On the 75th Anniversary of V-E Day and the Coronavirus Scamdemic

The iconic Champs-Élysées and its Arc de Triomphe stand eerily empty before V-E Day ceremonies Friday in Paris.

This month (May 8th) marks the 75^th anniversary of “V-E Day” when German forces unconditionally surrendered to the “Allies.”  Numerous articles, essays, and monographs have appeared commemorating the anniversary and while all are mostly laudatory, some have acknowledged that the outcome had its “drawbacks.”

By any objective rendering, for Western Civilization WWII was an unmitigated catastrophe whose reverberations continue to this day.  Forty-three million troops were senselessly killed between American, British and Continental forces while 38 million civilians perished.  Europe’s current demographic nightmare had its unfruitful seeds cut down with the depopulation of the Continent’s finest for the maniacal aims of the world’s power elites.  Not only the loss of life, but the destruction of property and the cultures upon which they were built have been incalculable.  Although the US emerged in the post-war world as the dominant economic and political power (as its mainland remained unscathed from wartime destruction), its participation in the conflict was a titanic geopolitical blunder.

The defeat of Germany and Japan, which would have not come about without US military might, left vast power vacuums in Eastern Europe and the Far East that Soviet Russia and Red China ruthlessly filled.  Half of Europe would fall behind the Iron Curtain, subjected to fierce political repression and debilitating socialistic economic planning.  In Asia, Communist regimes sprang up with the assistance of China and the Soviet Union which America attempted to counter in Korea and Vietnam at a staggering cost to its domestic economy and social tranquility.

Even after the fall of Soviet Communism, the US’s supposed lethal enemy, America maintained its empire as its “defense” spending continued to escalate beyond all reasonable levels which has led, in part, to the decline of domestic living standards of nearly all except, of course, for the politically well-connected. Not only has military adventurism bankrupted the country, but there is now “blowback” from the countless enemies either real, imagined, or contrived – created by US overseas meddling.  Moreover, the nation’s military-industrial and security complex has turned on its own citizens with spying, surveillance, and data gathering that would be the envy of Stalin’s Cheka. Yet, it was US participation in WWII which cemented the nation on its ruinous course as global policeman.  This was predicted and feared by “isolationists” at the time which is why they so courageously fought to keep the country neutral.

While the peoples of the world suffered from the Apocalyptic-like destruction of the war, certain groups did gain.  The benefactors were obvious – Stalin and the Soviet state which was given free reign in Eastern Europe; the US military and security industrial complex which had a world empire to police; Chinese Communists, with Imperial Japan decimated, it left little opposition for them to gain control in China and beyond.  For almost everyone else, even the so called “victors,” WWII was a Pyrrhic victory at best.

For the remainder of 20^th century American history, US entry into the Second World War proved to be the catalyst which led to the immense cultural, economic, and political changes, which many conservatives, libertarians, and traditional-minded people at the time and afterwards opposed.  Yet, it was US participation in the war which meant that all of those changes would become permanent.  Harry Elmer Barnes, who was a keen social theorist and wrote extensively in sociology, clearly understood the effects of US entry into the war:

Drastic changes in the domestic realm can also be attributed to the impact of our

entry into the second World War.  The old rural society that had dominated

humanity for millennia was already disintegrating rapidly as the result of

urbanization and technological advances, but the latter failed to supply adequate

new institutions and agencies to control and direct an urban civilization.  This

situation faced the American public before 1941 but the momentous transformation

was given intensified rapidity and scope as a result of the extensive dislocations

produced by years of warfare and recovery.*

While every sector of American life was unalterably changed, the most ominous took place in the political order.  Although the federal government had begun to expand during the Progressive Era, its scope and involvement in society drastically accelerated during and after the war.  Barnes, holding many libertarian beliefs, observed the totalitarian features of the post-war nation:

The complex and cumulative aftermath of [WWII] has played the dominant role in

producing the menacing military pattern and political impasse of our time, and the

military-industrial-political Establishment that controls this country and has sought

to determine world policy.**

The rise of America to world power status diverted attention and scarce resources away from the domestic front, which further exacerbated social and economic changes.  The societal strife would become more and more acute as the nation’s overseas commitments mushroomed, as Barnes incisively explains:

The social problems of an urban age were enlarged and intensified, crime increased

and took on new forms that became ever more difficult to combat, juvenile

disorganization became rampant, racial problems increased beyond precedent, and

the difficulties of dealing with this unprecedented and complicated mass of domestic

issues were both parried and intensified by giving primary but evasive

consideration to foreign affairs in our national policy and operations.***

While domestic problems received less attention as the American empire expanded, foreign lands which held different patterns of social order or had non “democratic” forms of government, were targeted for “regime change,” even if they had taken no hostile action toward the US:

. . .  the results of [WWII] already indicate that this produced drastic and possibly

ominous changes in the pattern of American relations to the rest of the world.  We

voluntarily and arbitrarily assumed unprecedented burdens in feeding and

financing a world badly disrupted by war. . . .  The United States sought to police the

world and extend the rule of law on a planetary basis, which actually meant

imposing the ideology of our eastern seaboard Establishment throughout the world,

by force, if necessary. . . .****

Had the US remained neutral as the isolationists and American First supporters had pleaded, the world today would be markedly different – undoubtedly freer, more prosperous, and likely more peaceful.  Since every society is governed, in part, by its understanding of the past, the post-WWII world is built on a lie.  The lie, of course, was that the attack on Pearl Harbor was unprovoked and that the Roosevelt Administration had negotiated in good faith with the Japanese in the months and years leading up to it.

While not recognized at the time and even today the outcome of WWII ushered in the totalitarian nation state which would become a permanent and intimate fixture in the lives of its citizens.  There was no appeal to its dictates and as the decades rolled on it accrued unthinkable power over the society and economy.  It attempted to solve every social and economic problem or inequality (most of which it created) and in each action enhanced its power and control dramatically.

The corona scamdemic may be the state’s greatest power grab yet.  Besides the infringement of civil liberties, the shut down has been adroitly used to cover for the titanic economic collapse which began in the weeks prior to the draconian response measures.  Actually, the financial breakdown began last September with the Fed’s “repo” operations.

All of this has been quietly and deliberately forgotten by the financial press and under the cover of fighting the virus, the Fed and the rest of the world’s central banks have expanded their power and control of financial markets to unprecedented levels, making a mockery that the economy is in any sense “capitalistic.”

The adage that “history is written by the victors” has never been more apparent than in regard to V-E Day, however, the coronavirus scam has shown once again that the consequences of the day and the war which it commemorates are now being ominously fulfilled.

*Harry Elmer Barnes, “Pearl Harbor After a Quarter of a Century.”  In Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought.  Vol. IV, 1968, p. 11.

**Ibid., pp. 9-10.

***Ibid., p. 11.

****Ibid., pp. 10-11.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

posted: 5-13-’20

The Constitution IS the Crisis

A Review of Murray N. Rothbard’s Conceived in Liberty, Vol. 5

The posthumous release of Murray Rothbard’s fifth volume of his early American history series, Conceived in Liberty, is a cause of celebration not only for those interested in the country’s constitutional period, but also for the present day as the nation is faced with acute social, economic, and political crises.  The fifth volume, The New Republic: 1784-1791, stands with Boston T. Party’s 1997 release, Hologram of Liberty, as a grand rebuttal of the cherished notion held by most contemporary scholars, pundits on the Right, and, surprisingly, many libertarians who believe that the US Constitution is some great bulwark in defense of individual liberty and a promoter of economic success.

Volumes 1-4

Rothbard’s narrative highlights the crucial years after the American Revolution focusing on the events and personalities that led to the calling for, drafting, and eventual promulgation of the Constitution in 1789.  Not only does he describe the key factors that led to the creation of the American nation-state, but he gives an insightful account of the machinations which took place in Philadelphia and a trenchant analysis of the document itself which has become, in the eyes of most conservatives, on a par with Holy Writ.

What Might Have Been

While Rothbard writes in a lively and engaging manner, the eventual outcome and triumph of the nationalist forces leaves the reader with a certain sadness.  Despite the fears expressed by the Antifederalists that the new government was too powerful and would lead to tyranny, through coercion, threats, lies, bribery, and arm twisting by the politically astute Federalists, the Constitution came into being.  Yet, what if it had been the other way around and the forces against it had prevailed?

It is safe to assume that America would have been a far more prosperous and less war-like place.  The common held notion that the Constitution was needed to keep peace among the contending states is countered by Rothbard, who points out a number of instances where states settled their differences, most notably Maryland and Virginia as they came to an agreement on the navigation of the Chesapeake Bay.  [129-30]

Without a powerful central state to extract resources and manpower, overseas intervention by the country would have been difficult to undertake.  Thus, the US’s disastrous participation in the two world wars would have been avoided.  Furthermore, it would have been extremely unlikely for a Confederation Congress to impose an income tax as the federal government successfully did through a constitutional amendment in 1913.

Nor would the horrific misnamed “Civil War” ever take place with its immense loss of life and the destruction of the once flourishing Southern civilization.  The triumph of the Federal government ended forever “states rights” in the US and, no doubt, inspired centralizing tendencies throughout the world, most notably in Germany which became unified under Prussian domination.

In a failed attempt in 1786 to enact an impost tax under the Confederation, Abraham Yates, a New York lawyer and prominent Antifederalist, spoke of decentralization as the key to liberty as Rothbard aptly summarizes:

Yates also warned that true republicanism can only be preserved in small states, and

keenly pointed out that in the successful Republics of Switzerland and the

Netherlands the local provinces retained full control over their finances.  A taxing

power in Congress would demolish state sovereignty and reduce the states, where

the people could keep watch on their representatives, to mere adjuncts of

congressional power, and liberty would be gone.  [64]

The Constitution Myth

One reason for the failure of the modern conservative and libertarian movements to scale back, in even a miniscule way, the now gargantuan US welfare/warfare state has been the misinterpretation of the US Constitution.  Many conservatives have a slavish devotion to the document, placing it on a par with the Ten Commandments and New Testament.

A typical misunderstanding of the Constitution’s history and content appeared in this recent op-ed:

The Constitution was intended to limit 1) the power

of government over the citizenry 2) the power of

each branch of government and 3) the power of political/

financial elites over the government and the citizenry,

as the Founders recognized the intrinsic risks of an

all-powerful state, an all-powerful state dominated by one

branch of government and the risks of a financial elite

corrupting the state to serve the interests above those

of the citizenry.*

The author, like so many “Constitution enthusiasts” has also been hostile to the Medieval era, denigrating its institutions and social constructs – feudalism, aristocracy, crusading – when, in fact, the Middle Ages, in many respects, were far freer with less government than the present epoch. **

When the founding fathers decided to meet in Philadelphia in 1787, they did so at first to “amend” the Articles of Confederation which had guided the young country through some perilous times.  While the Articles had some defects (some libertarians even contend that they were too statist***), the delegates, at first, did not want it scrapped, however, it was the “leading lights” of the convention which connived to completely do away with it.

By superior political maneuvering, the pro-Constitution forces were able to ramrod their plan through despite being in the minority.  Not only were the majority of the delegates initially against scrapping the Articles, but most Americans were opposed to the creation of a new central government.

Despite this, the Constitution was ruthlessly pushed through and, as its opponents feared, America would be saddled with a highly centralized national government, the loss of considerable state sovereignty, and the eventual erosion of individual liberties even with the inclusion of a Bill of Rights.

A brief examination of the document reveals that its implicit and explicit language grants wide latitude for the expansion of state power.  In its Preamble, the ambiguous clause to “promote the general welfare” can and has led to all sorts of destructive social engineering schemes.  More ominously, for anyone that is under the illusion that America is governed by a “federal” system, they should reread Article VI which in part says:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which

shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made,

or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United

States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land. [emphasis added]

An all-powerful central state went against much of Western history after the fall of the Roman Empire and the idea was always feared by philosophers.  Basic political theory and practical experience showed that a multitude of sovereign states were preferable not only for the protection of personal liberty, but for economic growth.  Numerous states and jurisdictions were a far greater check on government than the much celebrated “separation of powers” concept of constitutional government.

Under the Articles of Confederation, each individual state was autonomous while the national government had to rely on the states for most of its support.  Unfortunately, it will never be known what would have happened if the country remained as a confederacy of states, it is likely however, that there would have been less bloodshed, greater economic growth, and more personal freedom under a decentralized regime.

It is curious, therefore, why so many on the Right continue to revere the Constitution as some great bulwark against state power.  Much of it probably stems from ignorance or personal bias against the political conditions which existed prior to the late 18^th century.

Much of European history was under the sway of monarchial and aristocratic rule and the integral presence of the Catholic Church in society with a diffusion of power among kings, princes, dukes and Churchmen.  While far from perfect, the social order which existed under Christendom may not have been as materially or technologically advanced as contemporary times, but in regard to morality, justice, and individual freedom, there is no comparison.  The Christian age saw nothing of the social depravity, war making with its mass murder, the trampling of individual rights, and the existence of totalitarian government as witnessed in the supposedly “enlightened” modern age.

Decentralized Europe 1300

Until it is realized that the Constitution is an impediment to rolling back the American Leviathan, there will be little progress in the fight for individual liberty and economic progress.

*Charles Hugh Smith, “Let’s Face It: The U.S. Constitution Has Failed.”  Zero Hedge.  20 February 2019.

**One example, Charles Hugh Smith, “America’s ‘Neo-Feudal’ System is ‘Both False & Precarious.”  Zero Hedge 19 December 2018.

***David Gordon, ed., Strictly Confidential: The Private Volker Fund Memos of Murray N. Rothbard, Auburn, AL.: The Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2015, pp. 96-98.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

posted 02-28-’19

On the 80th Anniversary of Hilaire Belloc’s, The Crusades

Review: Hilaire Belloc: The Crusades: The World’s Debate, Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 1937; Republished Tan Books: Rockford, Illinois, 1992.

INTRODUCTION

As millions of Muslim refugees continue to swarm mostly unopposed into Europe’s heartland, it would be instructive to review Hilaire Belloc’s book, The Crusades: The World’s Debate.  Written eighty years ago, the work not only gives a unique analysis of the Crusading Era, but addresses what remains today a fundamental issue in global politics, hence, the subtext of the book, The World’s Debate.

The Crusades were inspired by the Catholic Church and Papacy which rightly saw the threat that Islam posed to the West and encouraged military action to counter it.  The Mohammedans had taken over vast parts of the eastern half of the Roman Empire and with it control of the Holy Land which they increasingly made tougher to access for pilgrims.

The Novus Ordo Church and its current pope have repeatedly encouraged Muslim migration into Europe and have scolded those who raise even the tiniest of protests against this orchestrated event with smears of “lack of charity,” “intolerance,” and “xenophobic” among other denigrations.  Such action would have been considered heretical by the Crusaders and the popes of the past who called and helped organize the expeditions.  In fact, one does not have to go back that far to know that “Pope Francis’”[1] pro-immigration stance would have been considered treasonous a little over a half century ago.  Under the radical changes that occurred at the Second Vatican Anti-Council (1962-65), however, acceptance of false religions and heretical sects are now part of the New Creed.

For Western man, the migrant crisis has accentuated a more fundamental problem which threatens his ultimate survival – demographics.  European birthrates have plunged to unsustainable levels which, if trends continue, will mean, if not extinction, at least the marginalization of the white populations, the institutions and cultures which those peoples have built.  Most analysts of the demographic implosion and migrant crises, however, do not see that their source is ultimately a religious struggle.  The unwanted migratory invasion and the failure of Europeans to reproduce to at least replacement levels are the result of Western man’s rejection of the One True Faith.

The alarming demographic trends had not yet surfaced when Belloc penned The Crusades although the start of another global conflagration was on the horizon as the West would once again plunged itself into civilization suicide with the outbreak of World War II.  Nor had the state of Israel been created at the time of its publication, although the troubling Balfour Doctrine had been mandated which would eventually lead to a Zionist homeland in Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel which would become a constant source of conflict in the decades that followed.

For Belloc, “the world’s debate” centered on the conflict between the future of a militarily and economically dominant secularized West against a religiously fervent, although economically stagnant, Islam.  To this day, the West still holds these advantages, but its vibrancy and spirit are on the wane due to its abandonment of the Faith and the adoption of social democracy.

The Crusades were an expression of Christendom’s highest ideals which contemporary Europeans could not hope to grasp or understand.  If the West is ever going to defeat Islam, it must be spiritually revitalized which can only come about if the Church becomes once again Catholic and overthrows neo-Modernism which it adopted at Vatican II.  Military victories will never be lasting unless they are backed by a religiously committed populace.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Belloc takes a unique perspective on a number of aspects of the Crusading Era which differ, in some cases, quite significantly from most modern scholarship.  Almost all contemporary historians are of the school of thought that the Crusades lasted until at least the campaign of 1295 (the Fourth Crusade) while some, like the late J. Riley Smith, see “crusading activity” going well beyond that time.[1]  For Belloc, the First Crusade from its “calling” in 1095 by Pope Urban II, to its improbable and truly miraculous capture[2] of Jerusalem in 1099, was the most important.  It not only accomplished its odds-defying goal of freeing the Holy Land for pilgrimage, but in its wake the Latin Kingdoms were established in the Levant.

With the view that only the First Crusade mattered, since it accomplished its objectives, the vast majority of the book covers the years between 1095 and 1187 as Belloc asserts:

There was . . .  but one Crusade . . . it was the

great breaking out of all western Europe into

the Orient for the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre,

and within one very long lifetime it had failed;

For with Jerusalem in the hands of the Infidel

the purpose of the original great campaign was

gone, its fruits were lost. [244]

Everything that came in the wake of the first Christian triumph in Asia Minor was something different:

That historical episode, 1095-1187, was the true

Crusade, from its inception to its final failure.  All

that followed was of another kind. [244]

Yet, within their initial success, the seed of the Latin Kingdoms’ ultimate downfall was laid.  While other factors certainly played a role, Belloc, over and over again, stresses the crusaders’ failure to secure Damascus that proved fatal and would eventually allow the Mohammedans to re-conquer and end the Latin presence in the Levant.  Without Damascus, the later expeditions were never a serious threat to the Muslim strongholds and were in the historian’s words “rearguard action[s] of a defeat.” [4]

While the West failed to hold and extend the First Crusade’s success and later having suffered the tragic fall of Constantinople, it would eventually return and reclaim most of what it had lost.  The Muslim victory at Hattin appeared permanent until the end of time; yet within a few centuries, during which Europe had repelled several lethal Islamic assaults to its heartland, it returned to the Middle East, but this time the conquerors were of a different breed religiously.

The ending of Muslim rule and the colonization of the Middle East throughout the course of the 19^th century up to the time of Belloc’s book (1937) was accomplished by a secularized West under the guidance and inspiration of religiously pluralistic nation states.  Christendom had long been dissolved and although the Middle East’s new overlords were superior in resources, technology, and skill their religious vitality was on the wane and would continue to evaporate as the years rolled on.  “We have returned to the Levant,” Belloc writes, “we have returned apparently more as masters than ever we were during the struggle of the Crusades – but we have returned bankrupt in that spiritual wealth which was the glory of the Crusades. . . . [N]or is the Levant held as one whole [Christian dominion], but divided between separate nations to whom the unity of Europe has ceased to be sacred.” [249]

RACE

In the modern era of Political Correctness, one can no longer speak of race, ethnicity, kinship, or “blood” unless one is disparaging Occidental people or their ancestors while at the same time trumpeting the virtues of the assorted brown and colored peoples of the globe.  Not so with Belloc, who was far from alone among historians of his generation who understood the significance of race and blood in the episodes of the human past and how important these factors were in the creation of societies and civilizations.

To scholars like Belloc, race and religion did matter, and in his view it was a significant reason why the Crusades ultimately failed to hold their possessions.  Of course, there were other factors that Belloc duly notes – the failure to control the strategically vital city of Damascus; the lack of reinforcements both in arms and people from the West; the refusal of Byzantium to ally with the Crusaders; the lack of a strong monarchy in the Latin states.  Race, however, in this instance, the mixture of French blood with the local population, was critical in the eventual defeat.  The “mixing of blood” between the Franks and the Near East population especially among the leadership proved fatal.  Few, if any academics of today could write such things.

The miscegenation among the nobility and the subsequent generations in the newly formed Latin jurisdictions proved to be “inferior” in talent, ability, and leadership to build the type of society necessary for the Crusaders’ initial victories to be turned into a permanent civilization.

A stark example of this among the nobility can be seen in the loss of Edessa:

We have seen among other causes the mixture of Western

with Oriental blood, especially in the case of the rulers,

played a chief part.  Now, it was precisely to this that the

first of the great disasters was due.  [T]he loss of Edessa. . .

was mainly due to the character of its ruler, the second

Jocelyn. . .  The mother of the second Jocelyn was an

Armenian. . . .  [T]he mixture of blood did here what it

so often does; it gave a certain brilliance to the charact

of the second generation, but that brilliance was accompanied

by instability.  [192]

Belloc continues:

[I]t must be emphasized, for it underlay not

only the tragedy of Edessa but all that followed,

up to the loss of Jerusalem itself.  . . .  it was Jocelyn

the Second, who with his contemporary, the

half breed Queen Melisande, so conspicuously

typifies that new and too-sudden mixtures of races

which was largely responsible for the catastrophe. [193]

Outnumbered and with inferior leadership qualities compared to the first wave of Crusaders, the Latin Kingdoms were eventually doomed especially after the Muslims had politically united.  Yet, had the Western kings and princes addressed this matter, things may have been different and, as Belloc maintains, the Infidel may have been permanently relegated to the Arabian Peninsula.

To be continued…

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

In Remembrance of the October Revolution

The Communist Monster, Vladimir Lenin  

A Constitutional Anniversary to Forget

While not a jubilee year, last week marked the 230th anniversary of the US Constitution.  Naturally, most of its devotees enthusiastically praised the document which by now is seen on a par with Holy Writ itself.  An editorial from Investor’s Business Daily provides an example of such hagiography:

The Constitution’s beauty is that it not only delineates our rights

as Americans, but expressly limits and defines government’s ability

to interfere in our private lives.   This equipoise between citizens’

duties, responsibilities and rights makes it the defining document

or our nation’s glorious freedom.

But America is wonderful largely because of the Constitution and

those who framed it . . . .

What we have is too precious to squander . . . .*

Most of the piece laments about the widespread ignorance of its sacred contents among the denizens in which it rules over and encourages the unlearned “to bone up a bit on your constitutional heritage . . . .”  The editorial fails, as do most others on the Right, to understand that it is not a lack of knowledge of the Constitution’s contents among the populace which lies at the heart of America’s social, economic, and political problems, but the very document itself.

One of the main reasons why the Constitution continues to be so widely venerated is due to the deliberate distortion of history that its “founders” promoted and that generations of its sycophants have continued to perpetuate to this very day.  The official narrative runs that the Constitution was enacted because of widespread popular support for a change to the supposed inadequacies and deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation.

This is a myth.  Instead, the Constitution was a coup deliberately schemed by the leading political and mercantile classes to set up a powerful central government where ultimate authority rested in the national state.  The use of the term “federal” to describe what was created in Philadelphia in those fateful days was a ruse much like the banksters and politicos used “Federal Reserve” to describe the central bank created in 1913.  It was neither “federal” – a decentralized monetary order – nor a “reserve” of gold, but a monetary institution which could create money out of thin air and eventually eliminate the gold standard.

It was a similar political maneuver 230 years ago as a new American national state was established and touted as a decentralized form of government where power was evenly divided between state and national levels and between the different branches of the government itself  – “separation of powers.”  In actuality, however, the “federal system” was the elevation of central power at the expense of local authority which had previously existed.  Section VI of the Constitution says it all:

The Constitution and the laws of the United States  . . .

shall be the supreme law of the land; and the

judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the

Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

Elementary political science has shown and plain common sense knows that any person or institution given “supreme authority” will misuse and abuse such power.  Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely is an undeniable dictum of human nature.  A truly decentralized system of governance would not contain a plank as “supreme law of the land” as part of its foundation.  Instead, real federalism would be dispersed, as it existed in the past in such political arrangements as confederacies, leagues, and, certainly, under the much maligned feudal social order.

Even the Constitution’s celebrated Bill of Rights is flawed and has proven to be ineffective in protecting basic human freedoms.  It is the federal government which enumerates and interprets what freedom individuals should possess.  Thus, the meaning and extent of individual liberties will be in the hands of federal jurists and courts who will invariably rule on cases in favor of the state.  The ensnaring of individual rights within the central government’s authority did away with the venerable common law which was a far greater defender of liberty than federal courts.

Just as important, the enactment of the Constitution, which brought all the individual states under it suzerainty, did away with one of the most significant checks on state power – “voting with one’s feet.”  When there are multiple governing authorities, if one jurisdiction becomes too oppressive, its subjects can move to freer domains.  This still happens on a local level as high tax and regulatory states such as California and New York have lost demographically to freer places like Nevada and Texas.  Yet, from the Federal Leviathan there is no escape, except expatriation.

Unless and until Americans and all the other peoples of the Western world who live under constitutional rule recognize that it is the type of government which is the cause of most of the political turmoil, social unrest, and economic malaise  which they face, there is no hope of turning things around.

*”Sturdy Constitution, ” Investor’s Business Daily, Week of September 18, 2017, A20.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

Christopher Columbus and the Falsification of History

The Los Angeles City Council’s recent, crazed decision* to replace Christopher Columbus Day with one celebrating “indigenous peoples” can be traced to the falsification of history and denigration of European man which began in earnest in the 1960s throughout the educational establishment (from grade school through the universities), book publishing, and the print and electronic media.  It is amazing that, as of yet, the federal holiday commemorating the Genoese explorer’s world- changing voyage has not come under attack.  It is doubtful that in the current radicalized leftist ideological atmosphere, the national government’s recognition of Columbus will survive much longer.

Most of what has been taught about Christopher Columbus and his holy and heroic patroness has been distorted, lied about, and politicized for the advancement of leftist causes, the most important of which is the smearing of the great European men of the past and to ridicule their descendants’ pride in their glorious heritage.  The historical untruths have not stopped with Columbus and Queen Isabella, but are being spread about conditions of the pre-Columbian societies.

Instead of an idyllic land where the inhabitants lived in peace and harmony with one another until the evil, conquering white man appeared, life in the pre-Columbian Americas’ was, to say the least, quite grisly.  A recent archeological discovery in Mexico City of the ancient Aztec Empire shows again what most knew, prior to the onslaught of leftist historical revisionism, that human sacrifice was practiced on a large scale.**

Archeologists have found more than 650 skulls where human sacrifices were conducted at the site of Templo Mayor, which was one of the primary temples of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan.  The new find substantiates the description of Andres de Tapia, a Spanish soldier who accompanied conquistador Hernan Cortes in 1521, and his account of the discovery of tens of thousands of skulls which were in the temple that became known as Huey Tzompantli.  The number of skulls must have been vast for they “struck fear” in the hearty and seasoned Spanish explorers.

A depiction of human sacrifice in Mesoamerica

That the Spanish immediately ended this hellish practice is not much spoken about by history professors in their lectures to their gullible students, nor did the Los Angeles City Council refer to the satanic ritual during their announcement.  Such inconvenient facts do not fit the liberal paradigm of the evil, marauding conquistadors subjugating the innocent Mesoamerican peoples to Spanish rule.  Nor will there be much mention that Columbus’ discovery brought civilization to the pagans and more importantly – and horrifically for the politically-correct – Christianity to the indigenous peoples and a chance for eternal salvation.

The takedown of Columbus is also a swipe at the figure who made his exploits altogether possible.  For Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand’s underwriting of the great Genoese Admiral’s voyage came only after they had completed their sacred mission of ridding the Iberian Peninsula of the dreaded Moors.  Once accomplished, the Queen fulfilled her promise to finance Columbus.  It has been contended by some scholars that the discovery of the New World under Spanish auspices was a reward by Divine Providence for the freeing of Spain of the Mohammedan menace.

Instead of enslavement and plunder that leftist historians accuse the Spanish Crown as motives for the exploration, the exact opposite was the truth, as candidly stated by Columbus himself: “she [Isabella] would continue the experiment for the glory of God and His Church, even if the islands yielded nothing but rocks and stones.  She had spent more money . . .  on enterprises of less importance, and would consider all she had disbursed well employed, for it would result in the spread of [Christianity] and the good of Spain.”***

Nearly every moral and ethical system ever devised has always condemned ingratitude.  Acknowledgement and veneration of the glorious deeds of those of the past in which a civilization was built is a necessary duty for its preservation.  When a culture’s icons are ignorantly defamed or replaced, it is a sure sign that it is in steep decline.  The scuttling of the yearly commemoration of Christopher Columbus’ monumental expeditions by the city of Los Angeles is another ominous indicator of a deeply troubled and disintegrating society.

*Tyler Durden, “Los Angeles Changes ‘Columbus Day’ to ‘Indigenous Peoples Day.'”  Zero Hedge.  31 August 2017.  http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-31/trump-was-right-it-will-never-end-los-angeles-changes-columbus-day-indigenous-people

**Reuters, “Tower of Human Skulls in Mexico Casts New Light on Aztec Sacrifices.”  2 July 2107.  https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/tower-human-skulls-mexico-casts-new-light-aztec-sacrifices-n779106

*** Quoted in Rev. Frs. Alphonsus Maria Duran, M.J., and Paul Mary Vota, M.J., “Why Apologize for the Spanish Inquisition?” (Chicago: Miles Jesu, 2000), p. 10.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

Can Germany Be Made Great Again?

Ever since the start of the deliberately conceived “migrant crisis,” orchestrated by NWO elites, the news out of Germany has been, to say the least, horrific.  Right before the eyes of the world, a country is being demographically destroyed through a coercive plan of mass migration.  The intended consequences of this – financial strain, widespread crime and property destruction, the breakdown of German culture – will continue to worsen if things are not turned around.

Opposition to the societal destruction within Germany have been harassed and persecuted by the authorities and labeled by the mass media with the usual epithets: “far right,” neo-Nazi, “haters,” and heaven forbid, “separatists.”  Because of this and other factors, there has been no mass movement, as of yet, that has coalesce to challenge the German political establishment.

A possible reversal of German fortunes, however, has come from a recent poll of Bavarians.*

A survey conducted by YouGov, a market research company, found that 32% of Bavarians agreed with the statement that Bavaria “should be independent from Germany.”  This percentage has increased from 25% of secession-minded Bavarians when polled in 2011.

Of the some 2000 surveyed between June 24 and July 5, most supporters of  independence come from the southern portions of the country.

Whether Bavarians or their fellow German separatists realize it or not, the only “political” solution to the migrant crisis is secession.  This is not only true for Germany, but for all Western nation states swamped with unwanted migrants.  Once free from the domination of the national government (and just as important the EU), each jurisdiction could make its own immigration policy and would be better able to control population influx at the local level.

Historically, Germany’s past has much more in common with a decentralized political landscape than with a unitary state.  From the disintegration of the Roman Empire until Napoleon wantonly abolished the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Germany was an amalgam of different political units – kingdoms, duchies, confederacies, free cities, etc.  With no grand central state, there was considerable freedom and economic growth as each sovereign entity was largely able to conduct its affairs on its own terms.

Decentralized political power is also conducive for the advancement of culture.  Music, the highest art form, found some of its greatest expression from the German peoples.  And, the monumental figures of Western music were financed in large measure by German princes, kings, and emperors.  Johann Sebastian Bach’s sublime Brandenburg concertos were underwritten, so to speak, by Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg while Beethoven received support from Archduke Rudolph.  Mozart was funded no less by the Austrian emperor himself, Joseph II.

Political decentralization provides an important mechanism as a check on state power.  A multitude of governments prevents individual state aggrandizement as oppressed populations can “vote with their feet” and move to safer and less repressive regimes.  A unitary state, or just a few, throughout the world would negate such an advantage.

Naturally, if nation states are a constant threat to the liberties and economic well being of their citizens, global organizations and states are that much more of a danger and should always and everywhere be opposed.  The European Union, largely based on the principles of the US Constitution, has pressured nations under their sway, such as Germany, to accept the migrants and has threatened members such as Hungary and Poland with penalties if they do not do their fair share.

The empirical evidence is overwhelming in regard to political decentralization and economic growth.  Since the level of taxation and government regulation are crucial factors in an economy’s ability to produce, the limitation on taxation and government oversight tend to be significantly lower if there are numerous states since there would be amble opportunities for producers to go to more conducive areas to set up shop.  This can be seen in the US as thousands of oppressed businesses and firms have left California to lower tax and restrictive climes such as Texas and Nevada.

If Germany is ever to get a handle on the migration crisis before the country is completely demographically dismembered, its only hope is to return to its decentralized political roots.  Let Bavaria lead the way!

*https://www.rt.com/news/396600-bavaria-independence-germany-poll/

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com/

On the Commemoration of World War I: From Woodrow Wilson to Donald Trump

We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world, but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first. We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example. We will shine for everyone to follow.

Unlike Ron Paul, however, Trump had no grounding in a true America First foreign policy.  While critical of his predecessors’ foreign policy decisions, Trump was not opposed philosophically to the US Empire or saw it as the greatest threat to world peace which currently exists.

Without an ideological basis against American globalism, Trump was easy pickings against the threats and machinations of the Deep State.  Without a refutation of the ideology which drove Wilson and all of his successors to promote military adventurism abroad, Trump will be little different than his imperial predecessors and with a personality that is thin-skinned, impulsive and unpredictable, Trump could, God forbid, become another Woodrow Wilson.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com/

In the face of this apprehension the American people can have but one concern – the American people can speak but one sentiment: despite what happens in continents overseas, the United States of America shall and must remain, as long ago the Father of our Country prayed that it might remain – unentangled and free.  This country seeks no conquest.  We have no imperial designs.  From day to day and year to year, we are establishing a more perfect assurance of peace with our neighbors. . . .  We not only earnestly desire peace, but we are moved by a stern determination to avoid those perils that will endanger our peace with the world.[166-67]

America, at this time, was in no mood for any overseas military adventurism or participation with any international organization which might lead into a conflict.  A good example of how fierce public isolationist sentiment ran can be seen in the debate over whether the nation should become a member of the World Court which had always been a cherished goal of the internationalists.

In January, 1935 FDR urged the Senate to pass legislation that would make the country a member of the Court although the resolutions that were proposed, in Beard’s words, “had been diluted until they contained no words that could possibly impair the sovereignty of the United States.”[163]  Despite pressure from FDR and other prominent politicos and organizations, the bill went down to defeat against a “storm of opposition” led, in part by the gallant Father Charles E. Coughlin and William Randolph Hearst.

Roosevelt’s Second Term, 1937-1940

After the landslide victory over the hapless Alfred Landon, the beginning of FDR’s 2^nd presidential term, and nearly all of 1937 was focused on the economy and his attempt to alter the Supreme Court in order to pass the more radical (socialistic) aspects of the New Deal.  Foreign policy, except for one stark and ominous episode, was not a factor.

Despite four years of the New Deal’s collectivist attempt to bring the economy back, a severe, and what a number of economists contend was an even worse downturn than had occurred under Herbert Hoover, began in the summer of 1937.  Beard quotes a financial analyst’s assessment of economic conditions at the time:

During the next three months, however, following August, the market experienced a decline which can only be described as a collapse.  The decline in [stock] prices during September, October and November was not only drastic but also general in its application to all groups of stocks.  In fact there are few instances on record where a larger percentage decline has occurred within so short a period of time as three months. . . .  Adverse new piled up so plentifully during the last three quarters of 1937 as to undermine the confidence of the investment and speculative community.[177-78]

Not only the stock and financial markets, but the entire economy was in a dramatic tailspin:

Labor unrest of serious proportions confronted nearly all of the nation’s basic industries, and resulted in widespread disorganization in production as well as huge financial loss to all concerned. [ 178]

Another round of bleak financial data was a considerable blow to the prestige of the President and his celebrated “Brain Trust” who had confidently predicted that they had the answers to solve the nation’s economic woes.  As Beard writes: “In its range the shock of the economic collapse was startling to President Roosevelt and his advisers. . . .  Doubts came to the President and his counselors: perhaps they had been wrong in seeking recovery through the specific measures they had espoused and were at the end of their improvisation.”[178]  Furthermore, Congress’ refusal to go along with FDR’s “court-packing plan” effectively ended any further expansion of the New Deal and by the fall of 1937 “the outlook for the New Deal was discouraging and the discouragement affected all the Administration circles in Washington.  The grand dream of 1933 no longer inspired unwavering optimism even among loyal Democrats.”[Ibid.]

A number of historians have contended that the failure to alleviate the nation’s enormous economic problems was the primary factor as to why the US eventually entered WWII.  With his economic policies failing and blocked by Congress from even greater largesse, it would seem plausible that FDR would look at foreign affairs to distract the public.  In October of 1937 this clearly seemed the case.

Although the economy was imploding, when the topic of foreign policy came up, there was no change in the President’s commitment to nonintervention.  This, however, was abruptly ended in a speech given on October 5, 1937 in Chicago which ever since has become known as the “quarantine speech.”  “[T]he President delivered,” as Beard describes, “in a tone of decisive solemnity, an address on the world situation in which he discarded the doctrine of neutrality for the United States and espoused the idea of collective security – the cardinal principle of internationalism.”[184]

Beard continued:

He [FDR] spoke with feeling about the ‘present reign of terror and international lawlessness,’ forecast more frightful scenes, declared that in such circumstances America could not expect mercy or escape from attack, and called for united action against aggressors on the part of the 90 per cent of the world’s population that cherished peace, freedom, and security.[Ibid]

As expected, the internationalists welcomed the speech as they believed that FDR “had at last spurned, in the name of the United States, the principle of non-entanglement and non-intervention in the political and military operations of European and Asiatic powers . . . .”[187]  Isolationists were outraged and argued that FDR was going back on his vow of neutrality and that he “was trying to divert attention from his domestic ‘mistakes’ by raising war scares.”[Ibid]

Apparently, FDR and his Administration were taken back by the tremendous uproar that the Chicago address evoked not only at home, but throughout the world.  The President refused to elaborate on it in the weeks afterward and would only speak “off the record” to journalists with ambiguous and often confusing responses to their queries.

It is doubtful that FDR was that surprised about the reaction to the quarantine speech.  A savvy politician such as Roosevelt was, no doubt, aware of the staunch non-interventionist mood of the country and understood the response that it would engender.  His refusal to explain it further in the context of his previous policy statements about keeping America neutral was probably a calculated move.  Maybe a trial balloon?

While the quarantine speech gave hope to the war mongers, it did little to sway public opinion or move the noninterventionists.  “As a rule,” Beard remarked, “members of the anti-war bloc maintained that there was no middle ground, that the United States could not depart from neutrality as recognized in international law without a definite risk of war, and that the quarantine doctrine, if actually applied, meant nothing more nor less than setting out on the road to war.”[197]

Polls taken in the months leading up to the speech showed that three fourths of the people were against any overseas military operations and in April of 1937, 71% asked, thought that the nation’s participation in WWI was a mistake.[198]

Despite the ire that the speech raised and the amount of ink that was spilled over it from interventionists and isolationists alike, there was no further talk of “quarantining aggressors” for the rest of the year:

. . . President Roosevelt made no public pronouncement and took no public action that indicated any change in the foreign policy he had expounded from February 2, 1932, to the day of the quarantine speech.  Insofar as the outward signs of his thought and purposes were concerned, his foreign policy for the United States remained the same as it had been since 1932.[207]

The following year continued on the same lines as the previous one without anything like the quarantine speech.  While there was reference to FDR’s Chicago address in the press and in the halls of Congress, 1938 was an election year and internationalists, no doubt, understood that without the President’s willingness to give further elaboration on his remarks of the previous autumn, they would face political repercussions if they continued to push for US involvement overseas.  Beard sums up the interventionists’ position in 1938:

From the point of view of internationalists, the pronouncements and actions of the Roosevelt Administration in respect of American foreign policy during the year 1938 were for practical purposes a total loss.[220]

For Western man, 1939 ranks as one of the most disastrous of years.  The start of another European bloodbath within a generation would continue his social, economic and political decline.  US participation in both wars extended their length beyond the point that any reasonable settlement could be negotiated and guaranteed a far worse outcome for all involved.

It was the unjust terms of the Armistice at the conclusion of WWI which imposed huge financial reparations on Germany, the loss of its industrial territory in the West mainly to France, and, most troubling, the political re-configuration of Central and Eastern Europe that would lead to the exploitation of ethnic Germans residing in the artificially formed jurisdictions which would make WWII “inevitable.”

Yet, from American press coverage and from the tone of the Roosevelt Administration none of these inconvenient facts and considerations were ever fairly presented for public consumption.   Instead, Hitler’s motives and moves to undo the harsh and politically untenable terms of the Versailles Treaty and to seek an equitable redress of the prevailing conditions were repeatedly described and reported as “aggression.”

One the other side, the “Godfearing democracies” were sympathetically portrayed as resisting aggression and their enemies, which would later include Italy and Japan, had no justification for their actions.  Unfortunately, even the most ardent of isolationist succumbed to this distorted narrative which is why they ultimately failed in their efforts to keep the US neutral.

When hostilities actually broke out, the categorization of “democracies versus aggressors” became even more hardened and unyielding which contributed to a crucial shift in American foreign policy that allowed FDR even further latitude in foreign affairs.

The framing of the political situation in the late 1930s as one of aggressors versus freedom-loving democracies must be given credit to the intrepid machinations of the American and British popular press, academia, and organs of government.  That one of the democracies, Great Britain, which had been in possession of one of the largest empires in human history, gained, in large measure, through aggression and that the US itself, which had brutally crushed a self-determination movement of a significant portion of its own people, could label other nations “aggressors,” was beyond all hypocrisy.  Yet, none of this was spoken of by the press or policy makers who were all itching, no doubt, to get America involved in another overseas escapade that would swell their own power and prestige.

As negotiations between the European powers continued in futility and war seemed inevitable, debate in the US intensified about whether the nation’s neutrality laws and its munitions embargo should be altered.  While bills and amendments were brought forth, the isolationist forces were able to prevent any change.  And, had war not erupted in September1939, it is unlikely that the internationalists would have ever been able to amass enough political muscle to obtain their objective.

FDR and his supporters argued that a revision of the neutrality laws would better enable the President to conduct foreign policy and thus keep America at peace.  The isolationists rightly countered that supplying arms and or financial aid to belligerents, nonetheless, would make the US a participant in the conflict even though there was no commitment of troops.  The repeal of similar statutes during WWI was the main factor in bringing the US into the war in 1917.

The outbreak of the war in early 1939 gave FDR the political impetus to get the munitions embargo repealed, which Secretary of State Hull speciously argued, “will protect the neutrality, the safety and the integrity of our country and at the same time keep us out of wars.”[235]

The non-interventionists responded that this same idea failed miserably to keep America at peace during WWI and should be rejected as Beard explains their position: “In opposition to certain modifications, especially the embargo repeal, it was avowed that they were steps on the road to war and that President Roosevelt, like Woodrow Wilson in 1917, was leading the country on the way to war.”[237]

While FDR and the Administration remained adamant about keeping the US out of the war and although the nation’s neutrality laws had been strengthened, the die had been cast and America would eventually be drawn into the contest.  An insightful British article written before the war had erupted pointed out that if the US abandoned its munitions embargo, it became a belligerent and accurately predicted it would become an “active” participant:

If war is actually precipitated, President Roosevelt will call a special session of Congress . . . and will seek the practically guaranteed repeal of the arms embargo . . . .The full economic, industrial, agricultural resources of the United States would then be at the disposal of Great Britain. . .  though perhaps on a ‘cash and carry’ basis.  How, when, or whether the United States would actually be drawn into the conflict is, naturally, a question that cannot be answered, but if one is estimating the probabilities they are that the history of 1914-17 would be foreshortened and repeated . . .the precise pattern of participation might be very different from that of 1917, but it might be none the less effective.[262-63]

While FDR and his supporters argued to the contrary, the repeal of the arms embargo in 1939 would put the US on the road to war, all that was needed was a provocation.

The 1940 Democratic convention met in Chicago and it was assumed that FDR would be nominated although it would break with the two-term limit tradition on presidential tenure.  Like the Republicans, the Democrats well understood the mood of the country which remained decidedly against placing troops overseas although most favored aid to the “Allies.”  Beard describes the prevailing mindset of most of the Democratic delegates: “Either on their own motion or in response to the demands of their constituents, a very large majority of the Democrats at Chicago shared this sentiment and were dead-set against any platform planks that would authorize actions on the part of the Federal Administration at all likely to eventuate in American participation in a foreign war.”[283]

FDR, of course, was not happy with the more zealous anti-war Democratic contingent who wanted a far more forceful pledge and statement in the platform about keeping Americans from being deployed overseas.  While the “strict non-interventionists” prevailed, the wily FDR offset their efforts with a “clincher.”

The clincher, or what became known as “the escape clause,” which was inserted into the platform was a pledge that the President would keep the country out of war except in case of attack. Anne O’Hare McCormick, who Beard quotes, perceptively commented that the word “attack” could “easily be extended to mean any assault on American interests, wherever it takes place.”[289]

With the “escape clause,” his re-election a lock, and the repeal of the munitions embargo the year before, FDR had almost all he needed to bring the US into the conflict and turn it into a world war.

The 1940 Presidential Election

Ever since the 1896 Presidential election when the William Jennings Bryan forces captured control of the Democratic Party, which then abandoned the Party’s long-term commitment to the gold standard, laissez faire, and a non-interventionist foreign policy, and as the Republicans under William McKinley purged the crazed anti-gold zealots from their ranks, there has been little difference between the nation’s two dominant political parties.  The 1940 election, once again, validated the case.

The election pitted a public utility lawyer, Wendell Willkie of Indiana, against FDR.  Willkie had been a Democrat up until the year before the election.  He had not run in any of the primaries and emerged as a compromise candidate picked by the party on the 6^th ballot over more known and committed non-interventionists.

Willkie offered no real alternative on foreign policy.  As Beard points out, Willkie had been an ardent supporter of Woodrow Wilson in which Willkie discovered his “first strong political ideology in devoted support of Wilson’s gallant but tragic fight for the League of Nations.”[269]  Throughout his career, he continually advocated that America join the League of Nations and declared that “only through such an instrumentality as the League could future wars be prevented.”[270]

Willkie’s principle reason for breaking with the Democrats was opposition to the New Deal.  Of course, it was not because Willkie was a laissez-faire ideologue, but it went against Willkie’s mentor, Woodrow Wilson’s “philosophy of government” and its principle of “economic individualism” whatever that term meant.

Willkie called for greater defense spending and agreed with efforts to support the “Allies” in every way short of sending troops overseas. None of Roosevelt’s provocative actions such as Lend-Lease were challenged by the Republican Presidential nominee nor did he try to link them to similar actions that FDR’s predecessor took which led the US into WWI.  Willkie did not see that the steps taken by FDR, although not committing troops, still put the US on an unstoppable path to a military clash in either the Far East or the Atlantic.

In his convention acceptance speech, Willkie sounded little different than his Democratic rival and was, in fact, itching for a confrontation with the German Chancellor:

. . . we know that we are not isolated From those suffering people. . . .  No man is so wise as to foresee what the future holds or to lay out a plan for it.  No man can guarantee to maintain peace. . . .We must face a brutal but terrible fact.  Our way of life is in competition with Hitler’s way of life. . . . I promise, by returning to those same American principles that overcame German autocracy once before, both in business and in war, to outdistance Hitler in any contest he chooses in 1940 or after.[297]

I want to put some questions tonight to the President of the United States and to you people here. . . .  Is there any one here who really thinks that the President is sincerely trying to keep us out of war?  An Administration that is not telling the truth is not qualified to head the country in time of crisis. . . .  I want to ask the President, and I demand an answer: Are there any international understandings to put America into the war that we citizens do not know about? . . .   I have been repeatedly asked in my trips throughout the country if such secret understandings exist.  The only answer I can give is that I do not know, but I want to know. [303-4]

The Republican nominee, however, never produced any hard evidence of FDR’s duplicity in the matter.  Without any real alternative, the American electorate voted for the third time for a man that had pledged to keep the country at peace.  For FDR, he had four more years to find a way to bring a reluctant nation into the conflict which he would accomplish via the “backdoor” with the badgering of Japan provoking them to attack in less than a year of his third inaugural address.

Conclusion

Besides Charles Beard’s accurate and courageous challenge to the orthodox historical interpretation of US involvement in World War II, American Foreign Policy in the Marking and its companion piece, President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War, were important studies at the time, for they gave a considerable boost to WWII revisionism.  Those who questioned the origins of the war itself, and that of US participation in it faced far greater opposition to their views from academia, the press, and government authorities than had their predecessors who attempted to assess the responsible parties for igniting WWI.

While WWI revisionists had pretty much won the day and showed that Imperial Germany was not solely responsible for the war’s outbreak, WWII revisionists faced a far more daunting task in their search for truth.  WWII is now, after some 70 years, seen as the “good war,” where America’s “greatest generation” valiantly fought in a noble crusade to rid the world of fascism in particular that of Nazi Germany.

Whether FDR lied, manipulated events, or colluded with Winston Churchill to bring the US into the war which the American public was solidly opposed to right up to the morning that the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, no longer matters.  The arguments and evidence produced by Beard and later revisionists have never been refuted by the gatekeepers of American historiography.  Instead, FDR’s complicity in bringing the US into the hostilities are ignored or, if admitted to any degree, are justified since it led to the ultimate defeat of Hitler.

The internationalists argued that the American public caught up in its isolationist fog led by unworldly figures like Charles Lindbergh and Fr. Charles Coughlin could not grasp the threat that Hitler and his Axis partners posed to the world.  It was the foresight and duty of visionaries like FDR and Churchill by defeating the Axis powers that preserved Western democratic values.

Yet, it was Charles Beard and other gallant souls who began debunking the sacrosanct myth of the Second World War long before it had been officially promulgated.  His works on the origins of America’s entry into that conflagration have more than stood the test of time and have been vindicated by the historical record.

Charles Beard should not only be remembered and honored, but more importantly be learned from by all those who oppose the murderous and destructive US empire which emerged upon the ashes of WWII.  If that empire is to be taken down, it must first be demystified and Beard’s revisionist works will be a part of that intellectual task.  When that glorious event does come about, it will be because of the likes of Charles Beard who so well chronicled the nation’s tragic path to an eventual empire in American Foreign Policy in the Making 1932-1940: A Study in Responsibilities.

Notes

*One popular “revisionist” account is by Patrick J. Buchanan, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost its Empire and the West Lost the World.  (New York: Crown Publishers, 2008).

**GerdSchultze-Rhonhof.   1939 – The War That Had Many Fathers: The Long Run-Up to the Second World War.  trans.  George F. Held (Munich, Germany: OlzogVerlag GmbH, 2011).

***Schultze-Rhonhof gave an excellent presentation of his book at the 2016 Property and Freedom Society’s meeting which can be see here:

Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof, “On the many Fathers of World War 2” (PFS 2016)

On the 225th Anniversary of the United States’ Bill of Rights

This December, 2016, marks the 225^th anniversary of the ratification of the first ten amendments to the US Constitution which would become known as the “Bill of Rights.”  To secure passage of the Constitution, the framers of the document (the Federalists) had to agree that it would contain explicit language on individual rights.Ever since its ratification, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution in which it is a part, has been hailed as one of the seminal achievements in the annals of human history while the political arrangements prior to it (primarily monarchy and aristocratic rule) have been sneered at and belittled by the Constitution’s hagiographers.   Moreover, the American Constitution has provided a model for the emergence of the nation state which came into its own after the French Revolution and the tragic breakup of Christendom.History, however, if looked at outside the Anglo-American perspective has shown that far from a protector of individual liberty, the Bill of Rights has been mostly useless in defense of basic freedoms while the Constitution, that it is a part of, has been a vehicle for the expansion of state power to an unfathomable degree.Despite the supposed guarantees of individual liberty within the Bill of Rights and the supposed limited nature of the Constitution itself, there has never been a more intrusive state in world history both domestically and in its myriad of interventions across the globe than the Leviathan that rests on the shores of the Potomac River.  And, the rise of American totalitarianism did not begin with the revelations of Edward Snowden and the other courageous whistle blowers of the recent past, but started soon after the new “federal” state came into existence with the passage of the Alien & Sedition Acts.  Each year since has witnessed the growth of state power at the expense of individual rights where now domestic spying and surveillance are part of the nation’s social fabric.The primary reason why the Bill of Rights has been unable to secure basic liberties is because the federal government and its courts are the ultimate interpreters of the Constitution and its amendments as explicitly stated in Article VI, section 2, subtitled, Supreme Law of the Land:

                   This Constitution and the laws of the United

States which shall be made in pursuance thereof,

and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under

the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme

law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be

bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of

any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

Since the central government is the final arbitrator of the document, any ruling or decision on particular laws or regulations which would impinge on individual rights will, for the most part, be favorable to the government itself.  And, due to man’s fallen nature, any such power will be abused.

The ratification of the Constitution in 1789 made in essence the individual states mere appendages of the central government.  While the Constitution’s sycophants boast of its “checks and balances,” a far superior bulwark against political repression is that of people “voting with their feet.”  Under the Articles of Confederation, when the national government was not the supreme law of the land, if a certain state became too tyrannical, at least in theory, and had the much neglected Articles remained in place, those persecuted could simply move to a more friendlier jurisdiction.

This would also hold true in the realm of taxation and regulatory policy.  Those political authorities who became too confiscatory in their taxing or enacted burdensome regulations could also see population outflows.  Similar activity goes on all the time currently as people flee high tax municipalities and states like California and New York to lower tax regions such as Florida and Texas.

For voting with one’s feet to be most successful, there needs to be a multitude of states and political jurisdictions.  In the current political climate, this would mean the breakup of the nation state.  Secession and political decentralization should thus be the goals of those who prize individual liberty and prosperity, not the celebration of constitutionalism and the supposed guarantees of personal freedoms under ideas such as the Bill of Rights.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com/

Brahms & Democracy

In November of 1876, one hundred and forty years ago, Johannes Brahms’ monumental First Symphony was first heard, performed in Karlsruhe, Germany.  The much anticipated work – which took Brahms over 20 years to complete – has become part of the canon of Western music.  Ironically, the premiere of The Ring by Brahms’ supposed rival and fellow musical genius, Richard Wagner, was performed for the first time in the same year.

While one critic initially called Brahms’ First Symphony “Beethoven’s Tenth,” it has surpassed that unjust description and now stands on its own merit as a distinct masterpiece.  The First Symphony, the three that followed, and the rest of Brahms’ works makes him more than Beethoven’s successor, a unique musical figure in his own right.

In one of his best newspaper articles, H.L. Mencken wrote the following about a Brahms’ performance:

My excuse for writing of the above gentleman is simply

that I can think of nothing else.  A week or so ago, . . . I

heard his sextet for strings, opus 18, and ever since then it

has been sliding and pirouetting through my head.  I have

gone to bed with it and I have got up with it.  Not, of course,

with the whole sextet, nor even with any principal tune of it,

but with the modest and fragile little episode at the end of

the first section of the first movement – a lowly thing of eight

measures, thrown off like a perfume, so to speak, from the

second subject.*

The Sage of Baltimore continued on what made Brahms so special:

In music, as in all the other arts, the dignity of the work is simply

a reflection of the dignity of the man.  The notion that shallow

and trivial men can write great masterpieces is one of the follies

that flow out of the common human taste for scandalous

anecdote. . . .  More than any other art, perhaps, music demands

brains.  It is full of technical complexities.  It calls for a capacity to

do a dozen things at once.  But most of all it is revelatory of what

is called character.  When a trashy man writes it, it is trashy music.

Here is where the immense superiority of such a man as

Brahms becomes manifest.  There is less trashiness in his music

than there is in the music of any other man ever heard of, with

the sole exception, perhaps of Johann Sebastian Bach. . . .

Hearing Brahms, one never gets any sense of being entertained

by a clever mountebank.  One is facing a superior man, and the

fact is evident from the first note.

While Brahms was born in Hamburg, he eventually found his way to the musical capital of the world, Vienna, which, at the time, was part of the Austro- Hungarian Empire.  Vienna was more than the musical center of Europe, but a cultural one as well which was rivaled by few in Brahms’ time.

Although mostly forgotten under an avalanche of pro-democracy historiography, the Vienna where Brahms spent most of his adult life was “ruled” by a monarch.  The rich cultural life which flourished in that political atmosphere was admitted even by those who were, no doubt, hostile and envious of it as the philosopher and economist, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, describes in his seminal book, Democracy: The God That Failed:

Even democratic intellectuals and artists from any field of

intellectual and cultural endeavor could not ignore the

enormous level of productivity of Austro-Hungarian and in

particular Viennese culture.  Indeed, the list of great names

associated with late nineteenth and early twentieth century

Vienna is seemingly endless.**

As Professor Hoppe insightfully shows, the incredible accomplishments of the likes of Brahms came in the pre-democratic era which tragically ended with WWI.

. . . rarely has this enormous intellectual and cultural

productivity been brought in a systematic connection with

the pre-democratic tradition of the Habsburg monarchy.

Instead, if it has not been considered a mere coincidence, the

productivity of Austrian-Viennese culture has been presented

‘politically correctly’ as proof of the positive synergistic effects

of a multiethnic society and of multiculturalism.

Whether the accomplishments were in the arts, music, scientific breakthrough, invention, or entrepreneurial wealth creation, all were the result of individual initiative, skill, tenacity, foresight and intelligence within a society that recognized, praised, and promoted such achievements.  There was no affirmative action or policies that promoted artists based on their skin color or gender.  When Brahms came to Vienna, he did not receive an Austro-Hungarian version of a National Endowment of Arts subsidy!

Just as important, and what is ignored by the Left and many race-denying realists on the respectable Right, is that all of these civilization-enhancing accomplishments in Vienna were made, for the most part, by white men.  No other culture or people have ever produced music comparable to Brahms and his fellow Western musical masters.

The democratic age which followed has been praised by scholars as an advancement of the human condition on all fronts.  In his book and in other places, however, Professor Hoppe has shown that just the opposite has occurred under democratic conditions with a trend toward de-civilization.  Taking the US as an example, he writes:

. . . 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.  As a result

of an ever-expanding list of nondiscrimination –

‘affirmative action’ – laws and nondiscriminatory, multicultural ,

egalitarian immigration policies, every nook and cranny of American

society is affected by government management and forced integration;

accordingly, social strife and racial, ethnic, and moral –cultural

tension and hostility have increased dramatically.

As Professor Hoppe notes, the latest phase in the democratic era has been  immigration policies which have been deliberately planned to destroy the various Western cultures with Germany being the most devastated.  Yet, as Mencken wrote of him, Brahms was a product of Germanic blood not that of multiculturalism.  The German people who continue to support and allow those to wantonly destroy the culture that produced a Brahms should consult Mencken:

I give you his Deutsches Requiem as an example. . . .   The thing is

irresistibly moving.  It is moving because a man of the highest

intellectual dignity, a man of exalted feelings, a man of brains,

put into it his love and pride in his country.  That country is

lucky which produces such men.

While Brahms’ music will always be listened to and played for its brilliance, it should always be remembered in what culture his genius was allowed to flourish.  How fortunate for mankind that Brahms lived in the pre-democratic era and what a loss it would have been if the First Symphony would have never been composed.

*Marion Elizabeth Rodgers, ed. The Impossible H.L. Mencken: A Selection of His Best Newspaper Stories.  With a Foreword by Gore Vidal.  New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1991, pp. 465-468.

**Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy and Natural Order.  New Brunswick (U.S.A.): Transaction Publishers, 2001, pp. xii-xiii.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com/

Presidential Dictatorship

2 Replies

Executive orders, undeclared wars, drone hits, assassination of citizens and non-citizens alike, the overthrow of foreign regimes, domestic spying, the abetting of known criminal activities through pardons, economic planning, opening borders, monetary manipulations are just some of the nefarious activities that routinely emanate from the most dangerous political office that the world has ever painfully come to know – the United States Presidency!

The U.S. presidents can and have created a veritable “hell on earth” for their opponents, perceived enemies, and the innocent not only in the country in which they reign, but over the lives and fortunes of peoples and places where they have absolutely no authority to interfere.  While other chiefs of state have theoretically had such power, U.S. presidents have been able to inflict their destruction and chaos because, paradoxically, the nation’s free-market system, for a long time, created immense wealth which could be tapped into.

The tyrannical nature of the presidency was recognized long ago by those politically perspicacious men who opposed both the office and the draconian document which created it.  Few groups in history have been so vindicated for their foreboding as those who vainly argued against the ratification of the United States Constitution than the Antifederalists.

“An Old Whig”* aptly sums up the damage that would come about if the Constitution was ratified and the office of president would come into being:

. . . the office of President of the United States appears to me

to be clothed with such powers as are dangerous.  To be the

fountain of all honors in the United States, commander in chief

of the army, navy and militia, with the power of making treaties

and of granting pardons, and to be vested with an authority to

put a negative upon all laws, unless two thirds of both houses

shall persist in enacting it, . . . .**

An Old Whig saw that the president would become a “king” but without the natural and binding checks that even the most absolutist of monarchs were restrained by:

[The president] is in reality to be a KING as much a King

as the King of Great Britain, and a King too of the worst

kind; – an elective King. . . . The election of a King

whether it be in America or Poland, will be a scene of

horror and confusion; and I am perfectly serious when

I declare that, as a friend to my country, I shall despair

of any happiness in the United States until this office

is either reduced to a lower pitch of power or made

perpetual and hereditary.***

One of the Federalists’ counterarguments to the Antifederalists’ concern over the presidential office was the widely held assumption that George Washington would become the new Republic’s first chief executive and the general knowledge of his impeccable character would assuage those worried of potential executive overreach.  Such a lame response neglected to look into the future when the office’s huge potentiality for despotism would be sought after and won by those who had less upstanding personal traits than the father of the country.

The growing decentralized political movements throughout the world with, for instance, the hopefully upcoming British exit from the European Union, can only be enhanced if the office of the president and, for that matter, all other nation state’s chief executives are exposed as tyrannical institutions which are anathema to individual liberty and collective self-determination.  Presidents, premiers, chancellors, prime ministers, and their like along with central banking are the two nefarious pillars of power of the modern nation state whose continued existence guarantees perpetual war and economic regression.

In this seemingly interminable presidential election cycle, populist, libertarians, conservatives, and all sorts of anti-Establishment types are delusional if they believe the totalitarian direction in which the country is now headed will be reversed through elections or choosing the “right” candidate.  “Making American Great Again” will only come about when the chief executive office and the statist document that created it have been repudiated.

Prior to the presidency’s abolition, its ideological justification must be first debunked.  There is no finer place to start for this most necessary task to take place than in the dissemination of the perceptive and enduring words of the much neglected Antifederalists.

*Probably penned by a group of Philadelphia Antifederalists – George Bryan, John Smilie, James Hutchinson and maybe others.  See, John P. Kaminski & Richard Leffler, eds., Federalists and Antifederalists: The Debate Over the Ratification of the Constitution.  Madison, Wisconsin: Madison House Publishers, 1989, p. 18.

**Ibid., p. 86.

***Ibid.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com/

Long Live the Flags of Dixie!

3 Replies

On May 19, the House of Reprehensibles passed a proposal that would essentially ban the display of Confederate flags from national cemeteries.  The amendment was added to a Veteran Affairs spending bill.

Not surprisingly, House Speaker Paul Ryan allowed the measure to be voted upon in hopes of not disrupting the appropriations process.  Yes, by all means Paul, the redistribution of taxpayers’ confiscated wealth should take precedent over a draconian attempt to eradicate a heroic symbol of the country’s past.  Hopefully, Ryan will be ousted this November as both Speaker and Congressman for not only his consistent sell out to Obummer and the Democrats on the budget, but his lack of understanding and appreciation of what is arguably the most important period of American history.

In a certain sense, the Confederate flag should not be displayed in national cemeteries or for that matter flown alongside those of the Union.  The two are representations of dramatically opposed political ideologies.  Liberals and political opportunists of all sorts have deliberately smeared the South’s attempt at secession as being entirely over the issue of slavery.  The “Civil War” (which that struggle has become known by) is now seen through Politically Correct hindsight.

A civil war, in the truest sense, is a conflict between factions attempting to gain control of a government typically for their own aggrandizement.  The bloody conflict between the North and South was not that, nor was it solely over slavery although the institution played a role in it.

The Confederacy wanted no part of the Washington establishment at the time, which it believed had become too tyrannical, and attempted to secede from it.  The remaining states of the North, under the “leadership” of Abraham Lincoln, prevented this at the cost of more than 600,000 lives, the vast destruction of property, and the impoverishment of a people who simply sought to rule themselves.

The South’s action was nearly identical to what the colonies, North and South, did some 80 years previously in breaking away from the British Empire and becoming free and independent states under the benign rule of the Articles of Confederation.

As America’s Founding Fathers saw their liberties violated by King and Parliament, Southerners witnessed similar tyrannies and wisely anticipated more federal oppression with the election of Lincoln.

This interpretation has been ably supported by scholarship, though the view is rarely acknowledged in academia or in the mainstream media.  In an essay from an insightful collection titled Secession, State and Liberty, Donald Livingston persuasively describes the ideological content of the Declaration of Independence, the revolution it inspired, and its influence on the South’s leadership.

He writes: “Overall, the Declaration is an argument designed to justify the secession of the new self-proclaimed American states from the British state. . .  [It] is a document justifying the territorial dismemberment of a modern state in the name of the moral right of a people to self-government.”*

The South, imbued with such logic and the example of the Revolutionary generation’s break with Great Britain, attempted to separate from the Union on similar grounds and, in Livingston’s view, had a much stronger claim than the Founding Fathers had for independence:

[T]he colonies were not and never had been recognized as sovereign states, either by others or even by themselves.  At the time of the Civil War, however, the southern states had been and still were sovereign states, and so they could mount not only a moral argument but a legal one as well.  And it was the legal argument they primarily insisted upon.  Each state used the same legal form to secede from the Union that it has used to enter, namely, ratification in a convention of people.**

Although slavery was a part of the South’s final break with the North, the Confederacy could never have been built on such a narrow foundation.  Those who seek to paint Southern secession as a movement solely designed to protect their “peculiar institution” have either misunderstood the genesis of that struggle or do so for political gain.

While Southern secession is mercilessly condemned by the Establishment, scholars like Professor Livingston see it and the War for Southern Independence in a much different and far nobler light: “With the orderly, legal secession of the southern states, the American genius for self-government reached its highest moral expression.”***

The Northern and Southern flags which fly in national cemeteries across the land are indeed representative of different traditions, but not what the Politically Correct crowd would have everyone to believe.

The defenders of Dixie and the flags that commemorate their courageous actions have long since been morally justified.  The Union flag, on the other hand, has been one of aggression and domination, at first, brutally directed at its fellow countrymen who simply sought self-determination, and afterwards against millions of peoples from Vietnam to Iraq.

Hopefully, in the not too distant future as economic conditions worsen and American hegemony can no longer be maintained, the Union flag and the empire in which it represents will receive greater vitriol than the Confederate flag has gotten for its innumerable mass murders, destruction, crimes, and chaos which it has wantonly brought to every corner of the planet.

*David Gordon, ed., Secession, State & Liberty. Donald W. Livingston, “The Secession Tradition in America.” New Brunswick (U.S.A.), Transaction Publishers, 1997, p. 7

** Ibid., 18.

*** Ibid., 19.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com/

“Pope” Francis and the Disintegration of Europe

Leave a reply

A Massive Wall Surrounds Francis-Bergoglio’s Vatican City-State

Despite being rebuked and humiliated by the Republican presidential front runner over his inflammatory statements about U.S. illegal immigration policies, Newpope Francis of the Vatican II sect has continued to opine about the migration crisis.

In an address to a Newcatholic French group, Bergoglio admitted the obvious: “We can speak today of [an] Arab invasion.  It is a social fact.”  Yet, despite the horrific consequences of this fact, mostly orchestrated by New World Order groups and organizations of which his church is a part, Newpope amazingly contends that this will eventually be a positive thing for Europeans: “How many invasions has Europe experienced in the course of its history! But it’s always been able to overcome them and move forward, finding itself complimented and improved by the cultural exchange they brought about.”*

Europe “complimented and improved”?!   Right.  Tell that to the thousands of women who have been raped, assaulted, and terrorized by mostly Muslim fanatics, or look at the widespread destruction of private property that these trespassers have wrought, and worse, the cultural transformation that this deliberately created crisis has produced.

Bergoglio furthered these idiotic statements with some multicultural speak: “the only continent [Europe] that can bring some unity to the world.”  And that Europe must fulfill its “universal role” and “rediscover its cultural roots.”**

If Bergoglio really wants Europeans to “rediscover” their “cultural roots,” they will find that ever since the emergence of Mohammedanism, its fanatical adherents have repeatedly attempted to overrun and conquer the Continent and subject its peoples to the crazed religious and political dictates of its possessed “prophet.”

At one time, Europe fulfilled its “universal role” by engaging in a series of military actions (the Holy Crusades) which were mostly inspired by true popes (which Bergoglio and his Vatican II predecessors are certainly not) to expunge the infidel from the sacred places where the Founder of Christianity lived, preached, was crucified, and gloriously rose from the dead.  These authentic successors of St. Peter, in particular Urban II and Innocent III, understood the threat that Mohammedanism posed to their flocks both spiritually and culturally.

The failure of Christendom to ultimately defeat Islam and drive it out of the former lands of the Roman Empire was not the fault of the popes, but that of the secular powers who increasingly sought their own aggrandizement. If the European principalities had heeded the popes’ calls and driven the Muslims back to their tribal homeland, history would have had a happier outcome.

Bergoglio, if he cared to look, would find that Europe’s “universal role” included the justification of “holy war,” in the use of violence against Islam, not only during the Crusades, but in the re-conquest of Spain, and in the defense of its homeland from numerous Muslim assaults. Moreover, the idea of Muslims living side-by-side with Europeans or being able to create their own autonomous communities would have rightly been considered societal genocide.

No authentic pope would be engaged in “dialogue,” common prayer meetings, or other ecumenical interchanges with Muslims as Bergoglio and his Vatican II predecessors have repeatedly and blasphemously done over the years.  Any pre-Vatican II pope, theologian, bishop, priest, or, for that matter, astute layman would properly consider such actions abominable and would recommend as punishment a rendezvous with some of the scum that abounds at the bottom of the Tiber for its transgressors!

Bergoglio and most of the Newchurch hierarchy’s support for free migration and open borders and their condemnation of those who have opposed such lunacy clearly demonstrates that the Vatican II sect is part and parcel of the New World Order which seeks the eradication of sovereignty and the extinction or at least subjugation of European peoples to the global elites.

Not only is this cretin wantonly overturning two thousand years of traditional Christian teaching on morality, but he is openly encouraging the destruction of those societies which that morality ultimately helped to build.

Despite the skillfully and deceitfully crafted persona as “Mr. Humble” and his white pontifical attire, “Pope” Francis and the sect that he heads are a clear and present danger to what remains of Western civilization and must be opposed and removed from power.

*Tom Wyke, “The Pope says ‘It is a Social fact’ that Europe is seeing an ‘Arab Invasion’ and it’s a Good Thing.”  Daily Mail.com.  4 March 2016

**Ibid.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

Queen Isabella and the Invasion of Europe

2 Replies

Another Constitutional Convention: An Idea Whose Time Has Not Come

The Constitution’s Big Lie