The Fourth of July

I loved America.

I use the past tense, not because my feelings have changed, but because America has ceased to exist. A zombie in its shape continues to lumber along, for the moment, but all that is truly left of my beloved country is a precious memory.

Don't misunderstand me. Though I could list many of his deeds that I thoroughly disapprove of, I am not one of the pro-terrorist morons with Bush Derangement Syndrome who hates him for trying to protect Americans from terrorism (also known as "doing his job"), unlike Clinton, who declined Egypt's offer to hand Osama over to us and refused to speak to the head of the CIA even once during his eight years in office; Gore, who humiliated the country before the world with a ludicrous attempt to steal the election, and then tried to distract us all from the serious problem of terrorism with lies about the environment; or the foreigner currently illegally occupying the White House, who constantly humiliates us with his tacky behavior, has literally bowed to our enemies, and clearly intends to deliver us into their hands. Not one of Dubya's widely-denounced actions would have even been contemplated if not for the criminal folly of the past century of Democrats. (Not that all of the blame lies with them; they wrought the havoc, but we allowed them to do so.) Left with their mess to try to tidy up, he did as well as is humanly possible. I voted for Dubya twice and am glad I did so. I have to admit, as recently as the year I was born, Dubya would have been far too liberal on numerous issues for most conservatives' taste, certainly my own. But by the 21st century, no one who would have even dreamed of the proper course of action in these times could get elected Registrar of Deeds, let alone president. In Europe, such people are routinely thrown into prison nowadays, solely on the basis of what they say. I expect the same to be the case here before long.

But despite his many flaws, in this era when even "conservatives" have come to believe that children do fine with working mothers and that Western nations should continue to admit millions of Third World illiterates every year, Dubya was the absolute best we could possibly elect. Certainly he was far better than we now deserve. I am and will always be grateful to him. History shall recall him as the final American president. He gave our country its last chance.

Last November, we chose to throw it away.

Already, the usurper now at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has proven to be the worst president we have ever had, surpassing even Woodrow Wilson. Those Europeans who don't hate America but aren't too terribly keen on its hegemony might not be too dismayed at the thought of America's inevitable collapse in power and prosperity at this man's hands, but consider the consequences to Europe of previous bad presidents. Franklin Delano Roosevelt allowed the attack on Pearl Harbor so that he could drag us into the war and advance his socialist, democratic, universalist agenda. Without his connivance, the Soviet Union would likely not have been allowed to claim so much of Eastern Europe, and the Cold War might have been averted. Perhaps we may give Roosevelt a partial pass, because yes, the Nazis did need to be stopped, most urgently. Let us instead lay the blame at the feet of his predecessor, Woodrow Wilson, without whom there would never have been a Second World War. The Treaty of Versailles, income tax, the League of Nations, and Prohibition are only a few of Wilson's evil legacies. These two presidents rode roughshod over America, but there is no doubt that Europe suffered far more because of them than we ever have. Do you really think our current scoundrel will leave Europe no worse off than it now is?

And to those Americans who keep dismissing my worries by saying, "All we have to do is elect a good man in 2012 and he'll fix everything," you are ignoring historical precedent. Of the vile things Woodrow Wilson inflicted on our country, Prohibition is the only one that has been rescinded, though not before who knows how many people were murdered or impoverished by it. We continue to suffer for all of his other crimes, and those of his left-wing successors. Even the best presidents we have managed to elect have never managed more than token gestures in restoring our freedom and rights to us. What makes us imagine that this time will be any different?

I still love my country, even though it no longer exists. I love our generosity, our optimism, our self-reliance, our ingenuity. I love these things even though for a century now evil men have twisted them to evil ends. I love them even though all of these qualities are being brainwashed out of us.

Unless a miracle happens, July Fourth will for the rest of my life be a day of mourning for me.

Forgot one!

Or rather, when I saw the link, I thought that it was already on my blogroll.

An Australian Young Fogey

See this post by him: Why I am a Monarchist

Monarchy is cheap and efficient. We have had over a century of politicial stability thanks to the Crowns check on political power, and we pay very little for it. The annual cost of the Governor General, the Governors and their respective staff and residence is nothing compared with the cost of to the taxpayer of our politicians and their staff and allowances and whatnot (I do not begrudge them any of that, so long as it is not abused). The cost of the Monarch herself (or himself, as it will be again in the future) is technically born by Her British subjects, but even then the annual allowance of fifty million pounds or whatever it may be exactly is more than offset by the hundreds of millions of pounds the Crown Estate (the income of which is granted to the Government by the Monarch in exchange for said allowance) generates per annum.

It may be that we could develop an institution that will provide the checks and balances of our present system under a republic, but how much more expensive will that be to initiate and maintain? How many independent watch dogs and committes will it require? We have a remarkably effective system at very little cost.

A couple of additions to the blogroll

Well. I've been holding these links to newly discovered blogs for a few weeks until I got around to sharing them. In the interim, a couple of them turned really trashy, and another was deleted. Here's the ones that are left:

Mary Tudor: Renaissance Queen

The New Crusade

A Blog dedicated to the promotion of the Traditional Roman Catholic Faith in union with HH Benedict XVI, to the preservation of our Traditional Græco-Roman Catholic Civilisation and to the New Crusade against Islam. This Blog is under the Patronage of the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts of Christ our King and His Holy Mother, our Queen and of Santiago Matamoros (St James the Moor-slayer) and the Crusader King, St Louis IX of France.

Praying with the Kaisers by John Zmirak

The job of protecting the liberty of the Church and enforcing (yes, enforcing) that Law fell not to the clergy but to laymen. The clergy were not a political party or a pressure group -- but a separate Estate that often as not served as a counterbalance to the authority of the monarchy. No monarch was absolute under this system, but held his rights in tension with the traditional privileges of nobles, clergy, the citizens of free towns, and serfs who were guaranteed the security of their land. Until the Reformation destroyed the Church's power to resist the whims of kings -- who suddenly had the option of pulling their nation out of communion with the pope -- no king would have had the power or authority to rule with anything like the monarchical power of a U.S. president. Of course, no medieval monarch wielded 25-40 percent of his subjects' wealth, or had the power to draft their children for foreign wars. It took the rise of democratic legal theory, as Hans Herman Hoppe has pointed out, to convince people that the State was really just an extension of themselves: a nice way to coax folks into allowing the State ever increasing dominance over their lives.

A Christian monarchy, whatever its flaws, was at least constrained in its abuses of power by certain fundamental principles of natural and canon law; when these were violated, as often they were, the abuse was clear to all, and the monarchy often suffered. In extreme cases, kings could be deposed. Today, by contrast, priests in Germany receive their salaries from the State, collected in taxes from citizens who check the "Catholic" box. So much for the independence of the clergy.

Is Democracy for the Demos?

It would appear that democracy benefits the rulers, as democracy alone has provided the most consistent means for those formerly in power to sleep and die in peace.

And the same holds for the courtiers, nomenklatura, and apparatchiks. These sycophants need no longer dread midnight's knife and muffled cries, and the subsequent crowning of a new king. The elite and bureaucracy can retire to their farms and while away their passing years without fear — their riches and posterity intact.

As I see it now, democracy is not to the advantage of the demos, it is to the advantage of the power elite. Something to think about.

Hat tip for both: Wilson Revolution Unplugged

Job for Indian royal descendant

"It will great to have Madhu working for us. Actually, it will be a great tribute to the last Mughal emperor who played a key role during the first war of independence in 1857," Coal India Chairman Partha Bhattacharyya said.

The move by Coal India follows sustained efforts by a Delhi-based journalist Shivnath Jha, who launched a campaign to rescue her from poverty.

Madhu's cause was one of several highlighted by Mr Jha and his wife Neena in an initiative to rehabilitate descendants of the forgotten heroes of India's independence wars.

Quotations

"I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past."
~Thomas Jefferson

Oh, TJ. If your dreams of the future had been more accurate, you'd have known just how wrongheaded that was.

Reminds me of another splendid-sounding, misguided quotation, this one from George Bernard Shaw, repeated often by Robert F. Kennedy, which is all the disqualification any quotation needs.

"You see things and say 'Why?'; but I dream things that never were and I say 'Why not?'"

My answer? "Probably for a damn good reason."

Bookmark I picked up in a used bookstore

Quotation of the Day

"Vote for the man who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing."
~Bernard Baruch

Things to read

Even if you don't regularly read UR, be sure not to miss this week's offering.

We now arrive at the fundamental comedy of democratic libertarianism - a proposition no less grimly hilarious for its infinite boneheadedness. At the start of the 20th century, "classical liberalism" was conventional common sense, and Marxism and its relatives were on the fringe. Now, Marxism and its progeny are as ubiquitous as cytomegalovirus, and the lineage of John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer and Thomas Jefferson infects only a few nerds, stoners and other freaks. (And the world, of course, has gone to hell in a handbasket.) Is this just a coincidence?

Um, no, duh. It's not just a coincidence. Because if you and your friends can parrot Marxism and get it together to capture the State, Marxism gives you: (a) money; (b) power; and probably (c) women. Whereas if you and your friends can parrot Rawlsekianism and get it together to capture the State, Rawlsekianism gives you - what? Philosophical satisfaction? So: which of these creeds would you expect to be more popular with the masses?

So what we'd expect, just from rational first principles, is that if you start with a libertarian democracy, it will eventually become socialist. Socialism, as a theology of vote-buying and worse, is perfectly preadapted for Darwinian success in a democracy. If democracy is like cancer, socialism is like terminal cancer - the natural, entropic endpoint of the process.

Also, in the post he links this essay: The Bourgeois Revolution.

For years, political theorists have argued that developing a healthy middle class is the key to any country's democratization. To paraphrase the late political scientist Samuel Huntington: Economic growth and industrialization usually lead to the creation of a middle class. As its members become wealthier and more educated, the middle class turns increasingly vocal, demanding more rights to protect its economic gains.

But over the past decade, the antidemocratic behavior of the middle class in many countries has threatened to undermine this conventional wisdom. Although many developing countries have created trappings of democracy, such as regular elections, they often failed to build strong institutions, including independent courts, impartial election monitoring, and a truly free press and civil society.

The middle class's newfound disdain for democracy is counterintuitive. After all, as political and economic freedoms increase, its members often prosper because they are allowed more freedom to do business. But, paradoxically, as democracy gets stronger and the middle class grows richer, it can realize it has more to lose than gain from a real enfranchisement of society.

Soon after acquiring democracy, urban middle classes often grasp the frustrating reality that political change costs them power. Outnumbered at the ballot box, the middle class cannot stop populists such as Thaksin or Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Once the middle class realizes it cannot stop the elected tyrants, it also comes to another, shattering realization: If urban elites can no longer control elections, all of their privileges -- social, economic, cultural -- could be threatened.

Of course, the columnist believes that the mob rule that robs people of their rights is a good thing. He is also a pinko of some sort - isn't it cute how he calls Hugo Chávez a "populist"? I'm apparently behind the times, as I didn't know that "populist" was the newest euphemism for "communist". They rebrand so often you just can't keep up.