http://www.thedarkenlightenment.com/the-dark-enlightenment-by-nick-land/
Monarchists are annoying. They are on the same "complete idealist" level as anarchists. It will never go back to monarchism. The closest you can get is dictatorship.
>>55583628
Cringe thread
Initial Remarks
Introduction to the Neoreaction
http://anomalyuk.blogspot.ca/2013/04/introduction-to-neoreaction.html
Neoreaction (for Dummies)
http://www.xenosystems.net/neoreaction-for-dummies/
The Reactionary Consensus
http://nickbsteves.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/the-reactionary-consensus/
https://fanghornforest.wordpress.com/neoreactionary-canon/
>>55583821
>>55583794
shills come out quick
How is monarchy any different from a dictatorship?
Rebutting Republican Myths
Monarchies are un-democratic!
Not true. Actually, most monarchies in the world today are more democratic than most republics in the world. Further, in most republics (even the United States) the President is not directly elected by the people anyway. However, being democratic is not necessarily a good thing. Benevolent leaders and bloodthirsty dictators have both come to power through democracy.
Monarchies are too expensive!
Not true, not by a long shot. Some monarchs (such as the Prince of Liechtenstein) cost the public nothing at all. In the United Kingdom, the money the Queen grants the government from the Crown Estates is considerably more than the allowance she receives from the Civil List, so Britain effectively makes money off the monarchy. Republics often spend more on their presidents, past presidents and first families than monarchies do on their royal houses. Many countries (like Australia, Jamaica or Canada) share a monarch and pay nothing and monarchies do not have the constant, massive expense of elections and political campaigns for the top job.
Hereditary monarchy just isn’t fair!
Why not? How can any system for determining national leadership be absolutely fair? It hardly seems fair that one person should receive the top job simply because he or she is more popular. Surely the correct criteria should be how qualified a person is rather than if they are good at making speeches, more photogenic or being more gifted at graft and deceit. In a monarchy the top job goes to someone trained from birth to fill that role. In a republic, even under the best circumstances, an elected president will take half their term learning to do the job and the other half campaigning to retain it; hardly a model of efficiency. Hereditary succession seems much more “fair” than granting power to those able to swindle enough money and promise enough favors to the powerful to obtain the highest office in the land.
Rebutting Republican Myths
Monarchies are dangerous! What if the monarch is incompetent?
The same question could be asked about republican leaders. However, rest assured, monarchs who are not capable of fulfilling their duties can be replaced and have been throughout history. Take two of the oldest and most stable monarchies; in Great Britain, when King George III became incapacitated the Prince of Wales was made regent and exercised his duties for him. Similarly, in Japan, when the Taisho Emperor was no longer able to fulfill his duties, the Crown Prince took over those duties for him as regent. On the other hand, even in the most successful republic in the world, the United States, only two presidents have ever been impeached and neither one was actually removed from office.
Monarchy is an archaic throwback! It’s simply out of date!
Certainly monarchy is an ancient institution as it developed naturally from the dawn of time and the growth of human civilizations. However, democracy and republicanism is just as archaic. The Greek city-states of ancient times tried direct democracy and found it of very limited value, lasting only so long as people found out they could vote themselves the property of others. Republicanism was tried on a large-scale by the ancient Romans and yet they too found that it caused too many divisions, factions and civil wars before they decided a monarchy was preferable. The oldest republic in the world today was founded in 301 AD. How out of date is that?
Rebutting Republican Myths
Royals are too out of touch. They have no idea how regular people live.
Some people believe this, but it simply isn’t true. Queen Elizabeth II was a mechanic and truck driver during World War II, the King of Thailand is a renowned jazz musician and composer, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark has painted illustrations for several books, including the Danish edition of “The Lord of the Rings”. The Emperor of Japan grows his own rice, the King of Cambodia was a practically anonymous dance instructor before coming to the throne and many royal heirs take ordinary jobs, often in obscure places where they are unknown, after finishing school. Despite what people think, royal life is not all champagne and caviar. Compare this to many presidents who have often never worked outside the public sector in their entire lives, never served in the military (as most royals do) or ever known any other life besides making speeches and casting votes.
At best, monarchs are unnecessary. A president could do just as good a job.
Not true at all. Some republics have ceremonial presidents that are supposed to be non-political but they still invariably have a political background and are beholden to the party that appoints them. A monarch, on the other hand, is above all political divisions and has a blood connection to the history of the country, its traditions and most deeply held beliefs. No politician could ever represent a people in the way a monarch can whose family history has been the history of the country itself.
Rebutting Republican Myths
Monarchies must be bad or else there would be more of them!
That argument could only begin to make sense if most monarchies had fallen because of a conscious decision by the whole people to see them end. This has certainly not been the case. Most monarchies have fallen because of brute force exerted by a powerful, motivated minority or because their country was defeated in war and their state collapsed. How about looking at how people live? The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development annually puts out a list of the best countries to live in based on a variety of factors and monarchies invariably outrank republics by far. Last year, 2012, is a typical case with 8 out of the top 10 best countries to live in being monarchies; the only republics to make the top 10 were the United States and Switzerland. If republics are so great, shouldn’t their people be living better lives than those in monarchies?
Monarchs are so set apart, they cannot represent ordinary people.
Actually, that is precisely why they can represent everyone in a way no politician ever could. President Hollande of France is an agnostic socialist, so how can he truly represent those French who are Catholic or capitalists? President Napolitano of Italy was a long-time communist, which is certainly not representative of most Italians. President Obama of the US, a liberal from Hawaii, cannot have much in common with a conservative from South Carolina. Yet, a monarch, because they are set apart, can represent everyone because they are not from any particular group.
Rebutting Republican Myths
Republics bring progress, monarchies only oppressed.
Historical fact says otherwise. Time and time again history has shown that the end of monarchy makes things worse for a country, not better. In France it resulted in the “Reign of Terror” that saw tens of thousands of people get their heads chopped off. In Russia, the loss of the monarchy allowed the Bolsheviks to take power who then created the Soviet Union which spread oppression around the world and murdered millions of people. In China the result was a chaotic period of warlord rule followed by the bloodiest civil war in human history and then a communist dictatorship that took the lives of 60 million people. The end of monarchy in Germany and Austria resulted in divided republics that allowed Adolf Hitler to come to power, devastate the continent and butcher 9 million people. The fall of the Shah of Iran allowed a radical theocracy to take power that has spread terrorism around the world and brutally oppressed its own people. These are only a few of the examples that could be cited and the facts are inarguable.
The Divine Right of Kings
Arguments
The theory of the Divine Right of Kings was supported by arguments of various kinds drawn from different sources. The most important were:
Both the Old and New Testaments contained many injunctions to obey rulers.
"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation"
(Romans 13,1-2)
"Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well ."
(I Peter 2.13-14)
"The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the Lord's anointed, to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the Lord."
(I Samuel 24.6)
"And he [Jesus] said unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's."
(Luke 20:25)
The Bible also seemed strongly to suggest that divided sovereignty was a big mistake - "And if a house be divided against itself that house cannot stand" (Mark 3:25); "No man can serve two masters" (Matt 6:24); "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation" (Luke 11:17).
Critiques of resistance theories.
Resistance theorists argued that wicked kings could and should be resisted. But theorists of Divine Right asked: who is to judge whether the king is acting tyrannically? Obviously not the king himself, since he will be likely to decide in his own favor. However, to allow any and every individual subject to decide will lead to chaos. Perhaps the people's representative, Parliament, should decide if the king is a tyrant. But what if Parliament itself is corrupt, self-interested and tyrannical? How then should individuals make up their minds whether to obey the king or Parliament? If the king is accountable to the people as represented in Parliament then surely Parliament is accountable to the people at large. Supporters of the Divine Right of Kings argued that the idea that kings are accountable to the people led ultimately to democracy, and threatened the nobility and gentry as much as the king. There was, they said, no logical stopping point between absolute monarchy and complete democracy. Democracy was widely seen as the worst kind of government. Underlying the theory of legitimate resistance to tyrants was the idea that kings at first derived their powers from the people, and this idea was underpinned by the belief that people had at first been free and equal. No one, the argument went, had at first held any more power than anyone else, and power must therefore have originally resided in the people as a whole. The claim that everyone was at first free and equal does not at all lead to the conclusion that political power must originally have been in the whole people; all could have been free and equal in the sense that no one held any power at all, and that the whole people also held no power; political power, he argued, came into existence only when kings or other sovereign rulers were appointed.
Social structure.
One of the commonest ways of upholding the Divine Right of Kings was to draw analogies between the king and other social relationships. Just as the father ruled his children, the husband his wife and the master his servants, so the prince ruled his realm.
"Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband…"
(Taming of the Shrew, 5.2)
A favorite analogy was drawn from the family, for both Catholics and Protestants agreed that a husband's and father's powers were given to him by God - not by his wife and children. The family was necessary for the procreation and nurture of children, and someone had to be the ultimate decision-maker in the family. God had given this power naturally to the man by making him stronger and more intelligent. God had also confirmed His intentions by giving Adam power over Eve, and by the many injunctions in the Old and New Testaments that wives should obey their husbands, and children their fathers. Of course, a man only became a woman's husband by her consent, and in the same way kingdoms sometimes chose their kings. Nevertheless, whether the King obtained his kingdom by conquest, consent, or inheritance, the power to rule it came from God - not from the people.
