Posted on 05/09/2005 6:19:48 AM PDT by kjvail
I am not comparing any particular monarchy to any particular republic, let alone under disparate circumstances. For a thousand years, we've seen bad monarchs and good monarchs, yet the level of taxation and appetite for wars remained pretty much a constant. Enter protestantism and elected national government, and in 4-5 centuries we have an uninterrupted expansion of government and, the latest innovation, total war.
I say just the opposite, for example, in 90. The collapse of democratic nation-state is inevitable. It is coming within a generation. A natural order, resembling feudalism, will emerge, and dynasties of monarchic (=minarchist) rulers will emerge in time. This is as inevitable as change of seasons. No theorizing, libertarian or otherwise, can stop it.
So you tend to contradict your self. I try not to, though sometime I accidentally do, but I haven't for quite a long time. What you see as "inevitable," in the next hundred years, I do not see as occurring ever. Libertarianism however, I do see as inevitable. Its the next great step in human social evolution.
The deteriotion started earlier of course, with the rise of the theory of absolutism and the splintering of Christendom during the Reformation
I have far less affection for the Protestant monarchies than the Catholic one's for obvious reasons.
The Church was a major check on the power of the monarch, remove that, as the Protestant kings did and you have a straight path to absolutism (which IMO is still better than democracy). However absolutism does not equal arbitrary. There still was a well-accepted notion of the inviolability of the natural law.
This is where democracies utterly fail, they seem incapable of respecting the natural law and the limits of positive law. Vox populi != vox Dei.
The writers of the US Constitution did understand and respect natural law, but they made a 2 huge errors. Religious indifferentism ie toleration of error and "power is derived from the consent of the governed", both are contrary to Truth and have grave consequences.
5. Indeed, very many men of more recent times, walking in the footsteps of those who in a former age assumed to themselves the name of philosophers,[2] say that all power comes from the people; so that those who exercise it in the State do so not as their own, but as delegated to them by the people, and that, by this rule, it can be revoked by the will of the very people by whom it was delegated. But from these, Catholics dissent, who affirm that the right to rule is from God, as from a natural and necessary principle.
12. Those who believe civil society to have risen from the free consent of men, looking for the origin of its authority from the same source, say that each individual has given up something of his right,[15] and that voluntarily every person has put himself into the power of the one man in whose person the whole of those rights has been centered. But it is a great error not to see, what is manifest, that men, as they are not a nomad race, have been created, without their own free will, for a natural community of life. It is plain, moreover, that the pact which they allege is openly a falsehood and a fiction, and that it has no authority to confer on political power such great force, dignity, and firmness as the safety of the State and the common good of the citizens require. Then only will the government have all those ornaments and guarantees, when it is understood to emanate from God as its august and most sacred source.
Leo XIII, 1881
6. As a consequence, the State, constituted as it is, is clearly bound to act up to the manifold and weighty duties linking it to God, by the public profession of religion. Nature and reason, which command every individual devoutly to worship God in holiness, because we belong to Him and must return to Him, since from Him we came, bind also the civil community by a like law. For, men living together in society are under the power of God no less than individuals are, and society, no less than individuals, owes gratitude to God who gave it being and maintains it and whose everbounteous goodness enriches it with countless blessings. Since, then, no one is allowed to be remiss in the service due to God, and since the chief duty of all men is to cling to religion in both its teaching and practice-not such religion as they may have a preference for, but the religion which God enjoins, and which certain and most clear marks show to be the only one true religion -- it is a public crime to act as though there were no God. So, too, is it a sin for the State not to have care for religion as a something beyond its scope, or as of no practical benefit; or out of many forms of religion to adopt that one which chimes in with the fancy; for we are bound absolutely to worship God in that way which He has shown to be His will. All who rule, therefore, would hold in honor the holy name of God, and one of their chief duties must be to favor religion, to protect it, to shield it under the credit and sanction of the laws, and neither to organize nor enact any measure that may compromise its safety. This is the bounden duty of rulers to the people over whom they rule. For one and all are we destined by our birth and adoption to enjoy, when this frail and fleeting life is ended, a supreme and final good in heaven, and to the attainment of this every endeavor should be directed. Since, then, upon this depends the full and perfect happiness of mankind, the securing of this end should be of all imaginable interests the most urgent. Hence, civil society, established for the common welfare, should not only safeguard the wellbeing of the community, but have also at heart the interests of its individual members, in such mode as not in any way to hinder, but in every manner to render as easy as may be, the possession of that highest and unchangeable good for which all should seek. Wherefore, for this purpose, care must especially be taken to preserve unharmed and unimpeded the religion whereof the practice is the link connecting man with God.
18. In political affairs, and all matters civil, the laws aim at securing the common good, and are not framed according to the delusive caprices and opinions of the mass of the people, but by truth and by justice; the ruling powers are invested with a sacredness more than human, and are withheld from deviating from the path of duty, and from overstepping the bounds of rightful authority; and the obedience is not the servitude of man to man, but submission to the will of God, exercising His sovereignty through the medium of men. Now, this being recognized as undeniable, it is felt that the high office of rulers should be held in respect; that public authority should be constantly and faithfully obeyed; that no act of sedition should be committed; and that the civic order of the commonwealth should be maintained as sacred.
25. The authority of God is passed over in silence, just as if there were no God; or as if He cared nothing for human society; or as if men, whether in their individual capacity or bound together in social relations, owed nothing to God; or as if there could be a government of which the whole origin and power and authority did not reside in God Himself. Thus, as is evident, a State becomes nothing but a multitude which is its own master and ruler. And since the people is declared to contain within itself the spring-head of all rights and of all power, it follows that the State does not consider itself bound by any kind of duty toward God. Moreover. it believes that it is not obliged to make public profession of any religion; or to inquire which of the very many religions is the only one true; or to prefer one religion to all the rest; or to show to any form of religion special favor; but, on the contrary, is bound to grant equal rights to every creed, so that public order may not be disturbed by any particular form of religious belief.
26. And it is a part of this theory that all questions that concern religion are to be referred to private judgment; that every one is to be free to follow whatever religion he prefers, or none at all if he disapprove of all. From this the following consequences logically flow: that the judgment of each one's conscience is independent of all law; that the most unrestrained opinions may be openly expressed as to the practice or omission of divine worship; and that every one has unbounded license to think whatever he chooses and to publish abroad whatever he thinks.
27. Now, when the State rests on foundations like those just named -- and for the time being they are greatly in favor -- it readily appears into what and how unrightful a position the Church is driven. For, when the management of public business is in harmony with doctrines of such a kind, the Catholic religion is allowed a standing in civil society equal only, or inferior, to societies alien from it; no regard is paid to the laws of the Church, and she who, by the order and commission of Jesus Christ, has the duty of teaching all nations, finds herself forbidden to take any part in the instruction of the people. With reference to matters that are of twofold jurisdiction, they who administer the civil power lay down the law at their own will, and in matters that appertain to religion defiantly put aside the most sacred decrees of the Church. They claim jurisdiction over the marriages of Catholics, even over the bond as well as the unity and the indissolubility of matrimony. They lay hands on the goods of the clergy, contending that the Church cannot possess property. Lastly, they treat the Church with such arrogance that, rejecting entirely her title to the nature and rights of a perfect society, they hold that she differs in no respect from other societies in the State, and for this reason possesses no right nor any legal power of action, save that which she holds by the concession and favor of the government. If in any State the Church retains her own agreement publicly entered into by the two powers, men forthwith begin to cry out that matters affecting the Church must be separated from those of the State.
Leo XIII, 1885
What is plain from these documents is any government that denies the Church her rights and denies the primacy of God and the need to profess the true religion, is de facto illegitimate.
"An unjust law is no law at all"
A good study in the proper civil order, Catholicism and the State , Dr. Thomas Droleskey
I know of no historical examples of democracies that have respected these teachings. Even the plebscite democracies of ancient Greece, as described by Plato, devolved in barbarism and relativism - they had no guiding light and we have lost ours or rather we have rejected Him.
Your provided quotes and comments is the best argument I've read for a long time as to why our First Amendment needed to be broadly interpreted as a wall separating religion from the state, and further applicable to all local governments as well.
Sorry, I missed interpreted your reply. You have not contradicted your self. What you see as inevitable has remained consistent. I of course do not agree.
2/26 is the date in 1993 when an Iraqi intelligence agent named Ramzi Yusef bombed the World Trade Center the first time. On 9/11 we learned what happens as a result of burying our collective head in the sand, which is what you, and many others who either forgot or never understood the significance of that day, are proposing we do again.
1993, no reaction. 2003, irrational reaction.
Is a rational U.S. government too much to ask for?
Wow. That's impressive. How long did it take you to commit that date to memory? Do you have a little list of dates next to your computer so that you can show off what an anti-terror warrior you are? I wonder if Bush, off the top of his head, would know what happened on that date. Never forget 7/17.
It took me all of two seconds to commit that date to memory, because I was in the building at the time. I waited for 8 long years for something to be done about this attack on US soil, and then the inevitable result of doing nothing happened.
That fact does not make your opinion any more legitimate than others who are also informed about current events. I know someone whose father got out of one of the buildings on 9/11. This person doesn't think we did the right thing in going into Iraq. There are other 9/11 survivors who also feel the same way. Do their opinions trump yours because they survived an even bigger attack than the one you did? Of course not. The breakdown of opinion among survivors is probably in sync witht the general population.
I survived both attacks, not just the first. But I make no claim that that makes my opinion any better than any other. I am saying the events themselves are proof of an enemy who is determined and not containable. There is no option not to fight them. The only option is where we fight them. The various tyrants of the Islamic world are many heads of the same hydra, and we do not have the option not to confront them all. Given the nature of the particular hydra head named Saddam, we had no other option than to invade and depose him.
I totally agree that we need to fight them. How one goes about that is the problem. I am very much distressed that nobody, especially Bush, is willing to address that the problem is Islam and its inherent shortcomings. Even the neocon hawks don't want to go there. There's no need to rehash pros and cons over the Iraq situation, it's been done before. My condolences for any losses suffered on the two attacks. I'm glad you made it out of there.
I don't care what the neocons want. I know what *I* want, which is to take these bastards on ASAP, because it will only get worse if we don't. Given that the choices on the table are the Bush strategery and appeasement/cowardice, I'll back the Bush strategery.
Saddam is/was a secularist despot with nothing in common with the Jihadists except the Muslim universal hatred of Israel.
But I would urge you to forward the hydra head idea to the Whitehouse .... they're always open to nutcase reasons for starting another war.
You won't have to fight it... nor will you have to pay for it. So just go back to your golf game and butt out of the business of preserving the freedom you abuse for future generations.
What would that be?
Other than trying to drag his sorry ass out the situation he's already in, of course.
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