Escaping the Empire: Humane Banking

Đe machine-minded Superclass that desires an antiChristian one world government is unnerved by financial competitors: 

While major media speak of the recent spate of riots throughout the Islamic world as “spontaneous,” the financing of these “opposition” movements by major banks over the last decade says otherwise. But why? The rise of Islamic banking as a challenge to the Rothschild empire serves as a clear financial reason why the present governments in the Islamic world must go.

 . . .

The groups involved in financing the opposition in Egypt and elsewhere include, most commonly, the George Soros’ Open Society Institute, the International Crisis Group (ICG) of the Rothschild family and their many offshoots. Major figures sitting on ICG’s board include George Soros, Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Senator George Mitchell, Morton Abramowitz, Gen. Wesley Clark and Samuel Berger. They have donated millions of dollars to liberal groups operating against governments in strategic areas. The agenda is identical in each case: liberal democracy, secularism, feminism, and private banking. The mobilization of urban youth has long been an important aspect of Soros/ICG operations from Belarus to Bahrain.

 . . .

The creation of political opposition is only part of the story. These organizations, according to news sources such as the British Daily Telegraph and the Global Islamic Finance News, have been involved in training teachers, judges, police officers and bureaucrats in North Africa and elsewhere. The ICG and others are attempting to create a society that is no longer Islamic, no longer religions or traditional, but liberal, urban and open to foreign investment and banking. Given the interests of the players involved, the central concept is to ensure the presence of Rothschild banking in areas where it is being challenged both by the state and independent Islamic banking.

The European Union is in a slow state of decomposition. Riots from Greece to Iceland have shown the bankruptcy of major European banks. On the other hand, Islamic banking operates with a total deposit base of over $1.5 trillion. In 2010, the British Daily Telegraph reported that the Islamic finance movement was challenging London for financial dominance through their investments in Bahrain, Egypt and Tunisia, using Tunis specifically as its new base. Back in 2008, the Washington Post wrote, “As big Western financial institutions have teetered one after the other in the crisis of recent weeks, another financial sector is gaining new confidence: Islamic banking.” The thrust of the article is that Islamic banks are more stable than Western banks, partially because of the refusal to charge interest or take excessive risks. This Post article sent warning signs to London, and the ICG stepped up its financing efforts in Islamic states in response.

The Telegraph admitted that the new Islamic banks were doing some damage to London’s banking profits. At a time when the banking industry struggles with debt, a major challenger such as the Tunis movement could do some grave harm.

 . . .

The removal of non-liberal states means the ability for Western banks to more easily penetrate places like Libya, that has a government controlled central bank. Strong states in this strategic part of the world make it far more difficult for Rothschild banks to control finance in these states, and as a result, the “opposition” is created as a financial investment.

Source:  Fr Matthew Raphael Johnson, ‘Who’s Behind the Arab Revolutions?’, The Barnes Review, May/June 2011, http://reasonradionetwork.com/20110822/who%E2%80%99s-behind-the-arab-revolutions, posted 22 Aug. 2011, accessed 19 March 2015

It must then be an area they view of critical importance for control over peoples, theods, nations.

What better reason therefore to begin local banking that is sundered from their control grid?  We have heard much of the ‘petro-dollar’ of the American Empire and the stranglehold it has allowed the ‘Most Christian Country’ to keep on others around the world.  Why not counter it with something like a ‘tilth-dollar’, as Robert Swann describes in ‘Appropriate Currency’ just below? 

There is quite a lot that is praiseworthy in his essay.  Yet we disagree with him on the need for a ‘world economy’; some hurdles probably need to be left in place as a way to forestall the rise of Antichrist/One World Government and as a way to protect local cultures from being fornaughten by an outside, warsome culture (like the materialistic consumer culture of the secular Puritan New England States that has conquered the Souð, Western Europe, and the ‘westernized’ portions of Asia, the Middle East, and so on).  Withal, his words ought to be read:

It is up to the advocates of appropriate technology and small-scale systems to become the inventors of an appropriate technology for money. This task is vital to us, because all of the other appropriate technologies with which we are involved eventually depend upon a proper and decent exchange system. When national currencies fail because of runaway inflation, or for any other reason, we will survive in some fashion by using barter or labor exchange systems.

If we are to expand and grow, and become more than a counter culture movement or a New Age subset of the larger culture, then we must create a new money system to replace the present system. Through this new system, the attributes we value-cooperation, self-reliance, community-can become growing and dominant within the entire culture. This is [the] direction our work needs to go, not only [to] survive the coming currency collapse, but also to develop what Schumacher called an "economy of permanence."

 . . .

Two important questions follow from that. The first is, what commodity has a universal measure of value in today's world? I would suggest that it's energy, and that we consider using some form of energy as the unit of measurement and as the reserve currency for redemption purposes. The so-called energy crisis has made it clear to almost everyone that energy is the key factor in all forms of production, and in meeting the needs of society as a whole. In this respect, commodities that provide essential energy are replacing gold as the traditional form of reserve currency. Thus oil is referred to as "black gold."

The second question is, if we're looking to use a universal form of energy, where do we look? Obviously, the most sought after forms of fossil fuel energy, such as oil, are as poorly distributed and limited in supply about the earth as gold. What is needed is a form of energy that is both renewable and is universally available throughout the world.

I propose that to establish a local currency with universal value, we consider using some convenient measure of wood energy, which can be used for redemption purposes. We might begin, for example, with something as simple as cordwood. Even though the energy component of cordwood is variable and might not be ideal, if you compare a cord of wood with the U.S. dollar in terms of its constant value, the cord comes out way ahead. I only suggest this as a way to begin; we will have to perfect it as we go along-perhaps developing an index of different kinds of wood, or using one ton of dry wood. Consider also that in addition to being used on a worldwide basis as a primary source of energy, wood is also used for other basic needs, such as fruit and nuts for food, lumber for building, and as a substitute for metals.

 . . .

Therefore the surplus would be invested in forests, or directly in cords of wood. A community land trust would manage and control this resource. As a sufficient potential supply of cordwood from the forests became available, each depositor would then be issued a certificate (or note) measuring the value of his or her deposit in energy, or cordwood-meaning that the deposit would be redeemable in cordwood. With a ready and continuing supply of cordwood to "back" its currency, the group would then be in a position to "issue" or provide credit for projects of productive value within the local community.

 . . .

Source:  Schumacher Center for a New Economics, http://www.centerforneweconomics.org/publications/essays/swann/robert/appropriate-currency, posted n. d., accessed 6 May 2015

Escaping the Empire: The Putin Economic Model

How to build a bulwark ‘gainst the banksters and their ilk:

 . . .

Modern Russia is a normal European country, with a rising

standard of living, now the sixth largest economy in the world, just above Canada and almost the same as Britain.

Putin came into office on New Years 1999-2000 with an

agenda. It was the radical proposition that Russian interests

should be considered equal to American. “Heresy” was

shouted from Harvard, where hippy peaceniks suddenly

were demanding a mass invasion of Russia and China,

preferably at the same time. Cooler heads prevailed. Of

course, they believe that only weak states that no one

knows really anything about should be invaded, because:

a) they won’t put up a fight; b) have no nuclear weapons;

and c) their obscurity means that the media can say anything

about them and it will be believed.

So, why are Putin’s popularity ratings still at 85-90%,

even after 15 years?

First, 1992. The Yeltsin regime, bossed around by the

United States, abolished the export duty on petroleum

products. In August 1999, Yeltsin appointed Putin prime

minister and Putin’s government in September increased

the duty to 7.5 euros per ton, and from Dec. 8, to 15 euros

per ton. Later on, the duty only increased, but still, against

all the “free market” hacks, oil is now exporting at about

50% of its 1995 price.

Two, Russia in terms of retail auto sales is ahead of

Spain, ranking fifth in Europe after Germany, the United

Kingdom, Italy and France. All this is a consequence of the

increase in demand, and therefore income growth. This is

a completely objective factor and it is a consequence of the economic policy pursued by Putin and nothing else. In

Asia, Russian autos are in high demand.

Third, for 10 years as a whole, the budget for social programs

(desperately needed) increased by 30% yearly. Pensions

were below the poverty line by 25% under Yeltsin.

Now, they are more than 50% above this line and are increasing.

Fourth, Putin nationalized Yukos Oil even as Michael

Khodorkovsky tried to sell it to Exxon-Mobil. When

Khodorkovsky was jailed, Russia cheered. Only hanging

him would have made Putin more popular. After that, tax

collection increased massively from all businesses fearful

of ending up like Khodorkovsky. It was nothing short of a

miracle that has never occurred before. Sending a few people

to prison made Putin so popular that the name

“Vladimir” tripled in popularity among newborn boys.

Putin massively increased tax revenue so that even arrears

were covered. Putin proved the “free market” wrong again

and, thus, revived the state. This all had a snowball effect

that no one predicted—except Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Unfortunately, no one in the United States was listening.

Fifth, in 2004, in a little-discussed move, Putin finally

abolished the law called the “Production Sharing Agreement.”

Under this law, Russian deposits of natural resources

were under “international” jurisdiction. That

meant that British Petroleum and Exxon controlled Russian

natural resources de facto. The death threats poured in. Apparently, this only increased Putin’s popularity. Suddenly,

a whole bunch of people no one in the world ever

heard of before were being paraded in front of Western TV

screens as “dissidents.” Now, we know why. Russian oil

was not benefiting Russians at all, but had been going to

the accounts of foreign banks and oil companies. The

money from oil production was primarily going to the

British-Dutch company Shell. Putin was condemned as

being “against the free market” on these grounds. Putin

stated simply that Russian resources belong to Russia.

Now, that commonsense statement was Putin’s death sentence. Unfortunately, carrying it out has been difficult.

After the liquidation of this ill-advised agreement, the

Russian national budget increased by 300-400% almost instantly.

Putin was ostracized by the entire Anglo-Saxon

world, but Germany and France saw a winner and bet on

Putin and Russia. Putin was tagged by Russians as the

leader of the “National Revolution” as his simple agenda

went against the system created by the Americans.

Sixth, he eliminated the influence of the West on most

political processes. In 1992-1995, the Russian state apparatus

was created by foreign advisers.

All legislation in Russia from the

1990s, including tax laws, was written

from foreign grants. In total, 10,000

foreign advisers were working in

Russian ministries and departments,

including all economic centers, both

public and private.

The “sponsorship assistance” of

the Soros Fund created school history

textbooks, in which the battle of Stalingrad

received two pages, yet U.S.

presidents were mentioned far more

than Peter the Great or Nicholas II. Russian students were

given notebooks with portraits of four American presidents

on the last page. It’s true. I’ve seen them.

Seventh, Putin ended the war in the Caucasus, with the

separatists destroyed and all, more or less, of the well known

militant leaders eliminated. Separatism died out

naturally, but only when the Chechen elite felt the power of

Moscow and the benefits of cooperation with a huge and

growing market. Attempts by Western intelligence agencies

to feed anti-Russian hatred led to more specific attacks

on targets, but this is the maximum that can be

expected. The war was and is no more.

Eighth, Putin’s economic policy has been designed

against debt bondage. Under Putin, Russia significantly increased

the volume of the economy focused on the elimination

of poverty, raised real incomes, and created

reserves that now allow the country to pass through crises

with minimal losses of the standard of living. Moreover, in

the midst of the 2007 crisis, Russia was able to significantly

increase pensions and other social benefits.

The Russian constitution is written in such a way that

the president does not fundamentally affect everything that

happens in the state. Omnipotent power is nowhere to be

found and, now, impossible. This logic is used against Putin

to criticize him, but does not exist where the economy is

concerned. The work was done by Russians; Putin only

made the fruits of labor more secure. He proved that Russians were

nationalists at heart, and would support any policy

that put their interests first. It was not that hard to do.

So what do we have?

Foreign exchange reserves at the end of February 2011

were at $487 billion in gold—third in the world. This is

4,000% higher than in 1999, when Russian gold reserves

were at $12 billion. Russia today has approximately the

same gold reserves as the European Union.

Public external debt in 1999 stood at $138 billion, or

78% of GDP. By January 2010, it decreased by 3,400% and

now is $40.7 billion, or 2.75% of GDP. Inflation in 1999 hit

36.5%, while inflation in 2010 was 8.8%.

The Foreign Direct Investment total in 2010 was at

$114.7 billion. In comparison, FDI in China’s economy in

2010 amounted to $105.7 billion—or

$79 per capita compared to $98 for

every Russian soul.

Average life expectancy for women

has increased by 2.5 years up to

almost 75 years, and has already exceeded

the highest figure in Russian

history, which was 74.3 years in 1990.

The death rate from accidental alcohol

poisoning in 2003 was recorded at

45,045 cases, but dropped in 2010

To 14,381 cases. The birth rate in 2010

was 12.6 children per 1,000 inhabitants—

41% more than in 2000.

 . . .

Source:  Father Matthew Raphael Johnson, ‘Vladimir Putin: Russia’s Deliverer’, The Barnes Review, March/April 2015, XXI.2, http://www.barnesreview.org/vladimir-putin-russias-deliverer-by-matthew-raphael-johnson-phd-p-681.html?cPath=89_124, posted n.d., accessed 28 April 2015

Escaping the Empire: Growing Our Own Food

If folks in the South and around the world want to live a life free of entanglements with the system of the God-, Orthodox Church-, and tradition-hating bankster-science-technology-industry corporate Elite, a good place to start is with food.

It is certainly essential to turn away from the poisons of the McDonald’s, Monsanto’s, DuPont’s, etc. of the world.

http://naturalsociety.com/lab-tests-mcdonalds-devastates-gut-health-in-10-days/

http://naturalsociety.com/victory-german-retail-giant-removes-glyphosate-from-350-stores/

But it is also just as needful for us to learn again to grow our own food, using methods that are in harmony with the creation (Wendell Berry), so that we do not become thralls of such evil men again in æftertimes.  It will require some effort, some rejection of comfort, but such things are more consistent with a Christian life of repentance than the easy, lazy life of American consumerism. 

One does not need the ‘40 acres and a mule’, however.  Small plots of land can be very productive.  One family in southern California is producing 6,000 pounds of food each year on 1/10^th of an acre of land.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmTJkZy0rM

http://naturalsociety.com/photos-how-to-produce-6000-pounds-of-food-in-small-spaces/

(Photo from NaturalSociety story just above.)

And not only is such food and farming better for the health of people and land and other living creatures, but it also opens the possibility for us to recover something else we have forgotten, a use for the creation that God intended that has all but disappeared from sight in industrial society.  That use, as Fr Dumitru Staniloae tells us in Volume 2 of his Orthodox dogmatic theology series, The Experience of God, is to begin a tway-speech of love with our neighbors by giving the food we grow as gifts to them (or the crafts we make from trees, and so on). 

Furthermore, Fr Dumitru says, as we contemplate þe meaning of each thing God has made, the creation will also help us to have a dialogue of love with God the Most Holy Trinity, our Creator.

All the material is there for us.

http://squarefootgardening.org/

http://theurbanfarmingguys.com/wiki/Main_Page

http://www.amazon.com/Backyard-Homestead-Produce-food-quarter/dp/1603421386/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1431735216&sr=1-1&keywords=Backyard+Farm

http://www.amazon.com/Two-Acre-Eden-Gene-Logsdon/dp/0878572902

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Joel%20Salatin

It is time we began.

Political Idolatry and Empire

The typical hypnotized American has become blind to what his worship of an all-powerful, worldwide American Empire is bringing about in oþer countries (and in his own land and within his own soul).  Niko Pafras, however, is not so unseeing.  From his essay ‘The True Religion of the West’:

I’m not a professional journalist or an expert in international affairs. Fortunately, one doesn’t need to be either to see what is going on in the popular western media these days. Living in America I am bombarded on a daily basis with the “expert” opinions on the Ukrainian crisis by a horde of analysts on the nightly news. The recurring theme in these interviews, regardless of political affiliation or news network, is the outrage felt by western leaders at the supposed “aggression” shown by Russia towards Ukraine. Conveniently, the aggression of President Poroshenko towards his fellow citizens in eastern Ukraine vis-a-vis the openly neo-Nazi Azov battalion and its ilk, goes almost entirely unreported. Be that as it may, one must ask, what precisely is it in the psyche of western leaders and pundits that makes them foam at the mouth with outrage at the crisis in Ukraine but turn a blind eye when it comes to similar incidents that are conducted by western countries or their allies?

For example, on July 20th, 1974, NATO member Turkey under the leadership of then Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit launched the invasion of Cyprus known as “Operation Attila”. What reason did Mr. Ecevit give for this naked aggression and violation of international norms? The prevention of “Enosis”, which is Union with the Greek mainland, and the protection of the Turkish minority from alleged pogroms by Greeks whose population, at the time, made up approximately 77% of the Island. The result of the invasion was the bifurcation of Cyprus into the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus and the so-called TRNC or Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus who is only recognized by Turkey. On paper, the TRNC is considered by Turkey to be a separate state but in reality, the TRNC is a de facto part of Turkey. In other words, an annexation. Now one would expect, all things being equal, that similar outrage was shown towards Turkey for its illegal invasion and subsequent occupation of northern Cyprus. Unfortunately, we live in a world where things are not equal. The Western response? Negligible at best. There was no American castigation of Turkey or heavy sanctions. No military build-up of American forces on the Turkish border or heaping of opprobrium by the western media. And interestingly, there were no Hitler-Ecevit comparisons made on a daily basis like there have ubiquitously been throughout the western press since the reunification of Crimea with Russia. No, on the contrary, Turkey cemented its ties with America and Europe and continues to receive billions of dollars worth of military aid through the Truman doctrine.

Unlike the violent invasion of Cyprus by Turkey, which claimed the lives of thousands, Crimea was received into Russia by a free and fair referendum in which an overwhelming majority of Crimean residents chose unification with Russia. The American response to the Turkish invasion was silence. Yet, when it comes to the people of Crimea exercising their democratic rights and their right to self-determination, which America holds as universal right, the response is outrage, sanctions and threats.

 . . .

But the larger theme here is the western opposition to Orthodox countries who hold traditional Christian values. In many ways the Orthodox world is a thorn in the flesh. It frustrates the west because the Orthodox world, in large measure, never experienced anything like the so-called “Enlightenment” which started the process of secularization and de-Christianization of the west in the 18th century. The idea of a strong and robust nation that holds to traditional Christian values is an idea that Western Europe finds repugnant in the extreme. Why? Because such a nation would be an ideological rival and that is something that the current order can’t tolerate. Western nations have been globalizing their secular values by branding them as “human rights” and using human rights organizations as a cudgel to browbeat, into submission, those nations who hold to traditional values. But of course, this only applies to those traditional countries that do not tow the line of the western agenda. If you are a country like Turkey, a country that has manifold human rights abuses, you get a free pass because you have acquiesced to the program of western hegemony. This is why America and Western Europe are mostly silent on the issue of human rights violations by countries like Saudi Arabia and Turkey. But for Orthodox countries like Russia and Serbia, no such pass is given and chastisement abounds. As a friend of mine said, enlightenment liberalism is the true religion of the west and those who refuse to convert can expect no quarter.

Source:  http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/79103.htm, posted 5 May 2015, accessed 7 May 2015

Political Idolatry and Marriage

A Norðern priest with a name any Dixieman could love, Father Patrick Henry Reardon, has mentioned same-sex marriage as a manifestation of political idolatry - the government as God, re-making the whole natural order by its word alone.  He has some other good things to say regarding the defense of Christian wedlock, other forms of idolatry (artistic/cultural and philosophical), and so on in the first part of a recording posted at Ancient Faith Radio on 30 April 2015, which the reader may hear by following either of these paths.

Web site:  http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/features/one_priest_one_state

Sound file:  http://audio.ancientfaith.com/interviews/afp_2015-04-30.mp3

True and False Constitutions

Þe Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin wrote some wise words on constitutions in a 1948 essay (trans. by Mark Hackard).  The reader may note their likeness to ideas spoken of highly by Western traditionalists from Edmund Burke to Russell Kirk, namely, that a constitution is something organic that grows out of the habits of a people through long years, not something abstract that is written on a piece of paper in the span of a few weeks or months to which the theod (people, country) is to be fitted to.

 . . .

Suvorov prepared every battle, explaining to his soldiers the course and meaning of an upcoming operation; and exactly thanks to that he won one battle after another. So it is in political life: it is made by living men, their patriotic love, their understanding of sovereignty, sense of duty, organizational skills, and their respect for the law. All this must be cultivated. It is ridiculous to introduce a sovereign form into a country without considering the level and habits of the popular consciousness of justice. Further, a sovereign form must reckon with the territorial size of the country and the numerical strength of its population. In the Republic of San Marino, executive power to this day belongs to two captains elected by the Grand Council (parliament) for six months. And to this day some very small Swiss cantons gather once a year for their “one-day chamber” on a square, or in the case of rain, under umbrellas. In the majority of Switzerland’s remaining cantons, this is already impossible.

Further, a sovereign form must consider the climate and nature of a land. A harsh climate hinders the whole organization of a people, all relationships, and all government. Nature influences the character of men, the country’s produce, and its industry; it determines its geographic and strategic borders, its defense, and the character and frequency of its wars. All this must be accounted for in a sovereign form.

The multinational composition of a population presents its requirements to a sovereign form. I can become a factor of disintegration and lead to ruinous civil wars. Yet this danger can be overcome: by the nature of the country and the mountaineers’ love of freedom among peoples in solidarity with each other (Switzerland); or the longtime and free selection of emigrants, the overseas position of the country and the commercial-industrial character of the state (United States); or, finally, the religious-cultural predominance and successful political leadership of the numerically strongest tribe, if it is distinguished by genuine accommodation and kindness (Russia).

Our conclusions: every people and every land are a living individuality with their special characteristics, their own unrepeatable history, soul, and nature. To every people is therefore due its own special individual form of sovereignty and a constitution corresponding to that people only. There are no identical peoples, and there should not be identical forms of sovereignty and constitutions. Blind borrowing and imitation is absurd, dangerous, and can become ruinous.

Plants demand individual care. Animals in a zoological park have – by their species and type – individual schedules. Even people are sewn clothing by their measurements… Whence, then, comes this ridiculous idea that a system of sovereignty can be transferred by mechanical adoption from one country to another? Whence comes this naïve conception that the most unique English sovereignty, which was forged over centuries in a unique land (The blending of blood! An island! The sea! Climate! History!) by a most unique people (Character! Temperament! Sense of justice! Culture!), can be reproduced by any people with any sense of law and any character, and in any country of any size with any climate?! Can we truly think that educated politicians have never read any of Aristotle, Machiavelli, Montesquieu, or Buckle?

 . . .

Source:  ‘On Forms of Sovereignty’, Soul of the East, http://souloftheeast.org/2015/04/24/ivan-ilyin-on-forms-of-sovereignty/, posted 24 April 2015, accessed 30 April 2015

Southerners likewise held to such a view.  George Fitzhugh wrote in Sociology for the South (1854),

 . . . Men's minds were heated and blinded when they [the Declaration of Independence and Virginia's Bill of Rights--W. G.] were written, as well by patriotic zeal, as by a false philosophy, which, beginning with Locke, in a refined materialism, had ripened on the Continent into open infidelity. In England, the doctrine of prescriptive government, the divine right of kings, had met with signal overthrow, and in France there was faith in nothing, speculation about everything. The human mind became extremely presumptuous, and undertook to form governments on exact philosophical principles, just as men make clocks, watches or mills. They confounded the moral with the physical world, and this was not strange, because they had begun to doubt whether there was any other than a physical world. Society seemed to them a thing whose movement and action could be controlled with as much certainty as the motion of a spinning wheel, provided it was organized on proper principles. It would have been less presumptuous in them to have attempted to have made a tree, for a tree is not half so complex as a society of human beings, each of whom is fearfully and wonderfully compounded of soul and body, and whose aggregate, society, is still more complex and difficult of comprehension than its individual members. Trees grow and man may lop, trim, train and cultivate them, and thus hasten their growth, and improve their size, beauty and fruitfulness. Laws, institutions, societies, and governments grow, and men may aid their growth, improve their strength and beauty, and lop off their deformities and excrescences, by punishing crime and rewarding virtue. When society has worked long enough, under the hand of God and nature, man observing its operations, may discover its laws and constitution. The common law of England and the constitution of England, were discoveries of this kind. Fortunately for us, we adopted, with little change, that common law and that constitution. Our institutions and our ancestry were English. Those institutions were the growth and accretions of many ages, not the work of legislating philosophers.

 . . .

Moses and Confucius, Solon, Lycurgus and English Alfred, were Reformers, Revisors of the Code. They, too, were philosophers, but too profound to mistake the province of philosophy and attempt to usurp that of nature. They did not frame government on abstract principles, they indulged in no "a priori" reasoning; but simply lopped off what was bad, and retained, modified and simplified what was good in existing institutions –

                        "And that’s as high,
                        As metaphysic wit can fly."

 . . .

Institutions are what men can sees feel, venerate and understand. The institutions of Moses and of Alfred remain to this day, those of Numa and Lycurgus had a long and flourishing life. These sages laid down no abstract propositions, founded their institutions on no general principles, had no written constitutions. They were wise from experience, adopted what history and experience had tested, and never trusted to a priori speculations, like a More, a Locke, a Jefferson, or an Abbe Sieyes. Constitutions should never be written till several centuries after governments have been instituted, for it requires that length of time to ascertain how institutions will operate. No matter how you define and limit, in words, the powers and duties of each department of government, they will each be sure to exercise as much power as possible, and to encroach to the utmost of their ability on the powers of other departments. When the Commons were invoked to Parliament, the king had no idea they would usurp the taxing powers; but having successfully done so; it became part of the English constitution, that the people alone could tax themselves. It was never intended that ninety-nine guilty should escape, sooner than one innocent man be punished; yet, finding that the result of the English judicial system, the judges and lawyers made a merit of necessity, and adopted it as a maxim of the common law. So, in a hundred instances we could show, that in England a constitution means the modus operandi of institutions, not prescribed, but ascertained from experience. In this country we shall soon have two constitutions, that a priori thing which nobody regards, and that practical constitution deduced from observation of the workings of our institutions. - Whigs disregard our written constitution, when banks, tariffs or internal improvements are in question; Democrats respect it not when there is a chance to get more territory; and Young America, the dominant party of the day, will jump through its paper obstructions with as much dexterity as harlequin does through the hoop. State governments, and senators, and representatives, and militia, and cities, and churches, and colleges, and universities, and landed property, are institutions. Things of flesh and blood, that know their rights, "and knowing dare maintain them." We should cherish them. They will give permanence to government, and security to State Rights. But the abstract doctrines of nullification and secession, the general principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and Constitution of the United States, afford no protection of rights, no valid limitations of power, no security to State Rights. The power to construe them, is the power to nullify them. Mere paper guarantees, like the constitutions of Abbe Sieyes, are as worthless as the paper on which they are written.

        Our institutions, founded on such generalities and abstractions as those of which we are treating, are like a splendid edifice built upon kegs of gunpowder.  . . .

Source:  http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/fitzhughsoc/fitzhugh.html, posted 1998, accessed 5 May 2015 (© This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.)

It is no good for the American neocons/neo-Puritans trying to ‘export democracy’ to all the countries of the world.  It will only end in sadness and suffering for those involved (see Iraq, Afghanistan, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and the Ukraine for some ensamples of late).  Instead, let all peoples embrace their own unique inheritance, the wisdom and work of their forefathers.  For the South, as Fitzhugh says, there are these (but not limited to them):  ‘State governments, and senators, and representatives, and militia, and cities, and churches, and colleges, and universities, and landed property’. 

It is significant that he made a connection between the South and King Ælfred (Dixie’s patron saint).  For we are truly children of his English kingdom, and he never ceases to intercede at the throne of the Most Holy Trinity for all Englishmen, whithersoever they have settled in the world, including us Southrons.  Of all our inheritance, this is the most important for us to embrace - the saints of our forefathers of Ireland, Scotland, Africa, England, and so on.  Knowing their lives and asking them to pray for us individually and as a whole people will do more good for us than all the constitutional amendments man could dream up.

O Holy Saints of our Souðern forefathers, pray for us sinners at the South!

The [u]nited States Constitution Re-visited

Father Matthew Raphael Johnson shared some thoughts on the essay posted at this site Monday, 13 April 2015, regarding two kinds of constitutions.  We present them now to the reader for consideration.

 . . .

I've gone back and forth on this issue too. Primarily because the separation of powers seem to take sin very seriously. The assumption is that all men seek their own interests. The concept of the constitution is that the state will be essentially divided against itself.

However, the antifederalist condemnations of this idea have all come true.

1. They predicted that representation will be by a professional class of politicians. The idea at the time was that small yeomen who knew each other, would send one of their number to congress. That was what representation meant back then. All parties would have condemned the way it turned out.

2. They predicted a community of interests. That the ruling party will be united on many things, that is, strengthening the state and controlling state governments.

3. Its not checks and balances, but rather a division of labor. The goal is the same.

4. Its naive to think that politicians and bureaucrats will constantly labor under the illusion that they are self-seeking by trying to make other branches weaker. They will very soon figure out that such a way is counterproductive.

5. Bureaucrats are the same regardless of the branch they are attached to.

6. This was also a time before mass media, the conglomerate, debt slavery and the rule of finance capital. Hence, it has no real meaning when the country that created it is long gone.

Source:  E-mail dated 14 April 2015

More of Fr Matthew’s writings and recordings may be found by following this path:

http://www.tradyouth.org/members/orthodox_nationalist/

Point number 3 of his is worth dwelling upon.  What is the goal of government? 

The u. S. Constitution says,

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.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/preamble

The Confederate Constitution echoed this, but wið a more religious resonance:

We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csa.asp

The things they aim for are good, but they miss the point of human life.  The main task of government is to safeguard the Orthodox Church, so that all men may attain salvation through her, which is to say, to attain to never-ending, ever-deepening union with the Most Holy Trinity (man's true goal).  That none of our national or State constitutions mention this is a sign of how far from God we have fallen in the West, and how great is our need for repentance.