Posted on 05/08/2011 9:36:55 AM PDT by annalex
No, they probably did not. Do you think they would approve of what their ideals did develop into?
True. When a nation is in crisis -- and Germany was in crisis -- invariably the democratic dollhouse folds and a strong leader emerges. Another reason to have a monarchy in place before the crisis and not hastily assemble it from crazed demagogues like Germany did in 1930s. Incidentally, Roosevelt marathon presidency gave us the New Deal socialism, which still is a ticking bomb for us that no democratic leader can apparently defuse.
Yes, in fact I do mean precisely that. Re-read the article. The king owns his own life and the national infrastructure. He does not own me or you.
Thank you for the support, but the article convicningly argues that it is precisely the monarchy that provides checks and balances.
A nonelected part of government contributes to the separation of powers. By retaining certain constitutional powers or denying them to others, it can be a safeguard against abuses.5 This is perhaps the main modern justification of hereditary monarchy: to put some restraint on politicians rather than let them pursue their own special interests complacent in the thought that their winning elections demonstrates popular approval. When former president Theodore Roosevelt visited Emperor Franz Joseph in 1910 and asked him what he thought the role of monarchy was in the twentieth century, the emperor reportedly replied: “To protect my peoples from their governments” (quoted in both Thesen and Purcell 2003). Similarly, Lord Bernard Weatherill, former speaker of the House of Commons, said that the British monarchy exists not to exercise power but to keep other people from having the power; it is a great protection for our democracy (interview with Brian Lamb on C-Span, 26 November 1999).The history of England shows progressive limitation of royal power in favor of parliament; but, in my view, a welcome trend went too far. Almost all power, limited only by traditions fortunately continuing as an unwritten constitution, came to be concentrated not only in parliament but even in the leader of the parliamentary majority. Democratization went rather too far, in my opinion, in the Continental monarchies also.
Do you think that democracies and constitutional republics will inevitably end up in our current situation? Michael Voris makes that argument:
The cancer must be eliminated, and the only way to prevent a democracy from committing suicide is to limit the vote to faithful Catholics....as the body politic continues to be ravaged by the cancer of ignorant self-centered voters, it becomes more and more clear that a national euthanasia is occurring. But in truth, this is really the way the whole idea of democracy is little less than an experiment doomed to failure from the outset........In the case of a democracy or a democratic republic, where power is supposed to derive from the people, a lack of virtue on their part - the people's part - will lead to a government lacking virtue. It's the old adage that a nation gets the leaders it deserves.
-- from the thread CatholicTV calls for "Benevolent Dictatorship"?!
What atrocities? Speaking of Russia, in the whole history of the Romanov house we see one significant war, with an usurper of power, Napoleon. There were constant wars with Turkey, but they were all expeditionary wars not demanding any exertion of the national resource, and as the result several nations were liberated. The great war would have been won and gotten a Christian Cross restored on Hagia Sophia. In contrast, the democratic impulse of February 1917 gave Russia 4 year civil was, tens of millions killed in the Red Terror, the artificial famine, Christianity virtually destroyed in 1/6 the globe, a war with Germany took 20 millions, the GULAG stole another 60 million lives, enslavement of East Europe, the Cold War...
No argument from me on that score. Only the farce of handing Vietnam over to Hochimin came close.
True, but what makes you think a republic can in principle maintain this elusive balance in the presence of the democratic ferment and the absence of a truly separated power, the monarch?
I am a free man, and yet you say I should dream of righteous slavery and pray that God appoints a better man to rule me?
Delusional. Fighting against a great tide of history.
The children of Queen Victoria were a feckless worthless lot - the Czar, the Kaiser and the King.
But even if they were men worthy of the titles won by better men than themselves - they would still have to claim to rule any man worthy to call himself free.
In a Free Republic you are free to say such anti-American drivel, such worthless rot, such infantile putrid archaic nonsense - with the freedom won for you by free men who scorned monarchy as the idiocy it was.
King George said of George Washington that if he gave up power after winning the war, then he was the greatest man that ever lived.
I don't think they are any kind of monarchic role model. It is good to have them, but basically, monarchy will have to be reinvented from scratch one day.
All in all, the idea of a monarchy in the US today is logically a no-go
It has to be a figure who leads the nation out of the crisis and represents the national idea so well, his personal religion and ethnicity ceases to matter. I think, there will emerge a warrior class to maintain law and order, and in due course that will produce a monarch. I agree that the United States is more easily a feudal country than it is a strong-monarch country. but this kind of thing takes many generations. Think how different America today is from the America before the Great War. But the last WWI veteral only died this year. We cannot imagine the America of late 21 century, and I don't expect a monarchy to emerge here any time sooner.
A restoration of power of some existing houses of Europe is more of a possibility.
“”Comment #111 Removed by Moderator””
Explain how something written by Dr Rao is anything different form Chesterton or Belloc-which hold up core Catholic beliefs? I can post Chesterton saying things similar
FR becomes anti Catholic when this happens-Moderators owe Catholics an explanation for this.
Rao has not been allowed on Free Republic for a long time due to his anti-American rhetoric.
“”Rao has not been allowed on Free Republic for a long time due to his anti-American rhetoric””
He is not anti American,you have wrongfully judged him this way.He is pro Christ according to Catholic teaching
Is GK Chesterton anti- american too
GK Chesterton wrote the following...
“”I would therefore venture to say to Miss Avis Carlson that the quarrel in question does not arise from the Yankee Puritans having too much morality, but from their having too little. It does not arise from their drawing too hard and fast a line of distinction between right and wrong, but from their being much to loose and indistinct. -On American Morals by G. K. Chesterton
Is this not acceptable either?
That’s fine.
Communism was worse, of course, infinitely worse, but the Tsars were absolute tyrants way beyond the time when that was acceptable (until the industrial era) and that's why they fell so precipituously
Monarchy is an outdated concept IMHO.
“But you can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you.”
But Alex — the current English monarchy evolved into its current position. If it wasn’t for Queen Victoria, it would not have become like this at all.
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