logical conclusion for the rulers of today to believe that their peoples are also just as changeable. The crisis that France finds itself in today is, I firmly believe, a direct result of the regicide of King Louis XVI and the twisted "values" of the French Revolution. The country and the people are still suffering from this horrendous crime.

The Root of the Current French Crisis

The Greatness of King Louis XVI

A Tragic Anniversary

Inspiration in a Tragic Anniversary

In Defense of Modern Monarchs

Monarchs today, specifically those in the western world, are increasingly taking criticism from the more right-leaning sections of society which have traditionally defended them. This is bad, in my view both for them and for society and I fear could be the beginning of something disastrous for the cause of traditional authority (just add it to the list). They are not, you will notice, being defended by the left-leaning sections of society as you might expect for anyone or anything being attacked from the right. You might have even thought you heard the left defending them but, sorry, you did not. The left will say they agree with a royal who agrees with them on global warming or open borders, tolerance and diversity and all that, they will applaud Prince Harry for marrying a mixed-race, divorced actress from America but they *never* defend the monarchy itself because they know, even if many on the right have forgotten, that monarchy by definition goes against their fundamental worldview and can never be reconciled with it. When modern royals parrot the leftist narrative, the leftists simply applaud them cutting their own throats.

What tends to upset people on the right today about modern royals is just a little contradictory. On the one hand, they do not like what many royals say and do but there are also those who do not like them because, as they say, they don’t actually “do” anything and are purely ceremonial. Personally, I have a problem with all of these things as well and wish that it were not so and these criticisms are not coming out of thin air. Most of, if not all, of the things that upset the right-wing critics of modern monarchs upset me as well, the difference is that none of it turns me against monarchy in general or any particular monarchy either. Modern royals have been placed in an extremely difficult position. They were told from birth that they must be above politics, can say or do nothing political only to then have the ever-expanding left-liberal state make absolutely everything political. They have also been taught in the same schools and by the same professors as the liberal elites who are making such a mess of things. Similarly, when they attend church, be it Protestant or Catholic, they hear the same narrative about diversity, inclusion, environmentalism and so on which their pastors, whether appointed by the Pope or politicians, are told to preach.

They do live in a bubble and these days it is a poison-filled bubble. Keeping all of this in mind, they are also told that they must “do” something to justify their position as the idea of a hereditary birthright is unthinkable in this day and age combined with the natural human desire to pursue some activity to avoid leading totally empty lives. Because the liberal elites who rule us do not, of course, actually mean the things that they say, modern royals have found that championing traditional or right-wing causes leads to condemnation for being “political”, this leaves only fashionable left-wing causes which they are allowed to pursue as the left certainly doesn’t object to this nor, these days, does the mainstream right or the so-called “conservatives” which pass for this in Europe today. All of this means that while I find many of the things that modern monarchs do or say unpalatable, it also means that I can find little room to blame them personally for it. It does not make me despise them but pity them and desire to rescue them from this left-liberal prison they have been born into.

The enemies of monarchy are happy to applaud royals when they do something detrimental to traditional authority or the survival of western civilization but they do so not because they believe in monarchy but because this is all part of their plan to undermine the most fundamental elements and institutions of western civilization in order to turn people against it. In other words, they want the defenders of traditional authority to believe that their cause is not worth defending at all and so they might as well give up. It reminds me, as I mentioned in a recent film review, of the scene in “1898 Los ultimos de Filipinas” which shows the Filipino rebels trying to persuade the Spanish garrison to surrender by telling them that their own government never showed much concern for them, forgot about them and sold the whole place to the Americans or, in other words, that they were fighting for leaders unworthy of their sacrifice. If it means ending opposition to them, these people will say or do anything and just as they have infiltrated and twisted the entertainment industry, education, government and the churches it is foolish to think they would stop short of their takeover of all culture and society at the foot of the monarchy.

As such, when the royals of today say something that infuriates me, I do not blame them but rather those who actually rule us as modern royals are in their power, unfortunately. When it comes to moral issues, if the King of Spain, the King of the Belgians, the Grand Duke of Luxembourg or the Princes of Monaco or Liechtenstein say something I find objectionable, I do not blame them but rather the Pope who is set above them and who, in the past when popes were crowned and acted like popes, was called, “the master of kings and princes, the ruler of the rulers of the world”. Similarly, when something like this comes from the Queens of Britain or Denmark or the Kings of The Netherlands, Norway or Sweden, I blame the politicians who pay and appoint the leaders of the churches who are supposed to pass on proper moral teaching to royals and commoners alike. One could also then cast an accusing eye toward the voting public who put these people in office and submit to their rule but that leads us to the other point, that royals today are simply ceremonial figureheads unworthy of serious consideration. Perish the thought!

No monarch in Europe today, save arguably the Pope as Sovereign of Vatican City, has much if any actual power. Some may have a slight degree of influence but that varies with governments and issues. Even the monarchs in Europe with the most power, the aforementioned Princes of Monaco and Liechtenstein, are not quite so powerful as they may appear. They are sovereign states but not really independent states given that they are micro-states which frankly couldn’t survive a grape embargo. They can exist only because their powerful neighbors allow them to. The huge population of Monaco would not be able to survive for a week without the food and other vital resources France allows to be passed through her borders to the tiny principality. Lest anyone think that one of these monarchs could stand up and defy the prevailing world order, consider the fate that befell countries like Rhodesia or South Africa which did the same, countries with things like farmland, room for livestock, mineral resources and fresh water. If Rhodesia could not survive the hostility of the international community, I fail to see how anyone could argue that Liechtenstein could.

It is clear then that modern European monarchs reign but absolutely do not rule. Why then should we care about them? We should care about them for the same reason that the republicans care about them; because of what they represent. For hardcore traditionalists, I would point to the many child monarchs of history who I have admitted before to having a fondness for. Obviously, it is not ideal to have a child monarch, the ideal being to have a mature, wise, moral and courageous monarch but, as I have related in the past, child monarchs have something to teach us. When Frenchman dropped to one knee before the 5-year-old King Louis XIV or when wrinkled Vietnamese mandarins kowtowed to the 8-year-old Emperor Duy Tan they knew perfectly well that such children had no power and would not actually be ruling the country but that, then as now, others would be ruling in their name. It was, rather, what they represented that was important, all of the culture, religion, traditions and the history of the nation that was bound up in the bloodline represented by the tiny child draped in regal robes before them.

One could view modern monarchs in much the same way as you might view an historic building such as an historic cathedral, once held sacred but which is today no more than a tourist attraction. The Palace of Versailles is another example, once the magnificent residence of a sacred regal line but which is today pimped out by the French republican government like a prostitute. The fact that trashy American celebrities can rent it out or that it can be used to host obscene and grotesque “art” exhibits should repulse us all but it should not make us wish to burn it down or allow it to crumble through neglect because it has been tainted by the wickedness of our time.

When I was a child, and it seems I may have been the last generation to experience this, even living in a very old republic far distant from any actual monarchies, my imagination was filled with castles, knights and kings (especially castles, I really had a thing for them in my earliest years -which hasn’t entirely gone away). I could not say specifically where this comes from but in my earliest memories I had the image firmly implanted in my mind, presumably from story books and cartoons of the good king being deceived by his wicked and manipulative prime minister. I can distinctly remember, though it was ages ago, before I had any knowledge at all of how modern monarchies worked or even if actual ones still existed, of the prime minister always being the villain of the story who had to be thwarted so that the good king, who naturally loved his people as a parent naturally loves their children, would see the true state of affairs and set things right. Later on I found out what a prime minister actually is and how the system actually works but I also do not think that trope to be entirely unfounded and I would urge monarchists, traditionalists, the rightfully disgruntled on the political right-wing, to view modern monarchs in the same way; as prisoners of a corrupt and wicked political elite who are manipulating them and who the truly loyal must rescue them from.

Lessons from the Western Imperial Past

Once again the city of New York has been the victim of another attack by an Islamic terrorist, an immigrant from Uzbekistan running down people in a rented truck, a tactic seen before in Europe several times. As usual, the Democrats have responded to this in the exact opposite way they respond to events like the mass shootings in Las Vegas or Charleston, after which they quickly blamed the right and called for national reflection and change whether it be banning guns or flags. No, in the case of a mass killing by a Muslim immigrant the Democrats say change absolutely nothing, do not think too much about it, this is no time to be political, keep calm and carry on. The neoconservatives, on the other hand, also respond the way they always do, calling for more surveillance (of everyone) and more military intervention overseas as if dropping more bombs on Syria or sending more special forces to central Africa will prevent someone from Uzbekistan from coming to America and running people down in his car. We have now moved beyond being predictable with the response to these events to the point of just being damn monotonous.

As I have probably said before, I think both Democrat and Republican establishments are wrong on this one. No amount of U.S. soldiers in Iraq would have stopped this terrorist from doing what he did and no amount of surveillance will do the trick either. The American public is already living under greater surveillance than any time in history and attacks such as these still go on, partly because the NSA, so as not to show any hint of prejudice, is spying on Marge in South Dakota as well as the Muslim man from Uzbekistan with the ISIS flag in his truck. The Democrats are wrong because, yes, this does have something to do with Islam and, obviously, if the man from Uzbekistan had not been allowed into the country, he would not have been able to kill anyone here. That is so simple and self-evident that the strenuous efforts by our elites to deny it never ceases to amaze me. Islamic terrorists are a radical fringe (albeit a sizable one) and they have no air force or navy so the only way they can kill *any* Americans is if the Americans come to them or allow them to come to America. That is a blatant, obvious, unalterable fact.

We also have here a lesson in what our leaders like to call the “strength of diversity”. This man, obviously, did not identify as an American, despite being granted permanent residency in this country thanks to a “diversity visa” (an absurd program approved by both Democrats and Republicans). He came to America, lived in America for years, no doubt had a vastly better life than he had had in Uzbekistan, yet he felt he had more in common as a Central Asian Muslim with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria than he had with the American people who surrounded him. This is not new and when it comes to learning from history, if you do not wish to take the trouble of learning the entire history of the world, learning the history of the Roman Empire will generally suffice. Be it brilliant or idiotic, glorious or horrific, honorable or vicious, the Romans did it first and did it to a greater extreme. The Roman Empire, originating in Italy, was mostly an Italian thing for most of its history. The imperium covered many lands and non-Italians could become Roman citizens but it was by and large the Italians who were in charge. They were confident that they could make other people into Romans and in places such as Gaul (France) or Britain, there was reason to think they could.

However, over time, the Romans began to suffer from decay in their integrity, ambition and self-confidence. They stopped priding themselves on their large families and the legacy of their ancestors and devoted themselves to pleasure. Who then would defend the empire? No problem, they simply hired barbarians to fill out the Roman legions and these “good” barbarians would hold the frontier against the “bad” barbarians across the river. Were they not basically all Romans anyway? No, they were not and the barbarians hired by the Romans did not suddenly stop feeling any kinship to those other barbarians across the river. The Romans had many ingenious and valuable things, the Roman Empire was a desirable place to live but the Romans themselves were decadent, corrupt and generally viewed with contempt by the barbarians and many Romans themselves for that matter, which of course is part of the reason why so few thought their civilization was worth defending. Then, when the barbarians struck, the Romans decided it would be better to accommodate them instead of confronting them.

In 378AD the Roman frontier was permanently breached for the first time when the Goths defeated a Roman army at the Battle of Adrianople, killing Emperor Valens of the East Roman Empire in the process. The result was a peace agreement that allowed the Goths to settle within the borders of the Roman Empire. However, that was to prove not a permanent solution. Then, in 406AD the Rhine River froze over and a flood of barbarians charged across looking for relief in more southerly climates. The Vandals and Visigoths were at the forefront and, again, the Romans would often start by trying to avoid trouble and grant the barbarians lands to settle on within the empire only for trouble to break out later and end with the barbarians going on the rampage. The Visigoths came to dominate much of France and Spain while the Vandals moved all the way down into north Africa. The Goths even sacked the city of Rome itself in 410AD but things settled down and the Romans still managed to convince themselves that things were not so bad and that these barbarians were not all that different from them.

The barbarians were, indeed, quite familiar with Roman ways and often tried to imitate them after having spent so many years living just outside or just inside the borders of the empire. Most had even taken up the Roman religion of Christianity, albeit generally in one of the heretical forms that were quite common at the time. However, history would show that only the Romans could be Romans and while the barbarians actually often had much to recommend them and could often be more admirable characters than the decadent Romans, the society they would build would not be the same as that which the Romans had built. Still, perhaps it would not be so bad? Actually, it would and it would because of another barbarian force that was nothing like the northern Europeans the Romans had experienced so far. It was never simply the weather that was pushing the Goths, Vandals and others up to and across the Roman frontier. Rather, it was another, particularly fierce barbarian invasion force which was not European or western at all and certainly not Christian. These were the Huns who appeared from far distant lands in Asia and swept across Europe driving all before them.

Pushed out of the Far East by the Emperor of China, the Huns found the Roman Emperors to be easier pickings. In the Eastern Empire, Emperor Theodosius II paid them off to keep the peace while he built new and bigger walls around Constantinople. When Roman forces were sent to Sicily in an aborted effort to deal with the Vandals taking over there, the Huns saw their opportunity and seized control of extensive territory in the Balkans before turning west under their formidable leader Attila. They seemed to be invincible and, indeed, were only stopped, not destroyed but stopped at least, at the pivotal Battle of the Catalaunian Plains by a Roman-Gothic coalition led by General Flavius Aetius and King Theodoric I. After that, they invaded Italy and met practically no opposition until finally turning back after a meeting with Pope Leo I. It was only with the death of Attila not long after that the Hunnish empire broke up on its own.

Petronius Maximus

That was 452 and only a few years later in 455 the Vandals were at the gates of Rome, again, partly due to clumsy efforts to gain their favor. Emperor Valentinian III, who had reigned during the Hunnish crisis, was assassinated and his place taken by Emperor Petronius Maximus. He married Valentinian’s wife, newly single again, and broke off the proposed marriage between her daughter and the son of King Geiseric of the Vandals. This all the pretext Geiseric needed to put his army onto ships and set sail for Italy. The Romans had no army to speak of and efforts by Emperor Petronius to enlist the Goths on his side failed, added to which he was never recognized as legitimate by the Eastern Roman Emperor in the first place so that no help could be expected from that quarter. When the Vandals arrived, Petronius Maximus decided not to even try to defend the city but simply to escape and save his own life. He was unsuccessful, his own guards abandoned him and he was stoned to death by an angry mob. This left only Pope Leo as a figure of any great authority in Rome and he did persuade the Vandals not to be quite so destructive as was normal, though they still sacked the city for two weeks the damage was mostly confined to looting rather than mass murder and burning down everything.

Petronius was succeeded by Emperor Avitus who embodied many of the problems the Roman Empire still faced. He was a Gallic Roman rather than an Italian and was not well received by the public. Emperor Avitus counted on his friendship with King Theodoric II of the Visigoths as the foundation of his reign but, surprise, surprise, the Visigoths were more interested in securing their own domination of Spain than in doing any favors for Avitus in Rome. And, just as Theodoric II chose his tribe over his friendship with Avitus, so too did the Romans choose to rid themselves of their Gallic master and his Gallic officials. Avitus was forced from power and fled to Gaul (France), replaced by Emperor Majorian who mounted a famous, last-minute, effort to restore the Western Roman Empire. He defeated the Vandals who were bedeviling Italy, smashed the Goths in Spain and the Germans in Burgundy. The old, glory days of Rome seemed to be back again as Emperor Majorian put things in order and went back on the offensive and was victorious. However, the Romans proved to be their own worst enemy.

Emperor Majorian

The same class of Roman elites who had turned on Petronius for leaving them defenseless against the Vandals and who grumbled at Avitus and his Gothic alliance, turned against Emperor Majorian who had defeated both of these enemies because his reforms cut into their life of idle luxury. He was also betrayed by Ricimer, a German, who had helped Majorian in the overthrow of Avitus. By this point, most of the Roman army was not Roman at all in the west and the leadership became a succession of Roman figureheads dominated by their barbarian military commander until, with the fall of Romulus Augustulus, all appearances were dropped and the Western Roman Empire came to an end.

I shall not point out every similarity between the declining years of the Roman Empire and today because they should be obvious and, as such, many others have pointed them out before. That is because it is so striking. I will say though, in defense of even the latter Western Roman Empire, that they were still more rational than our own political leadership in Western Europe and America today. They at least deluded themselves on being able to master a worsening situation by military and political means, playing off one faction against another. Our own elites seem to be in total denial of the actual problem or trusting in slogans like they were magic words to, somehow, solve our problems. The Romans thought their weaknesses could be managed, which they could not, but even they were not so delusional as to believe their weaknesses were strengths.

A Brief Word on Faith & Frederick Barbarossa

The German emperors tend to have a rocky history when it comes to Church-state relations, partly because, in their time, anything involving the popes were also state-state relations. For some reason I have yet to fully understand, some modern Catholics are willing to be more understanding regarding some emperors than others. So, Emperor Frederick I (Barbarossa), who found himself at odds with the pope is still reviled by many today while Emperor Charles V, who waged war against the pope, is celebrated. I hasten to add that this does not mean Charles V should be vilified, those who defend him are correct inasmuch as his problems with the pope were political and not religious, however, I am saying that one could be more consistent in applying such understanding in regards to the Hohenstaufen kaiser as one is with the Habsburg. The fact that it is not is, in my view, unfortunate and helps to further religious division, particularly for Germans, and that division has led only to widespread religious indifferentism. If, as any monarchist should, one wishes the German people to get back in touch with their monarchical roots, Frederick Barbarossa is a figure that cannot be ignored and should not be dismissed. He was one of the most important German emperors ever, I would say easily among the top three, and the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation cannot be fully understood without him.

Did Emperor Frederick I have problems with the Church in his time? Most would say, "yes" but I would add that his problems were more with the papacy than with the Church as a whole. Problems there certainly were though and ultimately this stemmed from the fact that the First German Reich, referred to officially as the "Holy Roman Empire" had a very different beginning than the original Roman Empire which preceded it. It all came down to the fact that this new entity had begun with the Pope, St Leo III, crowning Charlemagne "Emperor of the Romans" and, as such, the papal view was that the imperial crown was theirs to give and theirs to take away. Emperor Frederick I, as with many of his fellow kaisers, needless to say, did not tend to share this view. There was also a territorial dispute which originated from, basically, the Pope giving land to the King of Sicily which Frederick regarded as being part of the empire without checking with the emperor first and after the Emperor had signed an agreement with a previous pope that promised there would be no such agreement between the Emperor and the King of Sicily without papal approval, so it seemed like a double-cross to the Germans.

When Pope Alexander III was challenged by a rival in the person of anti-Pope Victor IV, the rather bad relations between Frederick and Alexander meant it was no great surprise that the Emperor recognized Victor IV as the rightful Bishop of Rome. Yet, even then, it seems to have been purely political as Emperor Frederick had first conveyed to Pope Alexander that if he would agree to see things his way, Frederick would remain with him but when the Pope refused, the Emperor sided with his rival. When Victor IV was succeeded by another anti-pope, Frederick supported him as well until he was defeated and driven from Rome by Alexander III. The Emperor mounted a last major invasion of Italy but met with a stunning defeat at the hands of the Italians at the Battle of Legnano. After this, Emperor Frederick I finally gave up on his ideas of empire, resigned to contenting himself with Germany and (this is important) formally and publicly patched things up with Pope Alexander III. So, yes, the Pope and the Emperor had their "issues" but, in the end, they kissed and made up. The dispute was always of a political nature and not really about doctrine or dogma.

Especially in these dishonest and disjointed times we live in, I think it is important to keep a few things in mind before being too hard on Emperor Frederick. He was one of the few German emperors to actually be crowned by the Pope (in 1155) with his troops killing off the Roman republicans who had been antagonizing the pontiff while he was there. Emperor Frederick, though he was excommunicated along with anti-Pope Victor IV, only had a problem with that because from his first day to his last he considered himself a staunch Roman Catholic and never considered being anything else. Indeed, he was widely considered a very devout and pious man who wanted the papal and imperial powers to work together but did insist that the pope recognize the imperial power which he wielded in secular matters. He was not some raving, unorthodox, heretic who was, for example, trying to argue that mothers could kill their children or that two men can get married. Finally, it is also worth remembering that even after all of his trials and difficulties, Emperor Frederick I died while going on Crusade to retake the Holy Land from Islam. In short, while not denying or covering up the very real differences Frederick Barbarossa had with the papacy, I think Catholics should not be too hard on him. The first view of him that comes to mind should not be that of a villain.

It is only my opinion, and I may well be wrong, but I cannot help but think that such attitudes probably played into the hands of someone Catholics should oppose much more; Martin Luther. I can imagine it being a great gift to him and his portrayal of the pope as a corrupt, Italian prince who lorded over the Germans that their most celebrated national heroes among the emperors tend to be the ones most condemned by the Catholic Church. In some cases, there were legitimate grounds for such condemnations with emperors who were clearly in need of some "correction" but I do not think Frederick Barbarossa was really one of them and I think some distinction should be made between those who had religious differences with the Church itself and those who had political disputes with the papacy at a time when, for good or ill, the pope was a political figure and acted as such. Again, Frederick Barbarossa was crowned emperor by the Pope, it was in his reign that the empire was first referred to as the "Holy" Roman Empire, he took his position as the secular leader of Christendom very seriously and died on crusade. I think Catholics should stop with the knee-jerk evaluation of him as an enemy to be immediately condemned at every opportunity.

The Empire of Lies

One of America's most important "Founding Fathers" once referred to his vision of the United States of America as an "Empire of Liberty". A better description of modern republicanism in general could be the "Empire of Lies". Jefferson, of course, knew that his phrase in the Declaration of Independence, that "all men are created equal" was a lie when he said it. The struggle which prompted that phrase was based on a number of 'whoppers' such as the colonies being over-taxed (in fact, they were hardly taxed at all) to the claim that they could not be taxed since they had no representation in the British government when, in fact, they wanted no such representation because they could have been easily outvoted by the much larger population of Britain which was also much more heavily taxed and likely none too sympathetic with their receiving all of the benefits of British rule while shouldering hardly any of the cost.

We have lately been “treated” to two sides of the political spectrum in America arguing over “free speech” when neither of them actually believe in such a thing. The left shouts people down or resorts to violence to silence speech they disapprove of and, while the right has not done the same (such as in regards to the protests of the national anthem), that may well only be because they are unable to. As with all people of all times, they refuse to tolerate anyone disparaging that which they hold most dear. In the old days, it was speaking disrespectfully of the king or of Christianity that would land you in hot water, today it is more often speaking against the “narrative” of the ruling elite.

Also, recently, after the horrific mass-shooting in Las Vegas, we have the left telling another big lie which is that they are all about “gun control” and if only we could take guns away from people, all would be well. They don’t mean a word of it. If they did, they would not have put a stop to Mayor Giuliani’s program of “stop and frisk” in New York City which was aimed at getting illegal firearms off the streets. However, it seemed that the people with illegal firearms were too consistently of one color and so this was deemed “racist” and had to be stopped. So, by their actions, we know that any effort at “gun control” is really only an effort to suppress gun ownership by one segment of the population and not the population as a whole. After all, that “equality under the law” jargon has been shown to be nothing but a lie as well. The law only applies to certain people and some people are ‘more equal than others’.

Lies are the foundation of our modern society. Everyone knows this, it is only that few wish to seriously address it. Everyone in probably every society knows some version of the joke about politicians, how they pretend to tell us the truth and we pretend to believe them. The lies are positively essential when you have a society based on vague, ephemeral, unrealistic and unobtainable “ideals” rather than actual reality. Equality is not a reality and no amount of legal paperwork, five-year plans or social engineering can ever make it so. Popular sovereignty is a lie, there are those who rule and those who are ruled and that is just as true today as it was in the age of absolutism, the Middle Ages or ancient Rome. The separation of church and state is a lie and an increasingly obvious one. The official religion of every modern state is not always a traditional religion but it is at least a pseudo-religion. Often, this too is simply a “narrative” and that narrative will be defended with all of the zeal of the Dominicans of the Inquisition.

Modern Germany offers a plethora of examples. Freedom of assembly? Only for those approved of by the elite. Democracy? The Germans never voted to make themselves an endangered species. They never voted to get rid of the Kaiser and in this Germany of government ‘by the people’, the choice of going back to the Kaiser is legally forbidden to them. Freedom of speech is an obvious lie everyone knows about and it has been mentioned here before. Tell someone you think the Armenian genocide did not happen and you may be thought a crank but tell someone you think the Holocaust did not happen and you will be put in prison. Fly a communist flag, you may offend a few but will be in no trouble. Fly a Nazi flag and, again, you will go to prison. In Nazi Germany, all parties but one were banned. Modern Germany gives you a wide selection of parties to choose from but only those the ruling elite approves of. We are told, of course, that this is because some ideas are simply too dangerous to be allowed a hearing. That is fair enough, however, it also means that the people who lie and say they believe in self-rule by "the people" do not believe the people are intelligent enough to refrain from supporting the Nazis if they were able to hear them and consider their ideas. Obviously, once again, the whole basis of their system is a lie.

The French Republic, likewise, rests on a bed of lies. The lie that the Revolution was in any way glorious rather than an orgy of self-destruction, the lie that the revolutionaries ever actually delivered on any of their high-sounding promises, the lie that the republic prevailed because of its superiority rather than the inability of the royalists to present a better alternative, all the way up to more recent lies such as what the French were doing in World War II. Some things, such as the storming of the Bastille being a heroic enterprise, are simply lies but the French Revolutionaries are more likely to lie by omission. This is quite common nowadays. There is simply no way to put a positive spin on something like the crushing of the Vendee uprising, the September Massacres or how the little Dauphin was abused, tormented and finally starved to death so such things are simply not talked about at all.

Practically all of our modern lives are based on lies. The education system is full of lies designed to feed the narrative of our rulers, as is the news media and much of pop culture. Our economic system is based on lies. Napoleon Bonaparte once said that, "History is a set of lies agreed upon". Substitute the word "currency" for "history" and this statement is just as true. Our money has value because our government lies to us and tells that it does, simply because they say so, and we believe them because not to would be disastrous. So much of our economies today depend on people making bets on the profits to be made on products that have not even been manufactured yet. We buy, sell and trade success or loss on items no one has produced. Not all of course, but a great deal of it is all based on nothing concrete, nothing substantive. In other words, lies, selling a product you do not have for imaginary money from someone else. And, it all goes on because to admit the lie would cause the entire facade to come crashing down and leave everyone in ruins. One of the "benefits" of globalism is that all the nations of the world are now members of a suicide pact.

Once upon a time, all of this was not so. In the pre-revolutionary days things were quite different. Not that lies did not exist in those days, they certainly did, but because before the revolutionary era there was no mass-politics, no politicians and thus no need to resort to wide-scale deceit in order to win and hold on to power. In the days of traditional monarchy, the system was not based on lies but on straightforward loyalties and obligations. Monarchs were monarchs of peoples, their peoples and their only concern was what was in the best interests of their peoples. The King of the English, the King of the Franks, the Emperor of the Romans etc did not have ideologies, political parties and pressure groups tearing at them. They did not have welfare states to fund (the Church and the guilds took care of such things), they did not have an entire system of government based on false and absurd ideals that required an army of propagandists working 24/7 to maintain and adjust the flow of lies. You knew who was in charge, you knew who had power over you, you knew what your obligations were and you knew who was responsible if things went badly.

I doubt many today could even imagine how much more simple, direct and honest things used to be in the days before every man, woman and child was expected to be involved in politics. I doubt many can imagine what it was like before everyone in society was locked in constant ideological warfare with their fellow citizens. It was the way life was once. There were no Tories, Labourites and Liberal Democrats, there were just Englishmen. There were no Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, Greens and so on, just Germans, Frenchmen and so on all wanting to make the best of their lives, to live in peace and not be plundered by the neighbors. Your king was your king, your lord or other local authority was well known as were his obligations. A society without politics, without political parties, seems endlessly attractive to me. I wonder if we are becoming so inundated with lies these days that others might start to feel the same?

Catalonia, Separatism & Small States

The day of the great independence referendum in the Catalonian region of the Kingdom of Spain has now come and gone and the result is that, true to their word, the Spanish government did not allow it to happen. Spanish police and the Civil Guard were deployed prior to the day votes were to be cast to raid polling stations, seize ballot papers, prevent people from voting and arrest ringleaders. Catalan separatists responded with cries of fascism and militarism, as well as producing ballots Catalans could print out at home. That, of course, only reaffirms the comment made by the Spanish prime minister that the referendum was a mere mockery of democracy. It is hard to say how he is wrong. Separatist leaders gave no guidelines by which success could be judged, no level at which voter turnout would be deemed sufficient to declare it legitimate, the voting process would be in the hands of the separatists themselves as would the process of counting the votes. It sounds rather like the referendum which gave birth to the Italian Republic in that regard.

Certainly, the entire affair contained a great deal of what the political class calls “bad optics” for the Spanish government with scenes of police smashing into polling stations and roughing up Catalan voters. However, what else could have been expected? The Spanish courts had already ruled that such a vote would be illegal and would have no validity, the organizers were openly flouting the law and the only recourse left was the use of force by the state. However, “optics” do matter these days and have for a long time actually which is why President Lincoln in the United States ordered the re-supply of the sacrificial garrison at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. He knew the outpost was doomed but he wanted the “optics” of the southerners firing on the American flag in order to boost northern support for a war of conquest against the breakaway southern states. The Catalan separatists were also clever enough to keep the issue simple, far more simple than it actually is, by giving the people the choice of only two options; the status quo or a Catalan republic. Thus, all we know about what sort of state they were proposing was that it would not be a monarchy.

These are certainly troubled times for the once proud and powerful Kingdom of Spain and there seems no hope of anything getting better in the immediate future. Separatist leaders have already, in spite of no vote really being held, declared themselves the winners with Carles Puigdemont saying that Catalonia has, “won the right to an independent state in the form of a republic” and that the way is now open for a unilateral declaration of independence. Again, it is noteworthy that the only thing the separatist leader can say to describe his ideal, independent, Catalonia is that it will be some sort of republic. What would actually resist remains to be seen as the separatists have portrayed independence as all things to all people, presenting differing visions cut to the customer’s satisfaction. To the socialists, it will be more socialist than ever, to the liberals it will be more capitalist than ever, to the Muslims, well, they were promised a ‘mega-mosque’ to be built when independence is achieved. They have no doubt about what sort of state they want and their views cannot be ignored considering that Catalonia has the highest percentage of Muslims among the Spanish regions. In fact, if Catalonia became independent, it would have the third most Muslim population in the neighborhood with a greater percentage than either Britain or Germany.

What has been odd is the number of people on the slightly right-of-center side of the political spectrum taking up the cause of Catalan independence. For the most part, these have been people and news outlets far removed from Spain who are mostly responding to the aforementioned “optics” of the situation. An independent Catalan republic would certainly be no bastion of conservatism or traditional European values (as the size and growth of the Muslim population rather clearly demonstrates). It would not even be all that “independent” given that they are even now looking to the EU to intervene on their behalf. So far, EU authorities have been rather lukewarm on the subject of Catalan independence, certainly showing none of the enthusiasm they failed to hide on the issue of Scottish independence. This, I contend, is simply because of money. Spain owes the EU a great deal of it and Catalonia accounts for about a fifth of the Spanish economy. If Catalonia were able to leave Spain, it would mean Spain would be even less likely to pay back its debts. Further, regions of Spain would likely then begin abandoning the sinking ship so that they are not the last one left holding the bill.

Due to a couple of comments, I think it also worth addressing the broader point of the ever-dividing states of Europe. I do not think I made it clear enough before why I think these ever smaller states are helpful. In the first place, whether one is speaking of Catalonia or Flanders or even Scotland, the immediate or ultimate end of these movements are to create more republics which is repugnant to my monarchist loyalties. However, even were they not, they would hardly be in a position to be truly independent. Some, more often the libertarian-minded rather than reactionary, also put forth the notion of micro-states. The problem with these is that they are too small and too incapable of the practical necessities of actual independence to withstand the stresses they would inevitably face. Those who point to the benefits of free market economics, and they have a case certainly, point to examples such as the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong which, while self-governing, was a colony and not independent. The Principality of Liechtenstein, while legally sovereign, is not capable of total independence and for most of its history has not been, previously being part of the First German Empire, currently part of a customs union with Switzerland.

The point can be made quite clear, I think, by pointing out the obvious which is that any small state which, unlike an independent Scotland or Catalonia or Flanders, truly wishes to go against the prevailing world order, will find itself isolated and vulnerable. Consider, for example, the fate of Rhodesia or South Africa prior to Black rule. These were not micro-states, in the case of South Africa it is a quite large state. However, even with their considerable resources, they were ultimately unable to stand against a hostile globe that treated them as pariahs. Even in the case of a Liechtenstein or a Monaco, these countries have had to bend to the international elites to one degree or another in order to retain their sovereign status. However, if you are not prepared to do business the way the masters of the current world order demand, such a state would be slapped with every sort of sanction imaginable. You have to have enough resources to be self-sufficient or otherwise have a patron to whom you are answerable like China is to North Korea. This is why there really is no substitute for winning the battle, winning the argument, because withdrawing is not possible when dealing with control-freaks.