An
unrepentant criminal, pricked by his conscience, will try very hard to get rid
of anything that reminds him of his crime, or that will reveal it to others.
Many
in the American Empire, it seems, have and are suffering from a similar state
of soul and mind. Having in their land swept
away the sacred political order in which Christ rules the nations through
divinely anointed kings for a new order in which ‘the people’s will’ is
sovereign, Americans are ever searching the world for a Christian king or queen
(or anyone akin to them: Putin, Qaddafi, Assad, etc.) to depose lest their ‘experiment in liberty’ be
discredited for the Antichristian sham that it is.
Below
are a few words in favor of monarchy from a merely secular view (some from a
Christian view will hopefully follow soon).
May they help bring them to their senses, with God’s help, before Americans,
wittingly or unwittingly, finish their work in ushering in Antichrist (for it
is the king who forestalls the appearance of Antichrist; see St John
Chrysostom’s commentary on II Thess. 2:6, 7).
. . .
Democracy
has glaring defects.3 As various paradoxes of voting illustrate,
there is no such thing as any coherent “will of the people”. Government itself
is more likely to supply the content of any supposed general will (Constant
1814-15/1988, p. 179). Winston Churchill reputedly said: “The best argument
against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter”
(BrainyQuote and several similar sources on the Internet). The ordinary voter
knows that his vote will not be decisive and has little reason to waste time
and effort becoming well informed anyway.
This
“rational ignorance”, so called in the public-choice literature, leaves
corresponding influence to other-than-ordinary voters (Campbell 1999). Politics
becomes a squabble among rival special interests. Coalitions form to gain
special privileges. Legislators engage in logrolling and enact omnibus spending
bills. Politics itself becomes the chief weapon in a Hobbesian war of all
against all (Gray 1993, pp. 211-212). The diffusion of costs while benefits are
concentrated reinforces apathy among ordinary voters.
Politicians
themselves count among the special-interest groups. People who drift into
politics tend to have relatively slighter qualifications for other work. They
are entrepreneurs pursuing the advantages of office. These are not material
advantages alone, for some politicians seek power to do good as they understand
it. Gratifying their need to act and to feel important, legislators multiply
laws to deal with discovered or contrived problems–and fears. Being able to
raise vast sums by taxes and borrowing enhances their sense of power, and moral
responsibility wanes (as Benjamin Constant, pp. 194-196, 271-272, already
recognized almost two centuries ago).
Democratic
politicians have notoriously short time horizons. (Hoppe (2001) blames not just
politicians in particular but democracy in general for high time
preference–indifference to the long run–which contributes to crime, wasted
lives, and a general decline of morality and culture.) Why worry if popular
policies will cause crises only when one is no longer running for reelection?
Evidence of fiscal irresponsibility in the United States includes chronic
budget deficits, the explicit national debt, and the still huger excesses of
future liabilities over future revenues on account of Medicare and Social
Security. Yet politicians continue offering new plums. Conflict of interest
like this far overshadows the petty kinds that nevertheless arouse more
outrage.
Responsibility
is diffused in democracy not only over time but also among participants. Voters
can think that they are only exercising their right to mark their ballots,
politicians that they are only responding to the wishes of their constituents.
The individual legislator bears only a small share of responsibility fragmented
among his colleagues and other government officials.
. . .
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).
. . .
A
monarch, not dependent on being elected and reelected, embodies continuity, as
does the dynasty and the biological process. “Constitutional monarchy offers us
... that neutral power so indispensable for all regular liberty. In a free
country the king is a being apart, superior to differences of opinion, having
no other interest than the maintenance of order and liberty. He can never
return to the common condition, and is consequently inaccessible to all the
passions that such a condition generates, and to all those that the perspective
of finding oneself once again within it, necessarily creates in those agents
who are invested with temporary power.” It is a master stroke to create a
neutral power that can terminate some political danger by constitutional means
(Constant, pp. 186-187). In a settled monarchy–but no regime whatever can be
guaranteed perpetual existence–the king need not worry about clinging to power.
In a republic, “The very head of the state, having no title to his office save
that which lies in the popular will, is forced to haggle and bargain like the
lowliest office-seeker” (Mencken 1926, p. 181).
. . .
Source:
Leland B. Yeager, ‘Monarchy: Friend of Liberty’, http://www.royaltymonarchy.com/opinion/articles/yeager.html,
accessed 29 June 2016
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