The best posts of the week of June 5, 2022.
Finally. . . caught back up.
Sunday, June 12, 2022
The Best Posts of the Week of May 29, 2022
The best posts of the week of May 29, 2022.
Archbishop Cordileone takes long overdue action on the public scandal of a Catholic politician.
Saturday June 3, 1922. The Saturday Illustrations.
It was Saturday, so the weekly magazines hit the newsstands.
Heavy-duty allegory was featured on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.
Colliers was more reserved, going to press with a very conservative illustration by James Montgomery Flagg.
Saturday, June 11, 2022
Sunday, June 11, 1922. Nanook of the North.
Nanook of the North, a docudrama, was released. It was one of the first of its kind.
It followed the lives of a native family in far northern Quebec.
Moral Courage
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
Mark Twain
Friday, June 10, 2022
Wednesday June 10, 1942. The Massacre of Lidice
The Germans destroyed the Czech town of Lidice in reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. All men older than fifteen were killed immediately, numbering some 172. Most of the children were murdered later.
The Germans filmed the murders they committed on this day.
Ultimately, 192 men, 60 women, and 88 children would be killed by the Germans from Lidice. The Germans forcibly aborted the babies of four pregnant women from the village.
Following the war, 153 women and 17 children returned, and the city town was rebuilt.
The entire event not only stands as a symbol of German barbarity during World War Two, but as an example of how absolutely preverse it was.
Sandra Sundon notes the "Big Inch" was approved.
Today in World War II History—June 10, 1942: “Big Inch”
It was a pipeline
More specifically, it was a pipeline that, together with the "Little Inch", took oil from Texas to the East Coast, thus allowing it to evade submarines. Prior to the Inch pipelines, oil was transported for delivery to the East Coast by ship.
Economist John Maynard Keynes was made a peer. I'm not a Keynes fan and think his theories have largely ended up in governments' being fiscally irresponsible. So, just as I feel we should go back and rescind Nixon's pardon, I think we ought to de-peer Keynes.
Today In Wyoming's History: June 9, 2022. Mount Doane renamed First People's Mountain
Today In Wyoming's History: June 9: 2022 The US Board on Geographic names has announced that Mount Doane in Yellowstone National Park is being renamed First People's Mountain.
Gustavus Doane was an Army officer and the peak was named for him during his lifetime. He is associated with the Marius Massacre where he was an officer, and Native American groups have accordingly been seeking a change in the mountain's name since at least 2018
Thursday, June 9, 2022
Some thoughts on the late teen/early adult years.
The gun control bill that passed the house proposes to raise the purchase age for firearms to 21.
Teenage soldier, i.e., me. 1982. At that age I was plenty mature enough for this role.
The counterargument is somewhat predictable for this. "If you can serve in the military at age 21 and carry a weapon for your country. . ."
But why can you do that at age 21?
Under the original U.S. Constitution you couldn't vote until you were 21 years of age, that being the age at which the founders deemed a man (and originally it was just men) mature enough to participate in the serious business of choosing a government. The age was changed in the late stage of the Vietnam War, under the logic if that if you were old enough to fight for your country, you were old enough to vote and participate in the decisions that led to the fighting. That reflected the conscription age at the time, which had reached down to 18 for most of the war, even though, as noted above, it had climbed a bit late war, and even though teenage soldiers in the Vietnam War were actually fairly rare.
All the states had militia duty requirements at the time the Constitution was enacted, as the colonies also had them prior to that and dating back to their founding. Most of these made men liable for militia service between 18 and 45 years of age.
The Federal Government didn't conscript men into military service until the Civil War, at which point it passed a bill during the war making men from age 20 to 45 years of age eligible for conscription. The southern rebellious states passed a federal conscription provision which at first covered ages 18 to 35 and then later ages 17 to 60. The South had a real manpower problem, it might be noted, and at the bitter end of the war, it made slaves liable for conscription, demonstrating that, because there's no reason to believe they would have made willing soldiers against their own best interest.
The draft ranges for conscription during World War was fell between age 21 and 30. The first draft range for World War Two was from 21 to 35, but as the war went on it dropped to 18 years of age and up into the 40s for the upper range. Starting in 1948 men were eligible again for the draft at age 19. It dropped to 18 during the Korean War and stayed there until 1969, when Nixon ordered it back up to age 19.
We lack conscription now, of course, but men between the years of 18 to 35 are liable under the Selective Service provisions to conscription and are "obligors" under the law.
Hmmmm.
Interestingly, the mid 20th Century also saw men start to graduate high school as a rule, which is also at age 18. High school graduation rates overall, for men and women combined, rose from 6% in 1900 to 80% by 1970, near the end of the Vietnam War. The American system of education developed such that schooling normally completed, as noted, around age 18, although some did graduate at 17 when I was a high schooler, and some at 19. As late as the late 1930s only around half of the male population graduated from high school, but that was very rapidly changing and soon after the war most men and women graduated.
In every U.S. state you can marry, the most serious thing a person can do, and marry freely, at age 18. While people who like to get spastic about it misconstrue it, you can marry below that with permission of your parents or authorities in most states younger than that. 18 years of age in order to contact a marriage is the global norm, interestingly, although there are some exceptions. Honduras, for example, sets the age at 21. Japan at 20. The Philippines at 21. A few nations set the minimum age for women, oddly enough, below 18, usually at 16 or 17.
The other "age of consent" is generally age 18 in the United States, although there are all sorts of other rules and factors that go into that, so it's not really safe to opine on. What's safer to opine on is that generally in the US women become far game for male predation at age 18 and that's the age where it's generally legally safe for them to be subject to all sorts of creepy behavior. The same is true for men, but it's women that are largely the victims in this area, although not exclusively so.
In the US, the drinking age everywhere, due to Federal pressure on the topic, is 21. When I was 19, the drinking age in Wyoming was 19, which it had been dropped to during the Vietnam War due to the same logic that prevailed regarding voting.
As of 2019, the minimum age to buy tobacco is 21. In most of "progressive" Canada, it's 18. Where it isn't 18 in Canada, it's 19.
In much of the US, you can drive at age 16. This is true in Canada and Mexico as well, but the global norm, although there's lots of variety in it, is 18.
In most of the US you have to be at least 20 to rent a car, although as a practical matter, that age is really 23.
Odd, isn't it?
Research has determined that the male brain continues to develop until age 25, which is when men basically reach maturity, whereas for women it's 21. Some studies push that up to 25 for men and women. A British study found that men reach full emotional maturity at approximately age 43, whereas women do at 32, which is a bit of a different thing than developmental maturity.
Which brings us to this.
The founders setting the voting age at 21 reflected their actual experience. People like to imagine that everybody did everything younger back in the day, but this isn't really the case at all. As we've discussed here before, actual marriage ages haven't changed hardly at all since the Middle Ages. They'll occasionally go up (usually due to economic conditions), and rarely go down, but they return to a well established median. The current "everyone is getting married older" story really reflects the latter.
Marriage, rather obviously, was allowed at a younger age than 21, but there are biological factors at work there that would tend to explain that, at least up until the government became the substitute daddy allowing men to evade responsibility for their offspring.
The odd thing about age in the early history of the country was the age for compulsory bearing of arms was 18. Why? No idea. When conscription first came about, it was set at age 21, the age you could vote, and remained that age until the Second World War, when it was dropped to 18.
Driving ages are at low ages in North America because of farm economies. Lots of drivers were, at one time, young farm drivers.
Which brings us to this.
The current pattern of living may reflect the historic norm in the US more than we suppose. We've dealt with it before, but up until World War Two, the basic norm for most men was to leave high school, by graduation or otherwise, and then go to work. Most men lived at home until they married. Most women lived at home until they married. And for most, they were 21 years of age or older at that time. The World War Two period brought in a demographic and behavioral exception, but it was due to external forces. Large scale conscription and a booming economy, following the Great Depression, followed by the massive expansion of the economy and higher education. The trend that started in 1939 lasted a few decades, but we've seen a return to the older pattern of living more recently.
Which perhaps gets back to this.
The new gun control provision probably makes a lot of sense. There are reasons to preclude people who have not reached maturity from buying firearms.
But there are probably reasons not to allow them to do other responsible things as well, including voting.
Maybe, looked at this rationally and scientifically, the military ought to not be open to enlistment until age 21. Maybe the "age of consent", or exploitation, ought to be 21. Maybe public education ought to expand up to age 21.
SIG M5 Spear Deep Dive: Is This a Good US Army Rifle?
A really excellent description of the new M5, and the cartridge.
Of note, the M5 weights 14 lbs. The heaviest rifle ever introduced for infantrymen in U.S. history.
Wednesday, June 8, 2022
Casualties of War. The Attu Islanders and their island.
Attu woman and child, 1941. She'd never see another summer on her home island again. By Malcolm Greany - https://www.flickr.com/photos/12567713@N00/2667001144/sizes/o/in/photostream/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17118121
On June 7, 1942, the Imperial Japanese Army landed on Attu Island, ferried there, of course, by the Imperial Japanese Navy.
Attu is part of the Aluetians. It's 344 square miles in size. For comparison's sake, that's a little bigger than Molokai in the Hawaiian Islands, and a little smaller than Kauai.
It's relatively large, in real terms, 35 miles by 20.
It has an Aleutian climate, with average temperatures below 60F in the summer and in the mid 20s in the depth of winter. It's coldest temperature ever was -17F, in 1902, and the hottest temperature ever, 77F in 1925.
The island has been inhabited since antiquity, and it's estimated that prior to contact with Europeans, the island had a native population between 2,000 and 5,000 souls. Archeologists believe that settlement came from the east, not the west, even though it's the closest of the Aleutians to Asia and very distant, today, from the nearest Alaskan settlement of any kind.
It's one of the "Near Islands", as its near Asia.
Attu, along with the other Near Islands, seems to have first had settlements about 3,000 years ago, surprisingly late if it's considered that the arriving populations had spread throughout North America far before that.
The first contact with Europeans came from Russian fur hunters in 1745, when they actually went to Attu after being confronted by a large body of armed natives on the first island they attempted to land at. The first Russian contact on Attu violent, withe Russians taking an old woman and a boy hostage, oddly keeping the boy as an interpreter, although it has to be presumed he spoke no Russian.
A few weeks after that, the Russians raided an Attu village and killed fifteen men, with the purpose of the raid to take Attu women as sex slaves. The location has ever since born the name Massacre Bay.
In 1750, the Russians introduced Arctic Fox to the island.
The Russian presence caused the decline of the local fauna rapidly, a devastating event for the natives, and the Russians also introduced disease, playing out a story that is often associated with the European conquest of North America. By 1762 the population was estimated at about 100 natives, which would mean that the population decline had been unbelievably massive in just a twenty or so year span.
The decline in fortunes for the Russians on the island meant that it thereafter largely skipped the Russian colonization of the Aleutians, to the extent it could be called that, and it remained free of Russian economic control. The Russians reappeared in the early 19th Century, and the Attu population remained very small.
Christianity was introduced at least as early as 1758, but a chapel was not built until 1825, with a Russian Orthodox Priest being assigned to it, along with other island churches in 1828. He made his first visit to the island in 1831. By 1860 the native population had rebounded to 227 plus an additional 21 individuals who were "Creole", i.e., of mixed heritage. When Alaska was sold to the US in 1867, services to the island dropped off massively, and by 1880 the population had declined by half. Nonetheless, visitors to the island in the early 20th Century, who were few, were impressed by how happy the residents were and how clean the two villages were. In the 1920s the sod structures were replaced by the natives with wooden ones, with imported wood, which included building a wooden Russian Orthodox Church in the 1920s and a school, without a teacher, in the 1932. The teacher first appeared in 1940.
In the 19th and 20th Centuries, and indeed before, the men worked as trappers part of the year and moved to the hinterlands to do that. Again, in the 20th Century, visitors were uniformly impressed by how happy the people living on the island were. And why not? Free of the chaos of the outside world, living a natural life, and with a Christian world view, they were as close to living in a paradise on earth as any people could be.
And then the Japanese came on June 7, 1942.
The Japanese removed all of the Attuans and kept them on Hokkaido. By the war's end, half of them had died. The US retook the island itself in May 1943.
The survivors wished to return to their homes when the war ended, but the US government did not allow them, garrisoning the island instead for a long range navigation site. Truly, the government really did not have an existential right to deprive the Attuans of their home, but it did so.
The U.S. Coast Guard left in 2010.
In 2018 the descendants of the dispossessed Attuans were allowed to visit Attu.
Thursday, June 8, 1922. The Show Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries
In part of what would end up being a decades long process, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union began to the massacre of its fellow travelers. The Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries began.
Scene from the trial.
The Socialist Revolutionaries were a left wing Russian Party that were pro-democracy and had participated in Kerensky's government. Indeed, the Socialist Revolutionaries out polled the Bolsheviks in the 1917 election for a Constituent Assembly, and only the Bolshevik's illegal seizure of power precluded a democratic body from forming. By 1922, they had been crushed, but Lenin's government opted for a show trial anyhow, resulting in death sentences for the party figures who were tried.
It turned into a pr disaster, with the victims of the show trial becoming a cause célèbre among non Communist radicals. Marxist, but anti Bolshevik, Karl Kausky said about the event:
The Bolsheviki were first to use violence against other socialists. They dissolved the Constituent Assembly not by way of resistance against any violence on the part of the Socialists-Revolutionists and the Mensheviki, but because of their realization of their own inability to obtain the support of a majority of the peasants and workers by means of free propaganda. This was the fundamental cause of the Bolshevist coup d'etat against the representatives of the revolutionary workers and peasants. Hence, the abolition of all rights of all other socialists who refused to submit to the crack of the Bolshevist whip. Hence, the establishment of a political regime which leaves but one form of open political action for the opposition — civil war.... The real crime of which the Socialists-Revolutionists are guilty before the Bolsheviki at the present moment is not in the preparation of terroristic acts and armed uprisings, but in that...[they] are acquiring in ever increasing measure the confidence of the toiling masses of Russia. This bids fair to bring about the complete isolation of the Bolsheviki in a short time.
The results of the trial were that Central Committee of the SRP were found guilty, of course, and sentenced to death. The Communists position was still sufficiently tenuous that disquiet over the results meant the sentences were commuted. All twelve were later murdered during Stalin's purges, of course.
While this trial was a well known event, and while mass killings were already a feature of Soviet rule, Stalin's later purges overshadowed these to such a degree that they're often treated as something uniquely Stalinesque. In truth, the Communist Party everywhere featured the murder of its rivals as a norm, once in power, and murdering those who were closest to it in views, but not wholly their views, was not unusual at all. In some ways, therefore, Stalin's murder of party members was a mere continuation to what had become the blood soaked norm already, different only in degree and that it was typically based on nothing at all.
Tuesday, June 7, 2022
Sunday, June 7, 1942. The Yorktown goes down, the Chicago Tribune blabs, Attu occupied.
In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.
Isoroku Yamamoto to Japanese cabinet minister Shigeharu Matsumoto and Prime Minister Fumimaro before World War Two.
This day is regarded as the official end of the Battle of Midway.
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Yorktown after she had rolled over on her port side
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Lots of interesting items are mentioned by Sarah Sundin, on her blog, including the following.Today in World War II History—June 7, 1942: In the Battle of Midway, carrier USS Yorktown sinks due to damage from the previous day, but the US is victorious in the major turning point of the Pacific War.
The Yorktown had sustained battle damage during the battle, and had been hit by a torpedo fired by a Japanese submarine the prior day.
The Yorktown started to list rapidly to port on the morning of June 7. She had already been abandoned due to battle damage by that time. She rolled over to her port side, revealing the torpedo hole from a Japanese submarine. The ship sank at 07:01 at which time the ships in the vicinity were all flying half-mast for her, and the crewmen mustered and at attention, heads uncovered.
The Chicago Tribune reported that the US had knowledge of the Japanese plans to strike Midway before it occurred, revealing sufficient information that had the Japanese studied the article, they would have realized that their codes had been broken. Secretary of War Frank Knox demanded that the authors be prosecuted, but when it was soon noticed that the Japanese failed to change their codes, the matter was quietly dropped so as to avoid pointing the story out.
As Sundin also reports, Maj. Gen. Clarence Tinker, who was the commander of the U.S. Seventh Air Force, died when an LB-30 he was flying went down off of Midway. Tinker was leading a squadron of bombers in action in pursuit of the retreating Japanese forces.
The number of aircraft deployed from Midway during the battle is impressive, but U.S. Army Air Corps bombers, which included B-17s, LB-30s (B-24s) and B-26s were singularly unsuccessful in the action, largely disproving the prewar theory that multi engine bombers would be successful as a ground based threat to surface fleets.
Tinker had been born in Indian Territory and was of Osage extraction. He was the first U.S. general officer to be killed in World War Two. His Army service dated back to 1912. Like several other generals in the Second World War, during World War One he'd served stateside. He transferred to the flying service in 1922 and had reached the rank of Brigadier General in 1940.
The Japanese sweep in the Aleutians continued, with the Japanese landing on and taking Attu. There were no military personnel on the island. Three Aleuts were killed when the Japanse landed. It's 42 surviving Aleut residents were interned by the Japanese on Hokkaido, where 16 of them would die during the war. Charles Jones, a resident of the island and a radio operator was murdered by the Japanese for his refusal to fix his radio for their use. His wife Etta, a teacher on the island, survived the war and was interned with Australian nurses who had been taken on Rabaul.
The former residents of the island were resettled on other Aleutians islands after the war.
The Japanese had intended the invasion of the island as a type of raid, intending to leave it by winter, but they ended up garrisoning it instead.
Attu village, 1937. Note the Russian Orthodox Church.
The Germans ordered Jews in occupied France to wear yellow Stars of David.
British Commandos raided German airfields on Crete.
Wednesday, June 7, 1922. State Farm Insurance Company founded.
State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, the largest American automobile insurer, was founded on this day in 1922 as a mutual insurance company designed to assist farmers. The founder, George J. Mecherle, was a tractor salesman and retired farmer.
The Greek Cruiser Georgios Averof shelled the Turkish city of Samsun. The Ottoman government deported Greek residents of western towns under their control as a reprisal.
The British Mount Everest Expedition was called off due to the deaths of seventeen Sherpas in an avalanche.
Monday, June 6, 2022
Saturday, June 6, 1942. The Japanese land on Kiska.
Events from the Battle of Midway continued to play out, as Sarah Sundin details on her blog:
Today in World War II History—June 6, 1942: In Battle of Midway, SBD dive bombers from US carriers Enterprise and Hornet sink Japanese heavy cruiser Mikuma. Japanese occupy Kiska in the Aleutians.
As she also noted, the Japanese diversionary and precautionary action in the Aleutians continued.
Japanese after landing on Kiska.
The only American presence was a small Navy weather station which was manned, at the time, by ten men. One man escaped the assault, two were captured, and the balance killed.
Sunday, June 5, 2022
Illiberal Democracy.
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Personal symbol of Marshall Petain.
There’s one overriding theme I’ve heard over and over and over again, and that is: We’re fed up. We’re fed up with seeing young mothers and fathers who can’t find baby formula for their newborns. We’re fed up with $6 gasoline and $6 diesel; we’re fed up with the shortage of fertilizer for our farmers and a supply chain that had been broken by the incompetence of our federal agencies. . . We’re fed up with critical race theory,” We’re fed up with boys competing in girls’ sports. We’re fed up with the radical abortion industry, and those extremists who are willing to destroy the Supreme Court to prevent us from being able to protect life.
Harriet Hageman.
Really?
Hageman is actually an establishment Republican, strongly associated with the successful farming class of southeastern Wyoming, and probably darned near 100% in agreement with Cheney on most things. If that's true, it makes her campaign cynical in that the same things she's "fed up" with Liz Cheney is probably also "fed up" with, save for liberal democracy itself, which Cheney is going out on a limb for, but Hageman is willing to work against if it puts her in office. [1].
But, in the Ford Center where she delivered her speech, many of those who are "fed up", are fed up with liberal democracy itself.
That explains a lot about the January 6 insurrection.
For those people, who feel that a certain vague set of "traditional American values" should be universally accepted, and what's more enforced, they're fed up with what they regard as attacks up on it by the politically liberal left. Not only are they tired of them, they'd drive them from the field as wholly illegitimate.
It's not that they oppose the voice of the people. . . it's that only people with the correct views, as they see them, should have a voice at all, and those people don't include the liberal left in the country.
They aren't even included if more of them voted for Hilary Clinton in 2016, and Joe Biden in 2020. Their votes may be simply doubted by many Trump true believes, many who beleive that it can't be the case that a majority of Americans don't hold the same beliefs they do, but for others, the votes of that other group, simply doesn't count.
They're for Illiberal Democracy.
Let's see if we can flesh this out.
And we'll start with this. CPAC is holding its convention in Hungary.
Hungary?
Yes.
Why?
Viktor Orban.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz party won the Hungarian election a few weeks ago by a surprising margin, returning Orban to a fourth term.
Eh? So what?
Well, it's more significant, for strange reasons, than a person may think.
Fidez was founded in 1988 as a center left party that opposed the ruling Communist party. It registered officially as a party in 1990, just as the Soviet Union was collapsing, and Orbán was its first leader and, of course, remains its leader. It entered the National Assembly of Hungary that year, at which time it adopted liberal-conservatism as its plant form, causing its left-wing members to depart. It's since became a nationalist conservative party and moved increasingly to the right.
Since that time, it's become one of the most notable political parties of its type. Orbán himself described its existential philosophy as "Illiberal Democracy" rather than "Liberal Democracy", the latter being the type of government which generally describes true democracies. You know, think Edmund Burke and John Locke, Thomas Jefferson and those fellows.
Fidesz describes their philosophy, more specifically, as a "Christian illiberal democracy", which would explain the color orange in their banner, orange being the color of Christian democracy. Whatever it may be, they definitely aren't the same as Germany's Christian Democrats or the American Solidarity Party, two other Christian Democratic parties. Orbán and his followers regard liberal democracy as having undemocratic tendencies as they are, they assert, "intolerate of alternative views". His party is nativist, nationalistic, Hungarian ethnocentric, and self asserted as Christian, although like other governments in the past that have claimed the same, particularly in Catholic countries, some of the policies of the government have found disfavor with the country's presiding Bishops. Orbán himself is a member of the Presbyterian Reformed Church of Hungary which means, oddly enough, like Admiral Horthy of the 1920s through 1940s, who held similar views, he's a Protestant, and a Protestant in a largely Catholic country.
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Like a lot of similar movements, and there have been similar ones in the past, they're difficult to describe from an American prospective. They are not easy to compare to the German Christian Democatic Party or Catholic Centre Party, as noted, two historic mainstream Christian democratic parteis. They're more comparable to some branches, but not all, of the Spanish Phalangist or to Francoist in general, to some degree. Perhahps the best comparison might be to Ireland's Christian democratic party, Fianna Fáil, during the DeValera era,
Indeed, the original Fianna Fáil would be a quite good comparison, as it was all of those things just noted, for the most part, and that had a major impact on the constitution and culture of Ireland before the Celtic Tiger era. It might also, it might be noted, have sewn the seeds for a collapse of its political views that came in that era. Culturally and politically, Fianna Fáil worked to make Ireland an institutionally Catholic republic, vesting education, for example, in the Church, over the Church's original objection. Indeed, much of the institutional Catholicism that Fianna Fail created was opposed by the Church and churchmen, who thought that newly independent Ireland should be a conventional parliamentary democracy instead.
Still, Fianna Fáil always existed in the context of parliamentary democracy, and it acceded to defeat when it lost, which it frequently did, and Ireland had and still has a vigorous parliament. So irrespective of its massive influence, and that of its founder, maybe the example isn't a good one, as the first principal for it turned out to be democracy, once it had turned to democracy in the first place.
Another example would be the Union Nationale of Quebec, which was extremely similar, and whose history and fate tells much of the same tale.
The Union Nationale was a fiercely Québécois party, seeking no favor for or from English-speaking Quebecers at all. Like Fianna Fáil, it was aggressively Catholic, and it was also aggressively agrarian, something that Fianna Fáil was also early on. It sought a Francophone enclave within Canada that had little to do with the rest of the English-speaking nation, and it often took positions diametrically in opposition to the rest of the nation, at a time in which the rest of Canada was aggressively English. Also like Fianna Fáil, in the highly federal Canada, it worked to institutionalize this by incorporating the Church into civil roles, such as education, by also health.
The result there, of course, was ultimately the Quiet Revolution, which destroyed the Union Nationale and put in its place an aggressively secular Francophone view. Often missed, the Church initially was one of the backers of the Quiet Revolution, although ultimately it got far out of hand and lead to a sort of collapse of Québécois culture, seeing the times as evidence that it should separate itself from roles better fulfilled by government.
And we should note, the party wasn't always in power, and when it wasn't, it accepted that. So again, maybe it isn't the best example.
Maybe Vichy France is.
Petainist France rejected, by fiat, the ideals of the Revolution, which were often honored frequently in the breach rather than the observance, and in France the Revolution itself had never really been fully accepted by a large percentage of the population. A sort of democracy lived on, but only one that was strictly confined within Petainist ideas, which were summed up by his motto "Work, Country, Family". A very secular man himself, Petain's conservatism was much like pre-war German conservatism, in that it was based on a set of social ideals, but not on religious ones. Like the German variant, they were social in nature, and highly nationalistic. And like the pre Nazi German variant, they were willing to endure some democratic institutions, but only to the extent that they were controlled within that context.
And next, perhaps, you have Franco's Spain, where no democracy was tolerated at all.
All of which takes us to Patrick Deneen.
Eh?
Deneen is a political science professor at the Notre Dame. He came into prominence in 2018 when he authored Why Liberalism Failed, a major work criticized heavily by the mainstream press and deeply studied by conservatives. Yale's snippet on the book states:
Has liberalism failed because it has succeeded?
"Why Liberalism Failed offers cogent insights into the loss of meaning and community that many in the West feel, issues that liberal democracies ignore at their own peril."—President Barack Obama
"Deneen's book is valuable because it focuses on today's central issue. The important debates now are not about policy. They are about the basic values and structures of our social order."—David Brooks, New York Times
Of the three dominant ideologies of the twentieth century—fascism, communism, and liberalism—only the last remains. This has created a peculiar situation in which liberalism’s proponents tend to forget that it is an ideology and not the natural end-state of human political evolution. As Patrick Deneen argues in this provocative book, liberalism is built on a foundation of contradictions: it trumpets equal rights while fostering incomparable material inequality; its legitimacy rests on consent, yet it discourages civic commitments in favor of privatism; and in its pursuit of individual autonomy, it has given rise to the most far-reaching, comprehensive state system in human history. Here, Deneen offers an astringent warning that the centripetal forces now at work on our political culture are not superficial flaws but inherent features of a system whose success is generating its own failure.
Apparently Dineen takes a really dim view of things, noting that, as this states, "centripetal forces now at work. . . are generating their own failure". To put it mildly, his adherents, and probably Dineen himself, feel what might basically be described as a sense of doom about things as liberalism is inherently anti-democratic at the point at which it begins to attack its own culture's foundational principles.
This in fact was recently apparently a topic on First Things, the notable journal, and that resulted in a Catholic Answers Focus podcast on the topic, entitled:
It's subtitled:
A debate is raging within Catholicism over the legitimacy of modern liberalism. R.R. Reno, editor of First Things magazine, stops by to help us understand the stakes in the debate. Cy Kellet: Modern ideas about freedom are not setting people free.
re debating what to do about it. .R. Reno is next.
Heavy stuff.
Inside the covers of First Things, and elsewhere, there are in fact debates on this. Apparently the hardcore Dineen followers feel things are hopeless and are headed in the Fidesz direction. In contrast, individuals like George Weigel feel that things are messed up, and it's hard to disagree with that, but that this can be corrected with in the foundations of the liberal democracy itself. Weigel, I'd note, just authored The Fragility of Order, which I do have, but have not yet read. It's related to this topic, apparently.
And then there's a generally disgusted George F. Will.
Huh?
Will is, of course, the most prominent of the remaining Buckleyite conservatives, and is generally disgusted with everything right now.
During a recent episode of Meet The Press, Will was one of the panelists and in response to a question about why some elements of the GOP, albeit a minority, have had a love affair with Putin, he spouted off, in a somewhat angry tone, that it was "because they loved Orban first". He was clearly mad and upset about it, but a little bit of explanation would have been helpful.
In fairness, he did expand a bit, but the expansion was oblique and probably nonsensical to all but the most informed. Basically, he was making the point that American conservatives admire Orbán, or at least some do, as he's maintaining a certain very conservative line on things that they wish to maintain here. By extension, they see Putin in the same light.
And indeed Orbán is an open ally of Putin, although it's certainly worth questioning if they are in fact anything really alike, politically. While critics of Hungary have labeled the country's current commitment to democracy imperiled, it does in fact function democratically if in a semi authoritarian way. Orbán could have lost the recent election. To a degree, those who criticize Orbán do so as they feel that his policies are anti-democratic, but what they really are is anti-liberal. It is different.
Putin, on the other hand, is anti-democratic and where he fits on the conservative/liberal scale is pretty hard to figure out. He's made a point of being aligned with the Russian Orthodox Church, and vice versa, and some of his policies, such as his policies on homosexuality, square very much with Orbán's views on the same things. It seems, however, that what Orbán is, is an Illiberal Democrat, and what Putin is, is an Illiberal Authoritarian. They aren't the same thing.
And that takes us to CPAC.
What?
Yes, the Conservative Political Action Conference.
CPAC used to essentially be the political equivalent of Comic Con, quite frankly, and wasn't taken much more seriously than a big Star Trek convention. That's really changed in recent years, and all the hopefuls on the right who are hoping to gain traction show up at it and give firey far right speeches. In recent years, CPAC has had the impact of taking the GOP further and further into the right wing camp. It's also had an impact on the states, as various organizations with very specific goals hand out predrafted legislative bills that state legislators pack home and submit to their state legislative bodies. There have been several that have been introduced in the Wyoming legislature in recent years. It's having quite an impact, even though most have failed.
This year, there's going to be an event called:
And that's no small deal.
Essentially, CPAC is going global and it's endorsing Fidesz.
And that's where things tie together.
But not before we consider Rod Dreher.
Readers of this august cyberjournal may recognize Dreher as he's the dour social critic and conservative who, a few years ago, issued a book called The Benedict Option. I've not read it, but the gist of it is that Christians should take a page out of the history of St. Benedict, as Dreher understands it, and essentially form Christian enclaves in what he regards as a Barbarian sea.
Lots of modern Christians have taken up seeing the world sort of this way, in a "post-modern" or "post Christian" way, but frankly their points are very much over done. Christianity fundamentally and irrevocably changed the Western world, but it frankly simply is not the case that after the year 450 thigns were just completley Christian until 1968.
And this is an important fact, as it forms much of the central world view of those who are now on the far right.
In reality, adherence to Christian morality waxed and waned over the centuries, with there being eras in which the tide seemed to be going out, and others when it came back in. Much of the Age of Englightment, from which Liberal Democracy comes we should note, was a freaking moral sewer, at least to the degree that classes with some means were involved. There's a delusional group of people who believe that monarchy upheld the moral standards, for example, but they hardly did, with royals leaping out of various people's beds so quickly that its a wonder they had any time for affairs of state at all. Even in the high Medieval Age, the offspring of monarchs usually is divided into legitimate and illegitimate, with a long list for both.
As noted, the Age of Englightment was a real moral sewer. Often poorly understood, this was exhibited by at least some of our "Founding Fathers", who were part of that age. Benjamin Frankly was a self-confessed practitioner of "wenching" when he was young. Thomas Jefferson had children by his wife and his wife's half sister, the latter who a product of a union between a slave and his wife's father, and who was held in bondage herself.
Pretty icky.
This is "Pride Month".
"Pride Month" image published by the United States Marine Corps, which was the last branch of the military to accept women, and very reluctantly at that, into combat roles (a decision that I disagree with). When average Americans, many of whom have not really accepted that current Western liberal concept of homosexuality being normal, see this in one of the most manly of American institutions, they're going to react somehow. FWIW, I've known a Vientam vet who was a Marine in that country and, indeed, was homosexual. He was a really tough guy as well. That isn't the point, but rather the public requirement of acceptance.
So, you may ask?
Well, it relates more than a person might suppose. Let's consider one of Hageman's "fed ups" once again.
We’re fed up with boys competing in girls’ sports.
Truth be known, a lot of rank and file average people are fed up with just that, and much of what's related to it, even those who aren't saying so. At a deep down level, a lot of people who are socially conservative are reeling with the thought that things that were regarded as deeply abnormal, and indeed perverse, just recently are now celebrated with "pride". And this is forcing a social view down the throats of a large section of the population. Indeed, just as the left decries the right for acting anti democratically, the left is fueling the fire by acting massively anti democratically itself. It's mostly just tearing down, with no guardrails at all as to what is left up.
And this hits people at all sorts of different levels, and not just those who are universally conservative on all of their views. That's because big portions of the country are forcing a social construct on traditional beliefs, even if they have to counter science to do it.
That this was going to create a massive problem in society was obvious at the point, ironically now given the left wing displeasure with the Supreme Court, when the Supreme Court issued the Obergefll decision. As long ago as that, which isn't all that long ago really, we predicted that this would be a massive turning point in acceptance of the status quo in the country, and we've proven right.
It isn't the only one. Things have been slow in building. And populism, which is a separate movement, but one which is feeding into this, and vice versa, has its roots in a lot of other issues, including massively high immigration and the loss of blue collar jobs, both of which are tied to together and feed into each other.
All of these together, however, are a poisonous brew that we've been adding ingredients into since the 1960s.
So now we have a Republican Party that's split between populism, establishment conservatism, and illiberal democracy conservatism. It's an odd mix. It's like mixing, in one Uber ride, Huey Long, Mitt Romney and Rod Dreher, with Donald Trump trying to tell the driver where to go.
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By State Archives of North Carolina - https://www.flickr.com/photos/north-carolina-state-archives/21548679213/, No restrictions, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54996137
Something to consider here, however.
Fianna Fáil, which dominated early Ireland, but never lost its democratic principles, evolved and ultimately Ireland went through a large, and frankly tragic, shift. I think the Ireland before the Celtic Tiger was a better Ireland, but as at least one prominent American Catholic churchman noted at the time, the system was setting Ireland up for later social problems.
Quebec underwent a Quiet Revolution, which the Church supported, but with equally tragic social results. In some ways, Quebec has become pathetic among the Canadian provinces due to what it experienced, which can in part be argued that this was due to the revolution coming too late.
Vichy fell with Nazi Germany, and the French right has never recovered. Only now is there a serious right wing in France, and it continues to struggle with the legacy of Vichy.
The point is that, generally, bad ideas die in the sunlight. Times do change. The United States is going through a massive period of internal turmoil, and it seems, only just now, 50 plus years of the United States Supreme Court being a quasi legislative branch of government are ending, to much left wing ire. [2].
Imposing an illiberal democracy in its place probably stands, ultimately, to arrest the return to real democracy, and to sanity as well, and to damage the very principals that those now enamored with it espouse.
Footnotes:
1. Hageman makes missteps in what she's pitching to. Is the average Wyomingite fed up with the "shortage of fertilizer for our farmers"? No, most of us know nothing about that whatsoever. That reflects the southeastern Wyoming agricultural view that everyone has the exact same concerns that they do, a common affliction for most people. Not that it doesn't matter, but it isn't something most people spend much time thinking about.
2. It may be worth asking, as part of this, how much of a return those showing up in these crowds really want.
Hageman's list of offenses list some, but how much further beyond that would people really wish to go? Before the Courts and Legislatures really started down the current path, a lot of things now taken for granted were illegal.
A person can argue on moral bases that perhaps many are still bad ideas, and people do, but do people want the law to return to these topics? For example, no-fault divorce was not a thing. Cohabitation was illegal in many states. Homosexual activity was illegal in some states. Birth control was illegal in some states.
I'd note this as I suspect in any crowed of people cheering for those who are pondering illiberal democracy there are, for lack of a better blunt way to put it, cohabiting birth control users.
Of course, that highlights once again that the rank and file of the far right camp isn't really in touch with some other aspects of this far right movement. Hageman is an establishment Republican, or was. She's espousing a set of ideas that fit into the illiberal democracy book, however. But then many of these ideas cross over.
Anyhow, it's pretty hard to imagine Rod Dreher being comfortable with tattooed Trump rally goers. Would he be comfortable with Frank Eathorne?
Friday, June 5, 1942. The aftermath of Midway.
June 5 saw the aftermath of the Battle of Midway play out. At 0215 two Japanese cruisers spotted the approaching US submarine USS Tambor and started zigzagging, hitting each other, and resulting in 92 deaths aboard the Mogami. At 0450 the Akagi was scuttled. At 0510 the Hiryū was scuttled by torpedoes from destroyer Makigumo. Hiryū’s Captain Kaku and Rear Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi, commander of the 2nd Carrier Division, went down with the ship in a pointless death.
Things went better for the Tanikaze, a destroyer, that managed to avoid being hit in an attack by no less than 66 dive bombers on this day, following up on the Battle of Midway.
Japan, on the same day, began raiding in the Mozambique Channel.
The British attempted a counterattack against the Afrika Korps that failed, with the Germans resuming the offensive that afternoon.
The United States declared war on Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania.
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