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A monarchical rant

I came across this socialist rant against the monarchy and the idea of monarchy, which stimulated the creative juices. I thought it was worth responding to.  First the case against monarchy, from the World Socialist Website, which I am  sure you will enjoy for its over-the-top-ness..

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/09/17/pers-s17.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws

 

“The capitalist class buried the ghosts of its republican ancestors long ago. Confronting social and political crises of unprecedented magnitude, they turn to autocracy and authoritarianism as bulwarks in defense of their privileges and recognize in monarchy an institutional form of their class aspirations.

Monarchy is an institution of colossal stupidity, a barbarous vestige of the feudal past; its persistence is an embarrassment to humanity. Founded on heredity, shored up with inbreeding, intermarriage and claims of divine right, the monarchic principle enshrines inequality as the fundamental and unalterable lot of humanity and maintains this lot with the force of autocratic power.

The kings and queens enthroned by this principle are stunted by more than just hemophilia and the Habsburg jaw. Their social function distills in their lineage the most concentrated reaction. Elizabeth II was cousin to the Tsarist Romanovs; her Nazi-sympathizing uncle, King Edward VIII, abdicated in 1936 and headed off to Germany with his Nazi-sympathizing wife to salute Adolf Hitler.

The royal family is marked by the sorts of scandals that develop among those with a great deal of unearned money and unspent time. Her son, Prince Andrew, sold arms to autocratic regimes and paid £12 million to cover up his role in sex trafficking underaged girls with Jeffrey Epstein. Her grandson, Prince Harry, used to dress up in full Nazi regalia.

It was in defiance of the monarchic principle that the American Declaration of Independence stated, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

This conception fueled the American Revolution. Thomas Paine’s pamphlet, Common Sense, which historian Gordon Wood termed “the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era,” directly attacked not just George III but the very existence of monarchy, writing:

In England a king hath little more to do than to make war and give away places; which in plain terms, is to impoverish the nation and set it together by the ears. A pretty business indeed for a man to be allowed eight hundred thousand sterling a year for, and worshiped into the bargain! Of more worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.

Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the US Constitution codified this principle for the new nation: “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States.”

Immense concentrated private wealth, founded on exploitation and inequality, and the unending expansion of empire have stamped out any trace of such democratic sentiments in the American ruling elite. They no longer, in the phrase of Milton, prefer “hard liberty before the easy yoke of servile pomp.” They seek to defend their interests through autocratic rule and look with welcome upon the principle of monarchy.

On the order of President Biden, US flags were deferentially lowered for the dead queen, placed at half-staff for 12 days. Elizabeth II is separated from George III by generations; Biden is separated from Jefferson by an unbridgeable historical chasm.

Over the past six years we have witnessed a turn among the ruling elite around the globe to openly autocratic and dictatorial forms of rule as social and political crisis have sharpened and turned deadly. It is this that fuels the unrestrained adulation in the American media for the dead queen and the crown she wore. An unprecedented political crisis grips the United States. The idea of a monarchical system, of an autocratic head of state who stands above the conflict, has a powerful appeal to the embattled bourgeoisie.

The media give voice to these longings and package them for popular consumption. The phrase of J.A. Hobson, writing of imperialism at the opening of the 20th century, is apt: “snobbish subservience, the admiration of wealth and rank, the corrupt survivals of the inequalities of feudalism.” The deferential and servile talking heads of television news cultivate these traits. Often dressed up as progressive by identity politics, the monarchic principle is everywhere glorified, from Wakanda to Beyoncé to Downton Abbey.

The relentless adulation for the dead queen is mind-numbing. It is tempting to hunker down and weather the storm of stupidity. It must, however, be taken seriously, for it is a warning.”

To which I responded as follows:

I always love these rants against constitutional monarchies. The same way I enjoy Richard Dawkins railing against God with his materialist conception of reality. Both conflate a shallow form of instrumental reasoning with great depth of insight. Both misunderstand critically what makes people tick. Both are suffused with an obvious condescension to the large proportion of humanity that believes in the institution of constitutional monarchy and believes in God. Both think that an atheistic republic of means and ends would be better (by what criteria I ask?) for humans. Both fail to understand that God and kings are adaptive, in a Darwinian sense, in that they  promote group cohesion and cooperation.

 

When we say ‘God save our gracious King’, we ask one imaginary friend, power and ruler of the universe to help another imagined ruler fulfil his much less important earthly-scale job. Otherwise we have to swear allegiance to an abstraction like the Constitution and the flag. You do not escape imaginary political and emotional constructs by de-feudalizing them.

 

Quote: “the monarchic principle enshrines inequality as the fundamental and unalterable lot of humanity -yes it does, and suck it up, because it is the truth of the human condition – and maintains this lot with the force of autocratic power.” No, but by the force of allegiance to something greater than ourselves and the persons who embody that greatness. The Crown is all of us. We participate ina greatness which is not ours. We have elected politicians for the actual exercise of power, but they are in a real way restrained by having to be polite and subordinate to the monarch.

None of which prevents me from thinking Charles III is an eco-babbler, and saying so.

In short, my God is greater than your god, and much more powerful than your rational association of self interested actors seeking maximum personal autonomy, or whatever it is that socialists do in their miserable little lives.

 

Someone should read Peter Turchin’s War and Peace and War, on the subject of asabiya, the power of societies to cooperate for collective purposes. The term is taken from the Arabic philosopher of history, Ibn Khaldun. Then we might have a meaningful exchange about monarchies that dealt with what they actually do, rather than what socialists think they do.

A better anti-monarchical argument is presented by the barbarian Ygritte presenting the casefor equality in this excerpt from Game of Thrones: “You know nothing, John Snow”.

 

 

 

 

 

Populism is just resistance

The US economy is having a Wile E Coyote moment | Financial Times

 

 

I am mystified by the the word “populism”. What is the opposite of populism? Elitism? Does the term ‘populism’ have any use other than as an insult? What is the matter with pursuing policies that have the support of most of the people? Does a carbon tax become a populist measure if it is opposed by most people, but remains a sensible proposal if supported by centrist parties or the elites?

The term is like smoke. It has no substance. We may feel we know what it means, but it means anything the Left says it means. Mostly it means people or policies they don’t like.

A constitutionally elected Prime Minister like the Hungarian Viktor Orban is described as an ‘authoritarian’, yet he holds a majority in the Hungarian Parliament, and would be out of power if he lost a majority in the house.  A ruthless dictator like Putin is described as an ‘authoritarian’, yet he hardly refers to or depends on the Russian Duma at all. A Prime Minister of Canada holds a majority in the House of Commons thanks to an parliamentary coalition with the fourth largest party.  He seeks to pass legislation crushing the possibility of free expression on the Internet, through a revised Broadcasting Act that makes most Internet expression into a state-licensed activity, and by an on-line harms bill, which says that only certain groups can be offended, and further seeks to control the press by a scheme of compulsory compensation from the large platforms to Canadian newspapers on conditions approved by the CRTC. Does Trudeau escape being labelled an authoritarian because he leaves speech control to regulatory agencies? Or because he effectively emotes a false compassion? It is a mystery.

 

Simon Jenkyns writes in the Guardian that

The message is that party is being supplanted by personality and identity. As relative prosperity rises, voters are taking recourse in prejudice and emotional security. They can distrust outsiders. They can hate globalists, parliamentarians, bureaucrats and liberals, however defined. They want to feel control over their own lives…This populism has torn the left-right spectrum apart.

It is not Simon Jenkyns’ finest article; but he is trying to warn the Left of the seriousness of the opposition to elite consensus politics. What Jenkyns and other self-styled progressives are trying to warn about is that issues are going to be contested in the next few years as they have not been since the 1970s or perhaps since the 1930s. Inflation, the COVID shut down, the lies about vaccines (safe! effective! mandatory!), global warming catastrophism (carbon neutral policies, taxes,  subsidizing electric cars, messing with people’s access to heating fuels), gender policy, LGBTQQ+ and its attendant speech controls: the vast panoply of governmental management of the economy, nudging of behaviour and thought control is shortly to be contested. The political elites have engaged in grotesque over-reach and, like Wile E. Coyote treading air over the desert floor, they are showing signs they know they may have gone too far.

 

 

 

 

Rittenhouse acquitted

 

From CBC news, which fails to mention the criminal pasts of the people shot by Rittenhouse:

“Huber was then killed after hitting Rittenhouse in the head or neck with a skateboard, and Grosskreutz was shot after pointing a gun of his own at Rittenhouse.

“After the verdict, Huber’s parents, Karen Bloom and John Huber, said the outcome “sends the unacceptable message that armed civilians can show up in any town, incite violence, and then use the danger they have created to justify shooting people in the street.”

I thought that was what the Black Lives Matter and Antifa did. Apparently only they are entitled to show up in any town, incite violence, and create the danger that justifies shooting. Defenders of order are criminals if they do the same.

 

The Democratic Party’s Value Proposition

1. Nominate a presidential candidate who is manifestly in mental decline. He is embarassing to watch.

2. Nominate a Vice-Presidential candidate more PC and less popular than Biden or most of the other runners-up for the Democratic presidential nomination.

3. Burn the downtown cores of cities when they are in Democratic Party control.

4. Promise whites that they will suffer for all eternity for their “whiteness”, because whiteness, like a voodoo emanation, is the all-sufficient explanation for black underperformance.

5. Promise to defund the police and in the meantime fail to support them against rising tides of crime and lawless behaviour.

6. Rigorously pursue policies in the work place that discriminate against white males, and require thought crime confessions in public shaming ceremonies.

7. Invade neighborhoods after dark in deliberate acts of annoyance and terrorization.

8. Blame Trump for the urban violence and intimate that a Biden election victory might possibly end it, or not.

Do I have this right? Am I missing anything?

Seen in this light, the clever minds of the Democratic Party must be wondering at this stage whether their strategy is working. Thirty seconds of clear thought would indicate that this strategy is suicidal, yet they cannot back down, or shift to something more positive. They are doubling down on a bad bet. Meantime their thugs are out losing the election for them,

Have you noticed the meme going around that Portland is “mostly peaceful”?

I am reminded of the line in Gladiator, “people should know when they are conquered”.

 

The Kielburgers explained: transferring wealth upward under cover of high-mindedness

 

The main thing, says Eric Weinstein, at 2:00 into the interview,  is to find an ideology or sentiment that covers your trail. Thus wealth transfer upward to the elites can take place under cover of “we are the World”, concerts for Africa, or for the American farmer. “The dominant narrative of a time is a false narrative disguising how we can make money during that time.” [roughly] “There was some process by which globalization was a betrayal of your countrymen.That thing was the Davos idealism, which is now cratering because it was a wealth transfer program posing as a philanthropic effort.”

I may not agree with Eric on everything, but I agree with him on many many subjects. And one of them is his clear sighted take on how the noble vision has been used to disguise and legitimate the transfer of wealth from the working classes to the rich.

But back to the Kielburgers, those grifters. Do you see how it is done? Pose as champions of social justice. Get youth and politicians behind you. Ensconce yourself in the crowd of mega-rich. Virtue signal all the time. Find a narrative in which you are point men for world-scale caring and concern Shift the funds into real estate.

The Queen was overheard to say about one of the Kielburgers, when she was on tour in Canada, that he was a model little politician, or words to that effect. Don’t say we weren’t warned. One of the rotten aspects of Her Majesty’s job is to greet cordially people you know from the bottom of your heart are greasy-pole climbing frauds.

 

ImageMoments ago

@marckielburger

just informed the Commons finance committee that in addition to the $312,000 paid to Margaret Trudeau for speaking at WE Day events she was reimbursed an additional $167,944 in expenses. So a total of $479,944. #cdnpoli #WEscandal

Berlin 1928

I have been reading the wonderful, and last, book of the late Philip Kerr, called Metropolis. Kerr died untimely at age 62 in 2018. Metropolis is set in Berlin, in 1928. The Nazis and the Commies are engaged in street fighting. The political order is delicate. The government can barely summon a majority of centrist parties. Jews, many of whom are in senior positions in government, carry pistols for self protection. Jew hatred is rife; it has become socially normal in broad sections of the public. In Berlin, homosexuality both male and female is broadly tolerated and almost normal. The nightclubs offer British and other foreign visitors the same kind of sex tourism we have heard about in Thailand. Veterans in tattered uniforms without legs or arms beg in the street. Gangs of young thugs prowl the city looking for people to beat or rob. The police are barely able to keep a lid on the chaos.

Into this mess steps the young Bernie Gunther, newly appointed to the murder section of the Kripo, the criminal police. Bernie is a veteran of the trenches, and has a drinking problem. He lives in a boarding house. He is a widower. A man is killing and scalping young whores, and leaving behind false clues that take up police time in wild goose chases. Another killer is putting bullets into the heads of veterans begging on the streets, and sending taunting letters to the police department mocking their inability to catch him.

Many  scenes are set in various night clubs where, if the shows are not sexual they involve cruelty and degradation of the performers or of the audience. As I read one particularly horrid passage, where the talentless were humiliated before a howling audience, I thought of the idea of a stand up comedian telling the audience, in 1928, just for laughs, what would happen to Berlin and Germany in the next thirty years. I wonder if such a comedian could make it sound funny. I bet you he could carry it off for a while.

  • within the next 5 years, Hitler would bring the Nazis to power (scattered boos, plenty of applause)
  • The night clubs of Berlin would be shut down immediately after the Nazi take-over (much booing, scattered applause)
  • Germany would absorb Austria, repudiate the Versailles treaty and re-arm (more applause)
  • Jews would be publicly humiliated, their wealth ripped off by the Nazi state, and they would be disbarred from public office (mixed applause, nervous laughter)
  • The Sudetenland would be absorbed into Germany, and Czechoslovakia would be dismembered (more applause)
  • The British and French reaction to the rearmament and these events would be supine passivity (wild applause)
  • Hitler and Stalin would make a non-aggression pact, as Great Britain dithered too long in its dealings with Stalin  (scattered shouts of disbelief) leaving Hitler a free hand in the East (strong applause)
  • In 1939, only eleven years into the future, Poland would be invaded and crushed in weeks, while 240 French divisions  do nothing on the German border. Some French troops march ten miles into Germany and then march out again. (cries in incredulity, scattered applause)
  • In 1940, Germany invades France through the Ardennes and conquers France in six weeks using a combination of tank and airpower to achieve paralysis of the French ability to combat the Germans effectively. (wild applause)
  • The English manage to get out of France by a massive sea lift from Dunkirk, leaving their equipment behind. (cheers, boos)
  • The German air force fails to suppress the British air force, and gradually calls off major air operations over England by 1941 (boos)
  • Winston Churchill is made British Prime Minister, and offers his people nothing but “blood, toil, tears and sweat”. (more booing)
  • Hitler invades the USSR in 1941 and nearly reaches Moscow. The Soviets reel and fall back, but do not give up. German casualties approach 1.5 million dead. (silence, some booing)
  • Having engaged Germany in a two front war, Hitler declares war on the United States after the Japanese neutralize the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, in December 1941. (Stunned silence)
  • Hitler launches an attack into the Caucasus, and sets the Sixth Army into Stalingrad on the Volga. In late 1942 the Sixth Army is surrounded and forced to surrender, with 600,000 prime German troops marched into captivity, from which maybe 15,000 would ever survive. (Boos, calls of “traitor”, and moves to get the comedian off the stage)
  • North Africa, Sicily, southern Italy reclaimed by the Allies in 1943. (more booing, hoots of derision)
  • Decisive defeat of the Germans at the battle of Kursk in 1943 (throwing of objects at the comedian)
  • Mass slaughter of Jews and Poles continues in captured Polish territory from 1942 onward. (silence)
  • Allies land in France in 1944 at the same time as German Army Group Centre collapses in Byelorussia in a military catastrophe so large it still does not have a place name assigned to it.
  • Russians conquer Berlin by May 1945 (gasps of horror, boos, calls to get the damn fool off the stage)
  • Communism imposed on eastern Germany, parliamentary government in the west  by late 1940s (boos).
  • Europe divided between communist east and capitalist west until 1989, when Russia throws in the towel and European Communism disappears as an effective force (the few communists in the audience boo, the rest give tepid applause)
  • Germany re-unites as a federated democratic republic. (tepid cheers, scattered boos)

At this point the Nazi sympathizers in the audience haul the comedian off the stage and beat him. Communists join in.

The point of this recitation of facts is that it would have been completely incredible to the louche and worldly audience in a Berlin nightclub in 1928, even as the chaos of Berlin was immediately before their eyes.

And I think that equivalent, and equally incredible, things are happening in western society today. The undermining of the host society by the termite forces of leftism is now revealing itself everywhere: abolition of the past, hatred for one’s own culture, anti-white racism, banning and exclusion of any thought that contradicts the Black Lives Matter narrative, total corruption of universities, firings, shamings, Maoist insurrections, the long horrid consequences of Jacques Derrida and the French nonsense machine, third rate Nietzscheans all. Prof. Gad Saad speaks of idea pathogens.

Where will it end? Either in revolution or in counter-revolution.

When will it come? The revolution is underway already.

The counter-revolution is not far behind.

Only those with impoverished imaginations fail to see it coming.

As Orwell said, sometimes it takes all our powers to see what is before our eyes.