[royalcello]

Neither I nor any American monarchist that I know of imagines that the United States is about to become a monarchy in the near or even distant future. But that does not mean we are not free to promote our theoretical ideas about government. I have no problem in practice with republics in countries that were founded as republics, such as the US, Switzerland, Iceland, or San Marino. Indeed, one could argue that it would be profoundly un-conservative to try to impose a monarchy on these countries when it is contrary to their history and traditions.

My royalism is focused on those countries were monarchy is or was an integral part of their heritage, which includes practically every European country not mentioned above. In these cases, monarchies ought to be preserved or restored, and there is generally little difficulty in determining who the monarch ought to be. (See this page.)

One motivation for promoting monarchy as an American is my fear that if U.S. foreign policy continues in its current Wilsonian direction of spreading "democracy" worldwide at whatever cost, should a European country by some miracle take steps someday towards the restoration of a real monarchy (not a ceremonial ornament), a delusional successor of George W. Bush might intervene to prevent them from doing so. If this were to happen I would have no choice but to become as truly "anti-American" as today's paleoconservatives are falsely accused of being, as I would have been "anti-American" had I lived during the Spanish-American War or World War I. Indeed, there is anecdotal evidence that the Clinton administration prevented royal restoration in Serbia and the Bush administration did so in Afghanistan. This sort of behavior is what I fiercely oppose. But I do not advocate that the US become a monarchy; I would be satisfied with a constitutional republic that minded its own business as we generally did before 1898.

[Claud]

Neither I nor any American monarchist that I know of imagines that the United States is about to become a monarchy in the near or even distant future....My royalism is focused on those countries were monarchy is or was an integral part of their heritage

Great to hear such an inherently sensible opinion. I'm small-r republican--and yet I agree with you about this troubling equation between democracy and freedom. Iraq might have done better with a king instead of a democracy, but too many Americans have a visceral reaction to monarchy. I understand that reaction--shared it at one time--but I think it is a very (dare I say) jingoistic attitude to think that our form of government is the best for everyone else. The Reductions in Paraguay and the early Christians even found a way to make some aspects of socialism work.

Any way you slice it, government is still sinful men leading sinful men. :)