Offsite Post: ‘The Western Constitutional Model Is Driving Instability in the World’

 

The written, democratic constitution continues to be the norm lionized by the so-called ‘civilized nations’ of the West, upheld as the best way to organize society that mankind has come up with.  For that reason, a little more analysis of them is in order.

Two main problems stand out.  First is the notion of its universality.  The standard model, based largely on the Philadelphia constitution of 1787 that created the US federal government, with three antagonistic branches – legislative, executive, and judicial – checking and balancing each other, is rooted in the English historical experience, in the very long relationship of the English monarch with the Lords of the realm and with the common folk.  The bicameral legislature, the jury trial, etc., cannot simply be exported to and superimposed on any other ethnos of the world:  This type of system will work well mainly for people of the English family.

The more perceptive writers in the West like Edmund Burke and Joseph de Maistre, in an attempt to quell the revolutionary spirit of their times, stressed repeatedly in their speeches and writings that each people has its own divinely-ordained, unwritten constitution that is the result of its character, customs, geography, history, spiritual condition, etc.  The written constitution, in order to be of benefit to the native folk, must be in conformity with the unwritten one.  Thus, one cannot simply take one type of constitution and apply it to all other countries without running into a horrible situation much like Procrustes’s bed.

The other problem is that the typical Western-style constitution has made the spiritual life a private, superfluous affair.  Public life in general has become secularized, as the collective work of the people is redirected mainly to this-worldly ends.  The US constitution is the prototype; its Preamble states, ‘We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.’

Anyone who cares at all about truth and traditions, about the real telos of humanity and the creation at large will not be content with the arrangements of the rationalistic Western constitutional order.  These are outgrowths of Western man’s slow but continuous and unrelenting rejection of traditional Christianity, which has been ongoing for more than a millennium now, and of his transformation of himself from limited creature into unlimited deity.  Abraham Lincoln’s phrase from the Gettysburg Address – a government of, by, and for the people, which is the sine qua non of all Western thinking on the origin of government nowadays – is a reflection of this.

Politics has become merely another science, dedicated to mechanical efficiency and precision, as James Madison demonstrated in these famous lines of his from Federalist No. 51:

‘But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.’

Government in this view is simply another technocratic experiment, conducted to control a soulless lump of matter called man.  Adjust the powers given to this department or the wording of that clause, and it will reshape the ‘machine’ of society as well.

One gets the impression that an intricate, self-powering, self-perfecting mechanism for mankind is what is being grasped for here.  The transhumanist Yuval Harari leaves little doubt about that.  He writes,

‘Liberalism sanctifies the narrating self, and allows it to vote in the polling stations, in the supermarket and in the marriage market.  For centuries this made good sense, because though the narrating self believed in all kinds of fictions and fantasies, no alternative system knew me better.  Yet once we have a system that really does know me better, it will be foolhardy to leave authority in the hands of the narrating self.

‘Liberal habits such as democratic elections will become obsolete, because Google will be able to represent even my own political opinions better than I can.  . . .

The rest is here:

https://www.geopolitika.ru/en/article/western-constitutional-model-driving-instability-world

Or here:

https://katehon.com/en/article/western-constitutional-model-driving-instability-world

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

‘The Sad but Hopeful Tale of a Reformed Irishman’

By Thomas Riley

In mourning for the Ireland that is dead,
I’m wearing black on this, the Feast of Pat.
The saint himself, I think, is doing that
Up in celestial regions.  Now, instead
Of holy poverty and Scriptures read,
The isle St. Paddy freed grows soft and fat
On babies’ blood.  A snake would smell a rat
In such a hellhole, worthy to be fled.
Ireland, I now confess, ain’t everywhere.
Let truer countries rise to seize the day
And cure me of Hibernian despair!
The Global South hath yet a role to play,
And there is promise on the Eastern air.
(God bless you, Mother Russia, by the way!)

***

For an account of the life of the Holy Apostle to the Irish Saint Patrick:

https://orthochristian.com/120199.html

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Offsite Post: ‘Saint Michael and the South’

‘ . . . according to God’s revelation in the Bible, not only do human beings have their own guardian angel but nations have them, too.

‘ . . . Not only does every nation have them, but also every city, every town, every locale, and particularly every temple devoted to the worship of God.’—Father Maximos (Quoted in Kyriacos Markides, The Mountain of Silence, Image, New York, 2001, p. 109)

Do you want heart-warming news, fellow Southrons?  Well, there it is, in those quotation marks:  Not only does the South have her own guardian angel, but Dixie is well-nigh full of them – an angel for the whole of us, an angel for each State, an angel for each county, parish, town, hamlet, forest, river, creek, and field.

For faithful Southerners seeking victory over the fallen passions, seeking healing of soul and body, and freedom from foes seen and unseen, this is encouraging to know.  For God has bidden the angels to help us in all these things.

The Holy Apostle Paul, his disciple St Dionysius the Areopagite, and other holy men and women reveal the mysteries of the angelic realm to us – the nine ranks of angels, their appointed duties, etc.  For example:

 

The THRONES (Col 1:16) stand after the Cherubim, mysteriously and incomprehensibly bearing God through the grace given them for their service. They are ministers of God’s justice, giving to tribunals, kings, etc. the capacity for righteous judgment.

 

 . . .

 

DOMINIONS (Col 1:16) hold dominion over the angels subject to them. They instruct the earthly authorities, established by God, to rule wisely, and to govern their lands well. The Dominions teach us to subdue sinful impulses, to subject the flesh to the spirit, to master our will, and to conquer temptation.

 

 . . .

 

PRINCIPALITIES (Col 1:16) have command over the lower angels, instructing them in the fulfilling of God’s commands. They watch over the world and protect lands, nations and peoples. Principalities instruct people to render proper honor to those in authority, as befits their station. They teach those in authority to use their position, not for personal glory and gain, but to honor God, and to spread word of Him, for the benefit of those under them.

Of particular interest to the South in these times when the enemies of God have become quite strong is the Archangel Michael:

 

Over all the Nine Ranks, the Lord appointed the Holy Archangel Michael (his name in Hebrew means “who is like unto God”), the faithful servitor of God, as Chief Commander. He cast down from Heaven the arrogantly proud Lucifer and the other fallen spirits when they rebelled against God. Michael summoned the ranks of angels and cried out, “Let us attend! Let us stand aright before our Creator and do not consider doing what is displeasing unto God!”

 

According to Church Tradition, and in the church services to the Archangel Michael, he participated in many other Old Testament events.

And in the New Dispensation of the Risen Lord Jesus, there are events like this:

 

From ancient times the Archangel Michael was famed for his miracles in Rus. In the Volokolamsk Paterikon is a narrative of Saint Paphnutius of Borov with an account of Tatar tax-gatherers concerning the miraculous saving of Novgorod the Great: “Therefore Great Novgorod was never taken by the Hagarenes... when... for our sins the godless Hagarene emperor Batu devoured and set the Russian land aflame and came to Novgorod, and God and the Most Holy Theotokos shielded it with an appearance of Michael the Archangel, who forbade him to enter into it. He [Batu] was come to the Lithuanian city and came toward Kiev and saw the stone church, over the doors of which the great Archangel Michael had written and spoken to the prince his allotted fate, ‘By this we have forbidden you entry into Great Novgorod’.”

It is altogether a very natural and fitting thing, then, for Dixie to ask St Michael to come to our aid:  ‘We invoke Saint Michael for protection from invasion by enemies and from civil war, and for the defeat of adversaries on the field of battle. He conquers all spiritual enemies.’

This is the key, though – We must ask.  . . .

The rest may be read here

https://www.reckonin.com/walt-garlington/saint-michael-and-the-south

And also here:

https://southernorthodox.org/saint-michael-the-south/

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Offsite Post: ‘Covens and Convents’

 

What a gloomy garden grows

In New England ground,

Yankees trudging

Haltingly along,

Cultivated

By a curious cast

Of women – Anne Hutchinson

The headstrong heretic;

Ann Lee, the Shaker queen;

Beth Stanton, suffragette;

Mary Baker Eddy,

Modern Gnostic.

 

The Son, shaded

By their wild demeanor,

Can only bring forth

A yield of souls

Stunted and deformed.

 

Darkness!  Darkness!

Witches and the devil

Prowling round the land!

 

Waken!  Waken!

The memory

Of Mother Ethelburga,

Barking’s first abbess

At your ancient home

In Essex county.

 

What a host of saints

And wonders sprouted there –

 . . .

The rest is at https://www.newenglishreview.org/articles/covens-and-convents/.

A brief look at the life of St Ethelburga:

https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2018/10/saint-ethelburga-of-barking-686.html

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Offsite Post: ‘Alberta Has Given the States an Early Christmas Present’

 

Some folks in the US might be tempted from time to time to reword the Apostle Nathanael’s question (St. John’s Gospel 1:46) and ask, ‘Can anything good come out of Canada?’

That would be a tad presumptuous, based, if nothing else, only on the following.  The Province of Alberta has a new premier (similar to the governors of our States), Danielle Smith, and she is doing excellent work there.  First, she rooted out the globalist World Economic Forum from Alberta’s health care system.  Now she is using the powers of the provincial government to shield Alberta’s people from the harmful policies of the tyrannical Prime Minister Trudeau and the rest of the federal government in Ottawa.

Bill 1, ‘Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act,’ is well on its way to becoming law in Alberta.  Here is a little of its backstory:

 

The now-passed Sovereignty Act intends to prevent “unconstitutional” federal government overreach into matters of provincial jurisdiction, including but not limited to “firearms, energy, natural resources and COVID healthcare decisions.”

 

Smith had introduced the legislation, formally named Bill 1: Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act, just nine days before its passing.

 

The bill will most notably help the province push back against federally-imposed rules that impact the region’s oil and gas sector, a major backbone of the western Canadian economy.

 

At the time of its introduction, the government explained that the act “will be used to push back on federal legislation and policy that is unconstitutional or harmful to our province, our people and our economic prosperity,” with Smith herself explaining that there is a “long and painful history of mistreatment and constitutional overreach from Ottawa has for decades caused tremendous frustration for Albertans.”

The Preamble of the Act is worth quoting in full:

 . . .

The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2022/12/garlington-alberta-has-given-the-states-an-early-christmas-present/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!