Category Archives: Nationhood

Vulgarity And Vanity Come To The Ancient St. George Chapel, At Windsor Castle

BAB's A List, Boyd Cathey, Britain, Christianity, Conservatism, Culture, Hollywood, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Nationhood

By Dr. Boyd Cathey

… IN DECEMBER 1936, King Edward VIII abdicated as King of England, basically over his love for an American divorcee, Wallis Simpson, something deeply frowned on and disapproved of back then—yet scarcely forty-five years later the heir apparent to the English throne, Prince Charles, married Lady Diana Spencer, a disastrous matrimony that would assist immeasurably in discrediting the House of Windsor, which had already begun a decline many years earlier.

But like most current ruling monarchies today, the catch phrase is “relevance,” getting “with it,” so to speak, with all current fads, breaking with tradition, basically turning a backside to the past and its critical importance in the survival of the nation. And if that means inviting a whole slew of remarkably disreputable Hollywood types, not to mention pseudo-celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, into the great halls and chapels that once beheld the noble figures of a King Charles the Martyr or Victoria Regina, then so be it.

And then there was the ungracious spectacle of the “Presiding Bishop,” Michael Curry, of what is called the Episcopal Church in the United States. Curry, a few years back, was the Episcopal bishop in North Carolina, and distinguished himself for his left-wing social and religious views—he would much rather preach the gospel of “Saint” Martin Luther King than St. Paul: too many inconveniences and prohibitions in the Pauline message!

And he did not disappoint in St. George’s Chapel: jumping around like a jack-rabbit, pretending he was sermonizing to a group of illiterate Yazoo bayou dwellers in Mississippi, he brought, as admiring Fox commentator/airhead Ainsley Earhardt fawned, “a wonderful and inspiring American element” to the wedding. [Where, pray tell, does Fox get all these brainless blondes from?]

For thirteen minutes he basically said just one sentence: “How great is love!” But he managed to mix in bits of MLK (yeah, cheater King was an expert on conjugal love!), civil rights, and a social gospel totally extraneous to the supposed occasion.

The Windors, for the most part, set stony-faced, enveloped by the tide of nonsense and relevance that has overwhelmed them. Oh, certainly, it was said that the ceremony
“combined the best of British tradition with a new and fresh ‘American’ approach.” But what it actually did was point out sharply the truth … about monarchy and monarchs in the modern world:

“They are increasingly a ‘sign of contradiction’; this must be their role in our world. If they fail in this—if they embrace all the tawdry excesses and excrescences of our times—they will forfeit that historic role, and rightly so.”

Our world is perishing for the lack of heroes, for the lack of those Don Juans of Austria, for those new and courageous Stonewall Jacksons and King John Sobieskis who would stand manfully against the onrushing tide of Modernity and decay in our civilization. The awe and reverence, the understanding that the past is never really “past,” that it is always potentially within us, and that it can inform our steps and continue to inspire us and anneal us in its grace, is a precious legacy, an invaluable gift from our ancestors and Christendom. We forfeit it, and the blackness of despair and death awaits us.

When the traditional champions of our culture and civilization quit the field, as the Windsors have done, only Evil—the “rough beast”—smiles.

… READ THE REST. The complete commentary is “That Royal Wedding, Reverend Michael Curry, and the End of England.”

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~ 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.

Using Wall Money To Bomb Syria

Constitution, Debt, Homeland Security, IMMIGRATION, Just War, Nationhood, Reason, War

No idea why bootlickers are elevating Laura Ingraham’s mild objections to the Syria strikes. It looks like what she’s saying is that “if we had the money; then OK. But we’re broke, so not now.” Tucker Carlson, on the other hand, offers principled objections to The American Way (intervening everywhere).

Sure, money is an important consideration, but it’s entirely a side issue here—Ingraham’s utilitarianism makes no appeal to the Constitution, to the War Powers Act (a bad bit of legislation, but still); not to the sovereignty of nations, or to justice. Yes, her protestation is better than nothing, but arguments like hers are dodgy.

You see, the same argument is made against The Wall. This, as we use so-called wall money to bomb Syria. Even if we had the money, we don’t have the right, really. We do, however, have the obligation to stop aggressors from entering the US—whether they wage welfare, bring in hitherto eradicated diseases, or harbor hatred for Americans that spills over into hate crimes (terrorism and racially motivated crime).

Trashing Populism: Dim-Bulb Academic Vs. Deplorables

IMMIGRATION, Multiculturalism, Nationhood, Political Economy, Political Philosophy, Populism

The NEW COLUMN, “Trashing Populism: Dim-Bulb Academic Vs. Deplorables,” exposes populism-bashing elites like Kevin D. Williamson, formerly of National Review, who said this about about Deplorables: “The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die”:

An excerpt:

To say that academic elites don’t like ordinary folks is to state the obvious.

To them, Lanford, Illinois—the fictional, archetypal, working-class town, made famous by Roseanne and Dan Conner—is not to be listened to, but tamed.

A well-functioning democracy depends on it.

Taming Fishtown—Charles Murray’s version of Landford—is the thread that seems to run through a new book, “The People vs. Democracy,” by one Yascha Mounk.

You guessed it. Mr. Mounk is not an American from the prairies; he’s a German academic, ensconced at Harvard, and sitting in judgment of American and European populism.

If only he were capable of advancing a decent argument.

“The number of countries that can plausibly be described as democracies is shrinking,” laments Mounk (“Populism and the Elites,” The Economist, March 17, 2018):

“Strongmen are in power in several countries that once looked as if they were democratizing … The United States—the engine room of democratization for most of the post-war period—has a president who taunted his opponent with chants of ‘lock her up’ and refused to say if he would accept the result of the election if it went against him.”

Elites ensconced in the academy are likely selected into these mummified institutions for a certain kind of ignorance about political theory or philosophy.

Plainly put, a chant, “lock her up,” is speech, nothing more. This Trump-rally chant might be impolite and impolitic, but on the facts, it’s not evidence of a “strongman.”

Notice how, deconstructed, nearly every utterance emitted by the technocratic and academic elites turns out to be empty assertion?

Even the subtitle of the book under discussion is sloppy political theory: “Why Our Freedom is in Danger and How to Save It” implies that democracy is the be-all and end-all of liberty. Quite the opposite.

America’s Constitution-makers did everything in their power (except, sadly, heed the Anti-Federalists) to thwart a dispensation wherein everything is up for grabs by government, in the name of the people. …

… READ THE REST. NEW COLUMN IS “Trashing Populism: Dim-Bulb Academic Vs. Deplorables.” It’s available also on WND.com, Constitution.com, the Unz Review, and others.

Nancy Pelosi Genuinely Overflows With Hatred For White America. It’s No Act, Or Love Of Cheap Labor

Democrats, Labor, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Multiculturalism, Nationhood, Race, Racism, Republicans

Botox-brain Nancy Pelosi celebrated her grand kid for wishing he were brown, black, anything but white. Did Republicans respond, as they should’ve, with non-stop mention of Pelosi’s hatred of whites? Did the GOP do the right thing morally and strategically?

Hell no. Hate on honky all you like, if it’s up to Republicans.

Laura Ingraham (not worth watching) whimpered only that Pelois was playing racial politics, or something milquetoast and mild and neutral. Pathetic.

Naturally, treason is not a concept establishment conservatives (except for Tucker Carlson) would conjure for the eight-hour performance by House Minority Leader Pelosi on the floor, all for Dreamers (non-citizen, illegal immigrants). Punching is for Winners, which is what Democrats will be when voters realize winning is on the wane.

Then there is the tired assertion or mantra repeated ad nauseum by conservatives: money. It’s money that makes Democrats like Pelosi and other “social-justice” interests betray their American constituents.

It’s not. Mere money is not the main motivator for dotty fools like Nancy Pelosi, who genuinely overflows with hatred for white America. If only conservatives quit reducing everything to labor costs.

RADICAL LIBERALS LIKE NANCY and Mark Zuckerberg ARE TRUE BELIEVERS!!!