Category Archives: Communism

‘Conservatives’ Fail Litmus Test As Defenders Of ‘Western & Christian Tradition

America, Boyd Cathey, Britain, Christianity, Communism, Conservatism, Constitution, History, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Neoconservatism, States' Rights

By Dr. Boyd Cathey (who, as is his wont, has covered it all—except for one other defining issue on which conservatives have failed miserably: Their gushing support for Mandela and his ANC).

You can tell a lot about a person by the friends he cherishes, and you can intuit much about how a writer thinks on one topic by how he thinks on another, related topic. This surmise is not always true in every case, but, I think it applies in a great majority of situations. Tell me what a person—a distinguished author, a political leader, a cultural icon—believes, his perspective, on this or that significant historical event, and you can usually gather a valid impression of his world view and overarching philosophy.

A few years back I created my own measure, my own test, as it were, to determine on which side of immense and fundamentally unbridgeable divides various writers and authors, politicians, and others come down. It seemed to me that we could take, historically, several major conflicts and wars, that fundamentally shaped not only subsequent history, but also, indelibly, the consciousness, thinking and cultural outlook of succeeding generations, and utilize them as markers.

I came up with the following five:

1) The English Civil War, 1642-1651;

2) The French Revolution, 1789-1799, also including the Napoleonic Period, 1799-1815;

3) The War Between the States, 1861-1865;

4) The Communist Revolution, 1917-1920; and

5) The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939.

I won’t dwell at length on my reasons for selecting these conflicts as measures—I will save that discussion for another time. But I will say I believe how we think about them clearly illustrates where a person stands in relation to the accumulated inheritance—that great continuum—of Western and Christian tradition. Respond correctly on all five (as I see it), and you are a staunch defender of that heritage and most probably have been able, in some fashion, to understand the fundamental connection those conflicts have in the context of our civilization and our willingness to defend it.

Obviously, for most self-described “conservatives,” there are at least two “giveaways” in my list, that is, two of the five questions they would very likely answer correctly: about the French Revolution and the Communist Revolution. Most “conservatives,” if queried, would have certainly opposed them.

It becomes harder after that, and, I suggest, even more critical to a determination. Not that many current “conservative” writers or politicians are intimately familiar with the history, causes, and issues surrounding the English Civil War. Yet, I would state most vigorously that issues debated then were, in microcosm and incipiently, some of the issues we continue to debate today, and that a faithful and thinking defender of the continuity of Western tradition must, necessarily, come down on the side of the Royalists, as opposed to Oliver Cromwell’s authoritarian experiment in democracy. King Charles, for all his mistakes and bad decisions, nevertheless, represented the traditions of his country and, as he stated at his famous trial, represented “more the people of England” than the rump “democratic” dictatorship of the Cromwellians and Roundheads.

Back in the 1960s, back when William F. Buckley’s magazine, National Review and Russell Kirk’s journal, Modern Age, were arguably truly conservative, the question concerning the Spanish Civil War would have, likewise, been a giveaway. Almost all conservatives would have viewed that conflict in the light of a much larger, universal conflict between international Communism and those forces opposed to it, and this despite the fact that the anti-Republican Nationalist forces led by Francisco Franco did receive some support from Fascist Italy and Hitler’s Germany (while the Soviet Union not only supported the Republic, but eventually via the Spanish Communist Party eliminated most of its opposition in Spanish Republican ranks). But not today; indeed, many of the dominant “conservatives” of 2017—the Neoconservatives—come down passionately on the side of the socialist Republic, and, employing the linguistic armor of the Left, they attack the Nationalist, Catholic and traditionalist forces that fought against the Republic, as “fascists.”

Finally, there is the War Between the States, and it is here, in this case, where we indeed can separate the true traditionalist conservatives who comprehend and accept the continuum of Western Christian civilization, its virtues, and its authority, and those who have, in reality and to varying degrees, severed themselves from that continuity. It is here that we can range on one side those who accept and participate in that “great chain of being”—that fundamentally religious and hierarchical structure of all matter and life, decreed by God, Himself, and present in our historical consciousness, and those who do not accept it. For support, in some form, of the Confederacy becomes that crucial measure that determines not just a political outlook about states’ rights and the original meaning of the American Constitution. It also demonstrates a vision of reality and of our existence as human beings created by and subservient to God as part of an organic whole, a Creation which must continually be protected and defended against those who would seek to puncture it, or distort its meaning, if not, eventually, to subvert or destroy it.

Certainly, there are those of good will and, let us call it, “invincible ignorance” who have been educated to think that the primary issue in 1861 was slavery, and that Abraham Lincoln was simply reacting to those “rebels” who wished to destroy “the sacred bonds” of Union, while advancing the great humanitarian cause of “freedom.” So much for the caliber and character of our contemporary educational system, not to mention Hollywood’s ideologically tendentious (and mostly successful) attempts to influence us. Yet, that mythology surrounding the Southern Iliad of 1861-1865 will not stand serious cross-examination.

Consider these popular myths and shibboleths:

“The War was about slavery!” Not really accurate: the war aims cited repeatedly by Lincoln and Northern publicists were that the War was to “preserve the Union.” Indeed, if abolition of slavery had been declared as the principle war aim in 1861, most likely a great majority of Union political leaders, not to mention Union soldiers, would have recoiled, and the Northern war effort would most likely have collapsed. It was difficult enough to gain wide support in the North, as it was. Remember, Lincoln was elected with less than 40% of the vote in 1860, and barely gained pluralities in most Northern states.

“Lincoln freed the slaves!” Not so; Lincoln freed not one slave. His Emancipation Proclamation, issued first on September 22, 1862 and finalized on January 1, 1863, supposedly “freeing the slaves,” only applied to those areas not under Union military control or occupation, that is, territory of the independent Southern states. It did not apply to the “slave states” within the Union or controlled by the Union military, including Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. Thus, Lincoln’s proclamation “freed” slaves where his action had no effect, but left it untouched where he could have “freed” them. Not only that, exactly one month prior to his initial proclamation he had been interviewed by Horace Greeley, editor of The New York Tribune, where he forthrightly stated: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it… What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union….” [August 22, 1861] The amendments to end slavery came after the conclusion of the war and after the death of Lincoln.

And most recently this charge: “Robert E. Lee and other Confederate military leaders who had been in the US Army committed treason by violating their oaths to defend the Union, and Confederate leaders were in rebellion against the legitimately elected government of the United States.”

It is this accusation that has become the ultimate weapon of choice—the “ultima ratio”—for today’s fierce opponents of the various monuments that honor Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, P. G. T. Beauregard, and other Confederate military leaders, and for the belief that they should be taken down. And most especially, it is spewed forth as unassailable gospel by many Neoconservative writers, publicists, pundits, and their less distinguished camp followers in much of the NeverTrump elites of the Republican Party.

Most recently, we have witnessed the spectacle of Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, apparently “channeling” (!) Robert E. Lee and declaring that if Marse Robert were alive today he would gleefully join in the chorus to bring down those monuments honoring Confederate soldiers and leaders. Tell us, Rich, so the great general would be there right beside the “antifa” Marxists and Black Lives Matter vandals, that is, those “new” friends you have made over on the extreme left?

Even more obtuse views come from Mona Charen, a long time Neocon publicist and NeverTrumper, who fears that the GOP is “being taken over by Trumpists and Neo-Confederates”! Perish the thought, Mona!

But it is from the foul mouths of “conservatives” Andrew Bacevitch and Max Boot that the worst venom emits, and, fascinatingly, it could have just as well come from a member of the communist Workers’ World Party as from Bacevitch (who writes for The American Conservative, but voted for Obama twice) or Boot (who was John McCain’s foreign policy advisor during McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign).

Just a few quotes from Bacevitch:

“My complaint about Lee—I admit this to my everlasting shame—was not that he was a slaveholder who in joining the Confederacy fought to preserve slavery. It was that he had thereby engineered the killing of many thousands of American patriots who (whatever their views on slavery and race) wished simply to preserve the Union. At the beginning of the Civil War, Lee famously remarked that he could not bring himself to take up arms against his home state of Virginia. This obliged him to take up arms against the very nation that as a serving officer he had sworn to defend? No less than Benedict Arnold, Robert E. Lee was a traitor. This became, and remains, my firm conviction.”

And then this from Boot:

“…what is it that we are supposed to be grateful to the Confederates for? For seceding from the Union? For, in the case of former U.S. Army officers such as Lee and Jackson, violating their oaths to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic”? For triggering the most bloody conflict in American history? For fighting to keep their fellow citizens in bondage?”

Now, these individuals are, supposedly, well-educated, with valuable university degrees, writers of some (I would submit, undeserved) repute. I do not believe they fall into the category of invincible ignorance; I do not believe that will suffice as an explanation or excuse for the hatred-laced and furious animus they demonstrate against a Lee or any other faithful military leader of the Confederacy. Rather, they fall clearly on that other side of my unbridgeable divide—they implicitly, through this major indicator and precisely because they are educated, reject the continuum of Western Christian civilization. They may protest not, but, in effect and through their views, they effectively do so. And, as such, they are the enemies of those who do defend that great chain of being, that European inheritance of those who went before us, the legacy of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome. Thus, they must be called out and their vision denounced for what it is: the “Fifth Column” of the progressivist Revolution that seeks to radically remake the world and man…and that remade image is not one that comes from God.

Two years ago, in 2015, in response to the hysteria (including the actions of the invincibly stupid Nikki Haley) concerning the display of Confederate flags after the criminal acts of Dylann Roof, I authored a long essay, first published in the Confederate Veteran magazine, and then picked up by the Abbeville Institute. Much of the ludicrous reasoning offered by Bacevitch, Boot, Lowry, and Charen (and other Neocons) I attempted to answer back then, in particular the utterly ridiculous charge that General Lee somehow violated his oath to defend the Constitution as a member of the US Army. Accordingly, I reproduce portions of that essay today.

Lastly, Dr. Lee Cheek has written a shorter, but fine, defense of General Lee, and I pass that on as well.

Once again, I ask your indulgence: there is much here, but in these critical times, it is incumbent upon us to be informed…and prepared for the battles ahead.

==========================================

~ DR. BOYD D. CATHEY is an Unz Review columnist, as well as a Barely a Blog contributor, whose work is easily located on this site under the “BAB’s A List” search category. Dr. Cathey earned an MA in history at the University of Virginia (as a Thomas Jefferson Fellow), and as a Richard M Weaver Fellow earned his doctorate in history and political philosophy at the University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain. After additional studies in theology and philosophy in Switzerland, he taught in Argentina and Connecticut before returning to North Carolina. He was State Registrar of the North Carolina State Archives before retiring in 2011. He writes for The Unz Review, The Abbeville Institute, Confederate Veteran magazine, The Remnant, and other publications in the United States and Europe on a variety of topics, including politics, social and religious questions, film, and music.

Milton Friedman Understood Rhodesia In 1976

Africa, Britain, Colonialism, Communism, History, Race, Racism, South-Africa

VIA AFRICA UNAUTHORIZED:

“Of the 49 countries in Africa, fifteen are under direct military rule and 29 have one-party civilian governments. Only five have multiparty political systems. I have just returned from visiting two of these five—the Republic of South Africa and Rhodesia (the other three, for Africa buffs, are Botswana, Gambia and Mauritius). If this way of putting it produces a double take, that is its purpose. The actual situation in both South Africa and Rhodesia is very different from and very much more complex than the black-white stereotypes presented by both our government and the press. And the situation in Rhodesia is very different from that in South Africa.

Neither country is an ideal democracy—just as we are not. Both have serious racial problems— just as we have. Both can be justly criticized for not moving faster to eliminate discrimination— just as we can. But both provide a larger measure of freedom and affluence for all their residents—black and white—than most other countries of Africa.

Both would be great prizes for the Soviets—and our official policy appears well designed to assure that the Soviets succeed in following up their victory in Angola through the use of Cuban troops by similar take-overs in Rhodesia and South Africa.

The United Nations recently renewed and strengthened its sanctions against Rhodesia. The U.S. regrettably concurred. We have, however, had enough sense to continue buying chrome from Rhodesia under the Byrd amendment, rather than, as we did for a time, in effect forcing Rhodesia to sell its chrome to Russia (also technically a party to the sanctions) which promptly sold us chrome at double the price.

Rhodesia was opened up to the rest of the world less than a century ago by British pioneers. Since then, Rhodesia has developed rapidly, primarily through its mineral production—gold, copper, chrome and such—and through highly productive agriculture.

In the past two decades alone, the “African” (i.e., black) population has more than doubled, to 6 million, while the “European” population (i.e., white) has less than doubled, from about 180,000 to less than 300,000. As Rhodesia has developed, more and more Africans have been drawn from their traditional barter economy into the modern market sector. For example, from 1958 to 1975, the total earnings of African employees quadrupled, while those of European employees a little more than tripled. Even so, perhaps more than half of all Africans are still living in the traditional subsistence sector. …”

… READ THE REST: “Rhodesia in 1976. A fascinating view from a famous economist.”

Guess Whose Vast Special Ops Activity ‘Interferes’ In 137 Countries? Not Russia’s!

Bush, Communism, Foreign Policy, IMMIGRATION, Iraq, Islam, Terrorism

By Dr. Boyd D. Cathey

I would like to turn, first, to a significant, if very little-known, aspect of how our foreign policy functions: our nation’s wide-ranging “special operations” activities throughout the world.

Noted author on international affairs Nick Turse explores in detail this topic, examines its history and the exponential expansion of “special ops” activity, and raises some fundamental questions about its future use and its place in this country’s overall global strategy.

The major question, then, is whether the new Trump administration, with its mandate to review and redefine American priorities under the rubric of “America First,” will or even can integrate this nation’s vast special ops activity within a clear and realistic vision, reflecting President Trump’s enunciated agenda.

Is it advisable, the question should be asked, for American “advisors” to be on the ground in approximately 137 foreign countries … from East Timor to Malawi? Are our immediate interests and objectives clearly defined in each region where our special ops exist? And just what is our overall strategy dictating these interventions? Are we or should we be, indeed, the “world’s policeman”?

Except for North Korea, and China, the old international Communist threat ceased to exist long ago; true, a virulent form of Marxism continues to thrive in various incarnations, including most especially here (e.g., on campuses, in the media, in Hollywood, in Democratic Party enclaves) in the United States and in Western Europe. But the much larger, international threat to “peace” comes from global Islamic expansion and resultant terrorism, in Europe, in Africa, and increasingly, in America.

The United States has not won, outright, a major war since the end of the World War II. Yes, the Communists were fought to a shaky standstill in Korea, but American involvement in Vietnam was not exactly a shining success. The initially successful invasion of Iraq and intervention in Afghanistan have not yet produced the promised “democratic” triumphs heralded by the Bush administration. And the results of the tenures of Bill Clinton (Bosnia, Kosovo) and Barack Obama (Libya, Egypt) were, arguably, worse.

What, also, is the role of special ops in a world where mass immigration continues to dislocate traditional cultures and Islamic terrorism erupts in Western nations, largely as a result? These are critical questions that should be addressed.

Next, I’d like to direct you to a speech Vladimir Putin gave to the United Nations in September 2015. I think it quite instructive to compare this fascinating presentation, which is literally filled with substantial, if debatable, insights and observations, with speeches given by most of the other leaders in the world today. And I would suggest that Putin’s clear-headed approach to issues, certainly as he sees them, is one major reason why he emerged as one of the globe’s most important leaders, after the collapse of the old Soviet Union and the precipitous decline, economically and politically, of Russia under Boris Yeltsin.

Embedded in his particular vision for his nation in the post-Communist world there are insights and ideas that should be examined closely by the West. On display through his words are the experience and lessons learned by a former mid-level KGB officer who, yes, served the Soviet state in Dresden during the Cold War, but then not only renounced the KGB but helped defeat its attempted military coup to retake power in August 1991 … the lesson learned that inherent religious faith and nationalism are a much stronger and more profound force than Communist ideology … the lesson learned that worldwide Islamic terrorism can only be defeated by a worldwide cooperative effort … and the lesson learned that New World Order managerial globalism dehumanizes whomever it touches and destroys those traditions and that independence that make men truly human and free.

Debatable, yes; but certainly words to seriously consider.

*****

~ Dr. Boyd D. Cathey is an Unz Review columnist, as well as a Barely a Blog contributor, whose work is easily located on this site under the “BAB’s A List” search category. Dr. Cathey earned an MA in history at the University of Virginia (as a Thomas Jefferson Fellow), and as a Richard M Weaver Fellow earned his doctorate in history and political philosophy at the University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain. After additional studies in theology and philosophy in Switzerland, he taught in Argentina and Connecticut before returning to North Carolina. He was State Registrar of the North Carolina State Archives before retiring in 2011. In addition to writing for The Unz Review, Cathey writes for The Abbeville Institute, Confederate Veteran magazine, The Remnant, and other publications in the United States and Europe on a variety of topics, including politics, social and religious questions, film, and music.

Southern Baptists At The Crossroads: Will They Resist Cultural Marxism?

BAB's A List, Christianity, Communism, Pop-Culture, Religion

By Dr. Boyd D. Cathey

“At the base of all political issues, there is a religious question.” There have been numerous writers credited with first writing or using those words. While studying in Spain, my dissertation director asserted that the great Spanish thinker, Juan Donoso Cortes, had said them in the 1840s; other sources indicate that Cardinal John Henry Newman wrote them at about the same time. And there are other accounts and other authors who apparently said more or less the same thing.

In the end, it really makes little difference who said or wrote that phrase: its truth and profound reality percolate throughout the history of Western Christianity, whether written down or not. And the observation is ever more significant in our turbulent contemporary times.

The history of Christianity over the past 150 years, if not longer, clearly illustrates the existence of an immense ongoing battle—a war—between those who defend the traditions and orthodoxy of their faith and those who believe that that faith must be continuously updated and open to the intellectual currents of the times. Witness the great struggles in the 19th century between theological “liberalism” and “higher criticism,” opposed to “traditionalism” and Biblical inerrancy. And in the 20th century this combat continued as “Modernism” threatened the very nature of the Catholic Church and social gospelism and assaults on Biblical fundamentals gnawed away at the various Protestant communions.

Early on traditionalists seemed to maintain their own in these debates. Whether by the conservatism of the Prussian Lutheran establishment in Germany, or with the staunch response by the Catholic Church under pontiffs like the Gregory XVI, Bl. Pius IX, Leo XIII, and St. Pius X, liberalism, socialism, and other challenges to orthodoxy were mostly held at bay. It was St. Pius X who definitively condemned theological Modernism in his powerful encyclical Pascendi gregis Dominandi in 1907.

In the United States, the theological debate perhaps reached its zenith with the great Calvinist Presbyterian theologian, Graham Machen, who had been a professor of theology at Princeton University, but finally left that school because of its embrace of theological liberalism. He then founded the Westminster Seminary in 1929, based on more orthodox and fundamental beliefs. Machen’s very public combat, in many ways, signaled a revival of fundamental orthodoxy within various Protestant denominations.

Yet, like a virulent infection—a cancer—that refuses chemotherapy, the attacks on Christian orthodoxy did not disappear or go away. Throughout the 1930s into our own times the conflicts continued, if sometimes just below the surface. Indeed, by the 1930 Lambeth Conference, the Anglican/Episcopal Church began to give way to more “modern” views on such issues as sexual morality. Methodists, divided one hundred years earlier between Methodist Episcopal Churches, North and South, re-united in 1938, in a union through which liberalism soon gained the upper hand. Northern and Southern Presbyterians formally re-united in 1983, once again submerging a more conservative (Southern) confession within a dominant, more liberal (northern) one.

The most significant, unrelenting, and universal opponent to theological liberalism and modernism throughout the 19th and 20th centuries had been the Catholic Church. Yet, it too, despite formal condemnations by St. Pius X and the continual opposition to various theological errors, witnessed internal subversion and, at the Second Vatican Council (1963-1965), the validation of what can be termed a kind of “pastoralism,” that is, the application in the apostolate, if not in official doctrine, of a practical liberalism. The case of the Catholic Church is unique in that its historic and doctrinal anathematization of liberalism, modernism, Biblical “higher criticism,” as well as its condemnations of socialism and communism, are irreformable. Thus, the attempts to subvert its mission and teaching involved a pro forma, perfunctory acknowledgment of settled doctrines, while at the same time implementing a practical “pastoralism” that in effect rejected those doctrines: ecclesiastical schizophrenia writ large.

At its origins, Marxism found itself in abrasive opposition to traditional Christianity. It was only in the early 20th century that Marxists developed a concerted approach—a philosophy—of forming cooperative “united fronts” with more liberal Christians on issues where they believed “collaboration” possible. But just what kind of “collaboration” was envisaged? Early on, Marxists understood that their political triumph would not be complete unless the traditional opposition of the Christian church was neutralized and Christian culture, itself, conquered. For international Communism that meant that cooperation and the “united front” efforts would be a means of weakening and eventually subverting not just theological orthodoxy, but also significantly politicizing the culture and its traditional basis in Christianity, pushing it to the political and cultural Left. In that way, formal Christianity, once the most steadfast opponent of Marxist ideology, would be neutralized and, in many cases, become its most notable collaborator.

In a very real sense, the subversion and fall of establishment Christianity was the last major conquest of a continuing anti-Western Marxism, even after of its collapse in Russia. Indeed, as Paul Gottfried has carefully explained in his fascinating volume, The Strange Death of Marxism, while the older, more establishment Soviet Communism disappeared in the late 1980s, a more virulent strain of Marxist belief—Cultural Marxism—continued even more aggressively and successfully in Western Europe and in the United States.

Among major Protestant denominations, the Southern Baptists have been, arguably, the most resistant to the leftward drift and theological deterioration that have characterized so many other communions. Yet, in more recent years, they, too, have been subject to assault, and most specifically on social and political questions. Indeed, increasingly the contagion of cultural Marxism, disguised generally as a renewed “concern” for “social justice,” has gained a foothold in the SBC.

The essential problem is that many otherwise orthodox Evangelicals are also subject to the Progressivist appeal and narrative on social issues and the dominant linguistic template that imposes a mode of communication and resulting pastoral action that carries with it an eventual decay in traditional theology as well.

Recently, the Southern Baptist Convention has adopted resolutions condemning: “racism,” the so-called “Alt-Right,” and, finally, the “Confederate flag.” Although Southern Baptist congregations enjoy a great deal of autonomy, such declarations indicate something deeper and more profound that is occurring within the denomination, and it should raise serious red flags among Baptist conservatives.

The success of cultural Marxism in “turning” much of Christianity, infiltrating its institutions of learning and its seminaries, altering its pastoral messaging, and weakening its theological resolve, confirms the aphorism of the historic “united front” approach: “pas d’ennemis a gauche” (first said by French socialist Rene Renoult in 1919)—“no enemies on the Left.” This ongoing process reflects the success of cultural Marxism in creating a template, an inexorably progressivist view of history, a standard where intellectual thought and language have been dogmatized, and even those who supposedly oppose its announced aims and objectives are forced into accepting its ideological parameters and grounds of debate. And in doing so, they fatally limit the effectiveness of their response, and insure the continued advance of the Revolution.

There is, however, hope for counter-revolution. And it is seen in the increasing—and untainted by the politically correct culturally Marxist straight jacket—reaction on the part of such organizations as the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X in the Catholic Church, the various continuing Anglican confessions that reject the heretical inanity so rampant in that denomination, the proliferation and incredible growth of conservative Presbyterian churches, and the refusal of millions of Baptists to accept the political dictates of the SBC. And, more fascinatingly, by the tremendous revival of traditional Orthodoxy in Russia and Slavic countries.

The battle—the War for Belief and for our civilization—continues. The tide of advancing Progressivism continues to wreak its havoc and destruction across the entire West. Yet, the assurance of traditional believing Christians is certain: even in the depths of the most unprecedented darkest times, the light of Faith will conquer. The Blessed Marco d’Aviano entreated the small Christian garrison at the siege of Vienna in 1683, facing, as they were, 300,000 fanatical Muslims: “If you believe, you will be victorious.”

And thus it was on September 11, 1683; and it can be so again.

*****

~ Dr. Boyd D. Cathey is an Unz Review columnist, as well as a Barely a Blog contributor, whose work is easily located on this site under the “BAB’s A List” search category. Dr. Cathey earned an MA in history at the University of Virginia (as a Thomas Jefferson Fellow), and as a Richard M Weaver Fellow earned his doctorate in history and political philosophy at the University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain. After additional studies in theology and philosophy in Switzerland, he taught in Argentina and Connecticut before returning to North Carolina. He was State Registrar of the North Carolina State Archives before retiring in 2011. In addition to writing for The Unz Review, Cathey writes for The Abbeville Institute, Confederate Veteran magazine, The Remnant, and other publications in the United States and Europe on a variety of topics, including politics, social and religious questions, film, and music.