Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 5:28am

Brace Yourselves: The Dark Enlightenment is Upon Us

If you haven’t heard just yet, there is a new political ideology making headway mostly in the online world: neoreaction. A friend of mine, Nicholas Pell, has given the basic rundown of this movement complete with useful introductory links for Taki’s Magazine. It will be worth your time to familiarize yourselves with this movement, regardless of what you come to think of it or may think already, as I believe it will only grow with time. For those who don’t know, by the way, I’m your local, friendly, fringe political theorist 🙂

Though the neoreactionaries appear to be a diverse group, ranging from your familiar traditional Catholic monarchists to godless futurists and trans-humanists, they are united by one common belief: that democracy has failed. It is this singular belief, in my view, that distinguishes neoreactionaries from conservatives, at least in the United States. Many of the other beliefs I have seen expressed by NRs, such as a strong preference for hierarchy, order, rational discrimination, and things of this nature are acceptable to most conservatives who aren’t, say, Huntsmanites. Of course I distinguish conservative politicians, whose expressed views are subject to public scrutiny, from the average voter. 

Neoreactionaries identify the object of their derision as “the Cathedral”, the amalgamation of individuals, institutions, movements, policies and the like, that create and defend the reigning ideology of the status quo: multiculturalism, diversity, “social justice” – in a word, egalitarianism. With Murray Rothbard they might say that egalitarianism is a revolt against nature. On that note, NR’s founding father, Mencius Moldbug, appears to have originally been inspired by the Austrian school that Rothbard helped popularize in the mid-20th century. These days NRs also draw inspiration from the writings of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (who acknowledges his debt to Rothbard). A critique of democracy has long been a staple of Austrian-libertarian circles, so it is natural to see NR as an outgrowth of, if not Austrian economics, at least Austrian political theory.

I am sympathetic to this movement and its general aim, which is to expose the irrationality of the egalitarian status quo. This goal is also mine. I am also quite reactionary as a Catholic: aesthetics, liturgy, theology, all of it. Wind back the clock, I say! I haven’t the slightest moral or general theoretical objection to monarchy or aristocracy, though I might prefer an elective one to a hereditary one. My pen name is taken for one of history’s greatest reactionaries in deed (though let it be remembered, as you read on, that he lead a popular insurrection).

However, I cannot identify as a NR, because I don’t see democracy as the problem – at least not right now. The introduction to Hoppe’s Democracy: The God That Failed provides an example of what I think is a misguided critique of democracy. In it, he blames democracy for cultural decline, abortion on demand, and other social ills:

In the U.S.; less than a century of full-blown democracy has resulted in steadily increasing moral degeneration, family and social disintegration, and cultural decay in the form of continually rising rates of divorce, illegitimacy, abortion, and crime. (xiii)

And yet we who have been active in pro-life politics for years know that policies such as legalized abortion were foisted upon us not by a popular democratic vote, but rather by activist judges following the theories developed in ivory towers quite distant from the masses of Archie Bunkers whose taxed labor supported their efforts.

Speaking of which, after all, who wants us to be soft on crime? Archie Bunker, or Meathead? Who thinks the family is outdated? Who thinks no-fault divorce is a spectacular blow for the liberation of women, seconded only by the right to legally murder their offspring? Who supports every filthy and perverted trend imaginable? We know who.

 

It is really only in the last decade or so – perhaps even half-decade when it comes to issues such as gay “marriage” – that so many of these issues became important to masses of people, and then, only roughly half. The Cathedral is a rickety ship attempting to hold together minorities who have socially conservative views with liberal whites, and particularly young single females. Below the ivory towers and judicial chambers, beneath the offices of studio executives and clueless corporate executives, it is a coalition of spite united in the promise of free stuff from Obama’s limitless stash. Will it hold? Does it represent the ultimate triumph of irrational egalitarianism through the democratic process?

I say it is too early to tell, and far too early to give up on candidates who seem genuinely interested in restoring the founding ideals of this country. That said, democracy is certainly not beyond critique or even rejection. It is not a divine commandment that we shalt have democracy. It isn’t even really an American ideal. But when the elites are rotten and corrupt to the core, and at least half of the people are willing to vote for and support what I value in the broad sense of things, I have no choice but to defend democracy in the present context. Talk to me again if and when we start a new political society, and you likely won’t find me too enthusiastic about it.

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Mary De Voe
Wednesday, January 29, AD 2014 8:58pm

The Constitution for the United States of America is ratified by every state. Any change to the Constitution must be ratified by three quarters of the states. The Preamble, the purpose of the Constitution is unchangeable, immovable, irreducible. Let us go forward with our inheritance. Live the Constitution, Love the Constitution.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, January 29, AD 2014 9:32pm

“It’s not Holy Scripture.” The Constitution for the United States of America is the TRUTH, the whole TRUTH and nothing but the TRUTH, so help me God. The “Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity”, all future generations should flow forth from these unalienable rights endowed by our Creator to man, the citizen, who with his sovereign personhood constitutes the state. God, through the sovereignty of the human being, creates Caesar.
Our posterity, our (constitutional) posterity exist in the mind of God. God, WHO is TRUTH. America is all generations, who have gone before us, in We, the people, all citizens, here and now and all future generations to come who have yet to be brought forth. The future generations come to us in perfect TRUTH, innocence and virginity. God does not make junk or sin or evil, only perfect Justice. The human soul comes to us in perfect TRUTH and Justice. The Supreme Court Justices are the personification of God’s perfect Justice.
“…namely that any government, if it ceases to protect the legitimate rights of the people, can be and ought to be tossed off.” The Constitution is the measure by which government must be judged or reckoned, or “tossed off”. God made us, God takes care of us.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, January 29, AD 2014 9:38pm

Also, The Declaration of Independence is also ratified by all of the colonies before the colonies became states.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Wednesday, January 29, AD 2014 9:54pm

Our problem is not democracy. It’s decadence.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, January 29, AD 2014 9:54pm

“When they forced abortion-on-demand on the 50 states of the Union, they were the personification of Lucifer’s nether-regions.” and they ought to have been “tossed off”. Roe v. Wade denied the human soul endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights, free will, intellect, intuition, genius. Roe V Wade denied to every American male the ownership of his offspring, his seed, giving the child over to the individual who intended to end his life, to scrape the human soul from the womb. Justice Stewart Potter asked Sarah Weddington, the attorney for Roe if the child in the womb might be a “person”. The child was not given the benefit of a doubt, because no one knew. Human rights are predicated on the existence of the human being, an individual substance of a rational nature. Thomas Aquinas’ definition of the “person”
The Supreme Court is to deliver equal Justice to all persons. In delivering equal Justice to all persons, living, deceased and yet to come, the Supreme Court is the personification of the virtue of Justice

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, January 29, AD 2014 9:56pm

Donald McClarey welcomed you back to The American Catholic. Welcome back.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, January 29, AD 2014 10:14pm

Welcome back Bonchamps, I reread you post and it is very good.”neoreaction” Obama wants to be king and the neoreactionists are going to make it happen.

Walter Yates
Walter Yates
Wednesday, January 29, AD 2014 10:52pm

Wherever this ultimately leads it would appear that we are in for a rough patch of civil violence.

trackback
Thursday, January 30, AD 2014 12:02am

[…] Z’s Blog Ugly Girls (“Monster High”) Part II – Theresa Thomas, Everyday Catholic Brace Yourselves: The Dark Enlightenment Is Upon Us – Bonchamps Culture & Disenchantment – Dale M. Coulter, First Things Reasons Not to […]

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Thursday, January 30, AD 2014 6:03am

As Winston Churchill said, democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.

Philip
Philip
Thursday, January 30, AD 2014 6:04am

Thank you for the education Bonchamps.

“Meathead” has had his way. Such a more peaceful planet these days. Oh by the way…mall shootings / school shootings. Blame it on Church and Democracy.

God help us.

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Thursday, January 30, AD 2014 6:44am

In the U.S.; less than a century of full-blown democracy has resulted in steadily increasing moral degeneration, family and social disintegration, and cultural decay in the form of continually rising rates of divorce, illegitimacy, abortion, and crime. (xiii)

This reminds me of this post by Sarah Hoyt where she remarks on how everybody (yes, I’ve even noticed it with a lot of Catholics) seems to have some concept of “paradise lost”. i.e. “Today sucks, yesterday was better, tomorrow’s going to be even worse.”
http://accordingtohoyt.com/2013/10/17/paradise-regained-again-and-again-and-again/

There was always this bliss and perfect place from which we came tumbling down.

In the early stages of the turning, humans can’t visualize what comes next and always always treat it as chaos and dissolution, which then goes to feed the myth of paradise lost.

Really, read the whole thing. Then realize it’s all been downhill after that first week. Yesterday had its sins. Tomorrow will to. We may as well do the best we can to reduce our part’s in today’s.

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Thursday, January 30, AD 2014 6:46am

Our problem is not democracy. It’s decadence.

Our problem is original sin. 😉

Mary De Voe
Thursday, January 30, AD 2014 7:19am

Unalienable rights can only be endowed by an infinite Supreme Sovereign Being, our Creator. “The rights the state gives, the state can take away.” as said by Thomas Jefferson. Therefore, the rights the state gives may be called “alienable” Unalienable rights, rights that cannot be taken away point to an infinite God. Human rights which must be unalienable since man is not created by the state, point to an un-created Supreme Sovereign Being WHO is existence and exists and may not be blasphemed without denigrating every human being and all of creation.
In other words, our Founding Principles and our Founding Fathers brought forth this nation, the United States of America on acknowledging an infinite loving God WHOM they called “our Creator”. And furthermore, invoked God’s Divine Providence in The Declaration of Independence and God’s Divine Providence in the Preamble to our Constitution for the United States of America as “the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and to our posterity,”
Atheism has no place here, in America. We, the people, tolerate the misunderstandings of the atheist, but atheism can go to hell where it belongs.
Any movement such as the “neoreactionaries” better have a firm grasp on theology and the God who created and endowed man, composed of human body and rational, immortal human soul in free will and freedom and endowed man with unalienable human rights for now and eternity, or the movement’s participants better prepare to endure the loss of their immortal souls.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, January 30, AD 2014 7:25am

““Today sucks, yesterday was better, tomorrow’s going to be even worse.”” and for atheism to prevent us from invoking Divine Providence is un-American and pure evil. Evil is as evil does. “You will know them by what they do.”

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Thursday, January 30, AD 2014 7:46am

““Today sucks, yesterday was better, tomorrow’s going to be even worse.”” and for atheism to prevent us from invoking Divine Providence is un-American and pure evil. Evil is as evil does. “You will know them by what they do.”

Uh… I suppose? Maybe?

Sorry, you went off the reservation there and didn’t leave a forwarding address. No idea what your point is.

Jonathan
Jonathan
Thursday, January 30, AD 2014 8:02am

A republic, if we can keep it.

The rise of popular democracy, it seems to me, goes hand-in-hand with the rise of egalitarianism and the fall of the Republic, in the United States. Need not be linked, you say? Truly, but I believe that they are.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Thursday, January 30, AD 2014 8:02am

I recently quoted Gibbon from “Decline and Fall . . . “ Here it is paraphrased: “An educated, well-informed populous, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and collected into constitutional assemblies form the only balance capable of preserving a free constitution against enterprises of an aspiring prince (despotism).”

The word “republic” is derived from the Latin “res publica.” It means the public thing. Laws that equally affect all the people are good. Those that positively affect some of we the people while adversely impacting others of we the people are bad.

Life, liberty and property (pursuit of happiness) are inalienable rights given to you by God.

The progressives believe the government/state owns you and your property.

The Constitution needed to amended to impose the income tax (not proprtional) on some of the people; along with the Federal Reserve: set up to benefit the money interests and the nation state. These were some salvoes fired in 1913 from so-called progressives’ siege guns which are constantly battering the “walls” of the Republic. The income tax and FR tear at the people’s hold on their property/pursuit of happiness.

One hundred years after the 1913 impositions of the FR and the income tax, the US is suffering evolving Obamocracy (class war, gender, race-baiting, and sexual orientation politics). They’re daily pitting some of us against the rest of us. In reality, it’s idiocracy.

The only answer is to limit the idiots’ power.

That the idiocrats have not destroyed everything is a testament to the strength of the American people and their families.

Alan J. Perrick
Alan J. Perrick
Thursday, January 30, AD 2014 8:11am

Democracy is a very big problem.

Philip
Philip
Thursday, January 30, AD 2014 8:19am

T. Shaw.
Thanks for Gibbons quote.
Balance!
The balance is precarious. Maybe it has been for quite awhile. To some it feels as though the wheels are falling off of the cart. Thank you for the clarity.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Thursday, January 30, AD 2014 8:55am

A theme of the 19th century historian, Lord Acton, was that freedom and equality are, perhaps, ultimately incompatible.

Of the French Revolution, he observed, “The hatred of royalty was less than the hatred of aristocracy; privileges were more detested than tyranny; and the king perished because of the origin of his authority rather than because of its abuse. Monarchy unconnected with aristocracy became popular in France, even when most uncontrolled; whilst the attempt to reconstitute the throne, and to limit and fence it with its peers, broke down, because the old Teutonic elements on which it relied – hereditary nobility, primogeniture, and privilege-were no longer tolerated. The substance of the ideas of 1789 is not the limitation of the sovereign power, but the abrogation of intermediate powers.”

Now, it is precisely these “intermediate powers” that are the great obstacle to despotism; the Tudor despotism would have been impossible, before the destruction of the feudal nobility in the Wars of the Roses. Henry VIII could sent More and Fisher to the scaffold; the Emperor Charles V could not send John of Saxony or the Landgrave of Hesse to the scaffold. In Scotland, it was no idle boast, when “Bonnie Dundee” or “Bloody Clavers,” depending on one’s point of view declared

“There are brave downie wassles three thousand times three
Cry hey for the bonnets o’ Bonnie Dundee”

It was the clansman’s loyalty to his chieftain that maintained his freedom from government interference.

By contrast, those who care chiefly for equality are easily persuaded that, if the central power is weak, the intermediate powers will run riot and oppress.

WK Aiken
WK Aiken
Thursday, January 30, AD 2014 9:09am

The Wilsonian “administrative state” and its progressive “rule by experts” was a pipe dream, borne of the now-derisible naive confidence of the turn of the 20th Century. Industry, science and law were finally taming the brutish natures of man (they thought,) and soon there would need be no more political conflict of any kind. A kind of Platonian Republic would be set in place, whose philosopher kings would be scientific, economic and social experts, and Man would witness “The End of History.” The War to End All Wars was the final cataclysm, and after the imperialist bourgeoisie had expended their bellicose urges once and for all, peace – not necessarily freedom, but that was a fair price to pay – would rule the world.
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We still labor under the works of the acolytes of that self-contradictory dream. The progressives, after WW2 fully compromised by their humanist cousins the communists, are still trying to build “the perfect state” and the only thing in their way is that pesky Constitution and its idiotic “limited government” ideas.
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Democracy, as attested to repeatedly throughout history, works well when the population is educated, resolute, moral, industrious and prosperous. However, as Athens teaches, all it needs is for one lazy but charismatic scoundrel to convince the public that they can vote themselves money from the treasury, and it collapses. Elaine, the Winston Churchill quote is among my favorites, as is another of his: “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with an average voter.”
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The progressives have taken advantage of democracy’s Achilles’ Heel, and are attempting to pull an end run around the Constitution. They have convinced too many people that security is favorable to liberty, and any thought of removing the safety caps of Leviathan scares the willies out of soccer moms and pajama boys from Seattle to Miami. Reversing that attitude will be generations in the doing.
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At this point, there’s usually a call to action or resolution of course. Sorry. All I have is Pray the Rosary, spend time with Our Lord in Adoration and take the Sacraments as often as is practical. Our current troubles will work themselves out as the natural balance asserts itself as it has in the past, again and again. We should simply be certain that we are standing on The Rock and not on sand when the waters rise, which they will. Gahenna will receive boxcars of fuel very soon, so we simply need to be sure we are not among it.

c matt
c matt
Thursday, January 30, AD 2014 1:05pm

I’m kind of with Art Deco. Democracy is not so much the problem as it is a system that is quite efficient at garbage in, garbage out. Or, as Will Rogers (I think) put it somewhat: Democracy is that system of government where the people get the government they deserve, good and hard.

Barbara
Barbara
Thursday, January 30, AD 2014 7:18pm

First of all: All pure democracies have fallen because majority rule leads to tyranny of the majority.

Second of all: We were never meant to be a democracy! Our form of government is a republic.

Third of all: The reason our form of government is failing us is because we are not willing as a whole to govern ourselves. Please read the following quotes from John Adams, one of our nation’s founders and second president. I have included the link below for additional founders’ thoughts on why our country is failing.

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
John Adams

“Liberty can no more exist without virtue and independence than the body can live and move without a soul.”
John Adams

“Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics.”
John Adams

“[I]t is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue.”
John Adams

“The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy.”
John Adams

“Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, they may change their rulers and the forms of government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty.”
John Adams

“Honor is truly sacred, but holds a lower rank in the scale of moral excellence than virtue. Indeed the former is part of the latter, and consequently has not equal pretensions to support a frame of government productive of human happiness.”
John Adams

http://www.liberty1.org/virtue.htm

CatholicsRock!
CatholicsRock!
Thursday, January 30, AD 2014 8:40pm

I really think we are very lucky to have this Pope at this point in history.
He has Meathead eating out of his hand.
Let’s all try to give those poor stupid souls a hand up out of Gahenna, no matter how hard they try to get there.
It really is very annoying to deal with Meathead, though.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, January 30, AD 2014 9:40pm

Thank you, Barbara, for the quotes from John Adams.
“First of all: All pure democracies have fallen because majority rule leads to tyranny of the majority.” The majority of one, or “E Pluribus Unum”, “One from Many” is our constitutional posterity, the one who comes to us in innocence and virginity, in truth and Justice raises us all up..
Walter Yates:
“Wherever this ultimately leads it would appear that we are in for a rough patch of civil violence.”
Walter, the violence is already upon us in the form of the lies about the human person in pornography, the eradication of the virtue of Justice, the standard of Justice, of the newly begotten innocent posterity, the pearl of great price in the human body, the human soul, denied by atheism, and the surrender of sovereignty for a bowl of pottage. How much more violence can happen to a people, a sovereign nation before it ceases to exist?
Bonchamps: “But don’t forget the Declaration of Independence, which articulates even more fundamental truths – namely that any government, if it ceases to protect the legitimate rights of the people, can be and ought to be tossed off.”
This principle is also inscribed in the First Amendment which proclaims the peoples’ right to petition government for redress, with the connotation that the government is ready, willing and able to address and redress any fault or mistake without imposing absolute autocratic authority abused over the citizen who constitutes its very existence.(Obama care and the HHS Mandate are very good examples of absolute autocratic authority abused)
WK Aiken:
“The Wilsonian “administrative state” and its progressive “rule by experts” was a pipe dream”
Woodrow Wilson’s pipe dream, the League of Nations is alive and well in the United Nations and both as corrupt, imposing atheism, removing any acknowledgment of our Creator, Divine Providence and of man’s soul. The human rights of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights defines man and human rights as coming from the “community” or the state, They say that these rights are inalienable, but without an infinite God to reinforce man’s rights what will a corrupt state do for man except enslave him?
Michael Paterson-Seymour: “By contrast, those who care chiefly for equality are easily persuaded that, if the central power is weak, the intermediate powers will run riot and oppress.”
“…those who care chiefly for equality” must busy themselves with equal Justice. There is honor among thieves, therefore, equality can only be made through the virtue of Justice, equal Justice for all. “Those who hunger and thirst for Justice will have their fill.”
Philip:
“Balance!” The Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial branches of government are balance. These people represent we, the people.
T Shaw:
“Laws that equally affect all the people are good. Those that positively affect some of we the people while adversely impacting others of we the people are bad.” Very well said.

“Democracy: The God That Failed” If persons are not insulted by that title, they ought to be. Patriotism is a virtue. Politicians are punks. “All I have is Pray the Rosary”

Mary De Voe
Thursday, January 30, AD 2014 10:02pm

Nate Winchester: “““Today sucks, yesterday was better, tomorrow’s going to be even worse.”” and for atheism to prevent us from invoking Divine Providence is un-American and pure evil. Evil is as evil does. “You will know them by what they do.”
Uh… I suppose? Maybe?
Sorry, you went off the reservation there and didn’t leave a forwarding address. No idea what your point is.”
I did not go very far. I see the neoreactionaries as trying to circumvent our founding principles. God is dead. Democracy is dead. If the neoreactionaries called themselves “reactionaries” they would lose the appearance of civility and their true face of the roaring lion seeking to devour souls would become evident, but because they call themselves “neo”, not ye there, people will feel empathy for them and for their cause.

slainte
slainte
Thursday, January 30, AD 2014 10:25pm

Barbara quotes John Adams: ““Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
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One wonders whether the U.S Constitution would have functioned as well in a country whose morality and ethics were informed by Catholicism rather than protestantism.
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Much of the success of the federal republic of America was tied to a strain of enlightened individualism bolstered by a protestant work ethic and an ethos of self reliance encouraged by a uniquely Puritan vision.
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I suspect Adams might have concluded that Catholicism and the Constitution would be incompatible.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Friday, January 31, AD 2014 2:30am

Mary de Voe wrote, “’…those who care chiefly for equality’ must busy themselves with equal Justice.”

Of course. As Hilaire Belloc said of the French Revolution, “The scorn which was in those days universally felt for that pride which associates itself with things not inherent to a man (notably and most absurdly with capricious differences of wealth) never ran higher; and the passionate sense of justice which springs from this profound and fundamental social dogma of equality, as it moved France during the Revolution to frenzy, so also moved it to creation.

Those who ask how it was that a group of men sustaining all the weight of civil conflict within and of universal war without, yet made time enough in twenty years to frame the codes which govern modern Europe, to lay down the foundations of universal education, of a strictly impersonal scheme of administration, and even in detail to remodel the material face of society—in a word, to make modern Europe—must be content for their reply to learn that the Republican Energy had for its flame and excitant this vision: a sense almost physical of the equality of man.”

But it was not democracy, but the armies of Napoléon that gave a code of laws to a continent and restored the concept of citizenship to civilisation.

WK Aiken
WK Aiken
Friday, January 31, AD 2014 8:10am

“Woodrow Wilson’s pipe dream, the League of Nations is alive and well in the United Nations and both as corrupt, imposing atheism, removing any acknowledgment of our Creator, Divine Providence and of man’s soul. The human rights of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights defines man and human rights as coming from the “community” or the state, They say that these rights are inalienable, but without an infinite God to reinforce man’s rights what will a corrupt state do for man except enslave him?”

Exactly. What they thought would happen and what we now truly labor under are polar opposites. Their naivete and prideful self-deception (or, more accurately, their willingness to be deceived by the Prince of Lies) made their hallucinations seem very real, and their descendants continue to pursue that unreality, at our cost. The awakening will be sudden and painful, as are all awakenings from such stupors.

slainte
slainte
Friday, January 31, AD 2014 9:05am

Bonchamps writes, “…And then Pope Leo XIII asked, “can belief in God be secure when the government is indifferent to Him, and when ten thousand different denominations all claim equal rights and importance?”
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“We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that ‘except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel; we shall be divided by our little partial, local interests, our projects will be confounded and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword down to future ages. And, what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing government by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war, or conquest.” (Benjamin Franklin)
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“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. ” (Benjamin Franklin)

Mary De Voe
Friday, January 31, AD 2014 11:22am

Bonchamps: “And then Pope Leo XIII asked, ““can belief in God be secure when the government is indifferent to Him, and when ten thousand different denominations all claim equal rights and importance?””
Jesus Christ, the Son of the Supreme Sovereign Being, giver of life and our Creator, is a sovereign person, a citizen of the world, a Perfect Person, the revelation of Justice and of God, our Father in heaven. “When one person is denied civil rights, all persons are denied civil rights” I do not know who said that but it is true.
When the Person of Jesus Christ is denied His freedom, His Justice, equal Justice for all sovereign persons is violated and becomes a sign of vagrancy.

“Equality” is endowed by our Creator, by God, not the Court of law. “We hold these truth to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”…in sovereign personhood. Sovereign personhood is from our Creator. Equality is from God. The virtue of equal Justice, on the other hand, is a virtue to be practiced by the court of law and is the only Justice to be asked for and gotten from a court of law.
The pursuit of Happiness is one of the endowed civil freedoms. It is a companion to freedom of Religion. The pursuit of Happiness is not a guarantee of catching Happiness, but the eternal pursuit of God. One is only free to pursue God. And the state may not “…prohibit the free exercise thereof.”

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Friday, January 31, AD 2014 11:53am

Bonchamps wrote, “That is why the French Revolution is one of histories [sic] greatest mistakes and crimes. It unleashed communism upon the world…”

In 1848, Tocqueville, in a speech to the National Assembly, declared the precise opposite, “But, concerning the very principle of private property, the Revolution always respected it. It placed it in its constitutions at the top of the list. No people treated this principle with greater respect. It was engraved on the very frontispiece of its laws. The French Revolution did more. Not only did it consecrate private property, it universalised it. It saw that a still greater number of citizens participated in it. It is thanks to this, gentlemen, that today we need not fear the deadly consequences of socialist ideas which are spread throughout the land. It is because the French Revolution peopled the land of France with ten million property-owners that we can, without danger, allow these doctrines to appear before us.”

This is precisely the Distributist principle that Catholics like Belloc and Chesterton championed.

Tocqueville added, “The ancien régime, in fact, held that wisdom lay only in the State and that the citizens were weak and feeble beings who must forever be guided by the hand, for fear they harm themselves. It held that it was necessary to obstruct, thwart, restrain individual freedom, that to secure an abundance of material goods it was imperative to regiment industry and impede free competition. The ancien régime believed, on this point, exactly as the socialists of today do. It was the French Revolution which denied this.”

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Friday, January 31, AD 2014 1:09pm

“France has had to contend with radical socialist and communist parties, as has all of Europe.”

And yet, in no country in Europe is land ownership more widely distributed and I am sure the similarity between Poujadisme and the American Tea Party movement is not lost on you.

slainte
slainte
Friday, January 31, AD 2014 1:25pm

MPS and Bonchamps,

Private ownership of property is converted to a conditional license to occupy when a state, through taxation or regulation (eminent domain), has recourse to strip one of “ownership” by reason of one’s failure (or inability) to pay or perform.

Is this what the French Revolution granted its citizens?

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Friday, January 31, AD 2014 1:34pm

Slainté

“Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition that the owner shall have been previously and equitably indemnified” (Déclaration des droits de l’Homme et du citoyen)

slainte
slainte
Friday, January 31, AD 2014 2:13pm

MPS and Bonchamps,

The Constitutional and other safeguards protecting the right of private property are quite amenable to change depending on policy makers’ sliding definition of legitimate state interest.

In the U.S, the “Kelo” decision erased the bright line that made eminent domain “”takings” rare and permitted under very narrow circumstances, ie., infrastructure needs. Kelo opened the door for the state to “take” private properties for the benefit of private developers who promise to increase state and municipal tax revenues. The reasonableness of the compensation offered the citizen who is divested of his “private property” is what the state deems to be fair market value.

In the U.S. we are on a slippery slope…

See,
http://reason.com/blog/2012/10/19/new-york-eminent-domain-abuse-round-up.
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In addition to transferring private property from the aristocrats/church to the citizens, the French Revolution also gave the world “The Committee of Public Safety” with the power to oversee the security of the fledgling republic, and of course, an administrator Robespierre to oversee it.
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Monsieur Robespierre contrued his duty as a mandate to execute anyone who fell under suspicion, including one Thomas Paine who narrowly escaped the guillotine.
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As the Jacobins became the French government, the “Committee of Public Safety” arbitrarily arrested and executed anyone whom they deemed a threat to the Republic’s interest. Thus, was born the Reign of Terror.
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I side with Bonchamps on his evaluation of the French Revolution, MPS. NO to Voltaire and NO to other French “thinkers” who supported the Jacobins and the Reign of Terror.

Mary De Voe
Friday, January 31, AD 2014 4:11pm

It is not virtuous Justice to remove sanctions from atheism. The atheist denies the self-evident truths and equality into which our Creator created all men. It is not virtuous Justice to remove sanctions from unnatural sexual behavior. The homosexual practitioner denies the self-evident truths and equality into which our Creator created all men. It is not virtuous Justice to remove sanctions from the killing of innocent human beings who are created in equality and the self-evident truths of the reality of the human soul in immortality, reason, sovereign personhood, and free will. The abortionist, the atheist, the homosexual practitioner tell the court that God created some human beings who are less than equal. If all men are created equal by God, then, how is it that our Creator created all men equal except some, without calling God a liar?

Mary De Voe
Friday, January 31, AD 2014 4:18pm

slainte: “In the U.S, the “Kelo” decision erased the bright line that made eminent domain “”takings” rare and permitted under very narrow circumstances, ie., infrastructure needs. Kelo opened the door for the state to “take” private properties for the benefit of private developers who promise to increase state and municipal tax revenues. The reasonableness of the compensation offered the citizen who is divested of his “private property” is what the state deems to be fair market value.”
The Fifth Amendment reads “for public use” with just compensation. The court changed the Constitution without the ratification by three quarters of the states’ informed consent, by substituting and contorting the meaning to be “public purposes”. This is unconstitutional. Must We, the people, have a constitutional amendment to return to the original constitution? Will the real America please stand up.

Mary De Voe
Friday, January 31, AD 2014 4:33pm

slainte: “As the Jacobins became the French government, the “Committee of Public Safety” arbitrarily arrested and executed anyone whom they deemed a threat to the Republic’s interest. Thus, was born the Reign of Terror.”
The execution of a person for treason without bloodguilt is a crime against humanity. Only for killing a man must a man be put to death. “But when a man kills another after maliciously scheming to do so, you must take him even from my altar (compassion, mercy) and put him to death.” Exodus 21:14. So, without God, this country is becoming Godless.

Mary De Voe
Friday, January 31, AD 2014 4:42pm

What I am reading about in the Reign of Terror is mob rule. They had fancy clothes but despicable virtue or no virtue at all. Speaking of mob rule Obama and his pen and Andrew Cuomo and their ideal of democracy. Some people want no morality or virtue imposed upon them as long as they are the mob that rules.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, February 1, AD 2014 2:04am

Slainté & Mary de Voe

The great Catholic historian, Lord Acton summed up the Terror; “It was prepared by the defeat and defection of Dumouriez; it was developed by the loss of the frontier fortresses in the following July; and it fell when the tide of battle rolled away after the victory of Fleurus.”

The Committee of Public Safety was, in effect, the War Cabinet, when the Republic was faced, in the words of another Catholic historian, Hilaire Belloc, with “civil conflict within and of universal war without.” Its leader or prime minister was Carnot, the War Minister. Robespierre, who had no executive rôle, was its spokesman in the Assembly or “Leader of the House,” in parliamentary terms. His task and it was not an easy one, was to get the Committee’s resolutions passed, to maintain the Deputies’ confidence and that of the Commune of Paris, which, in effect, held the government hostage. What they were capable of, they had shown in the September Massacres.

To sustain the war, Carnot demanded a draft of 700,000 men, the requisitioning of supplies to support them and the imposition of a non-convertible paper currency (the Assignats) Most of the victims of the Reign of Terror were draft-dodgers and deserters, hoarders, peasants who concealed grain, black marketeers and currency speculators. A minority were guillotined; most were executed on arrest by drum-head courts-martial.

Those who enforced Carnot’s policies of summary executions and the burning of villages, to leave the recalcitrant with the option of joining the colours or starving, were men like Kléber, Moreau, Reynier, Marceau, and Ney, who commanded the army of Sambre et Meuse, Hoche, Desaix, and St. Cyr, who commanded the army of the Rhine and Bonaparte and Masséna who commanded the army of the Apennines. Such a constellation of military talent has never been equalled and, for twenty years, these men and their successors sustained a successful war against the whole of Europe. That was the real French Revolution; in comparison, events in Paris were a side-show.

Slainte
Slainte
Saturday, February 1, AD 2014 5:03am

MPS and Bonchamps,

MPS, thank you for your description of the Reign of Terror; the people of the Vendee, however, who rose up to protect against the annihilation of a Catholic France and its monarchy would likely take issue with your praise of Robespierre and company.
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Bonchamps, apologies for derailing your thesis that the French Revolution was a primary cause of modern day Communism. My comment qualifying private property as state property in the wake of excessive taxation and onerous regulation did not advance your conversation.
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I hope that you and MPS will continue where you left off as I believe your thesis is credible.

Paul W Primavera
Saturday, February 1, AD 2014 6:37am

All humans are created equal in dignity, but are inherently unequal in function and ability.

Liberal progressivism maintains the opposite, hence its tyranny of elitism.

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