Kurds Behaving Badly–Again
The Bush administration’s shortsighted approach to foreign policy is nowhere better illustrated than in Kurdistan. Under our auspices, the Kurds have virtually established a state from which they have purged most of the historic Christian community on the trumped up charge that they are Arab invaders sent in by Saddam. After implementing a general program of ethnic cleansing, the Kurds succeeded in making their little satellite state the most peaceful corner of the former Iraq. Under pressure, however, they foolishly accepted refugees from other parts of Iraq; predictably, some of the refugees have brought the war home to Kurdistan, which is beginning to experience roadside bombings and terrorist attacks.
What could be done, ideally, with the Kurds? Many of my Southern friends answer, almost automatically: Guarantee the Kurds the right of secession, and all will be well. As I recently explained, in a speech that antagonized a group of secessionists meeting in Chattanooga, there is no such thing as a universal political system or principle that applies to all peoples in all situations. For some peoples, monarchy or autocracy may be the best system; for others an oligarchy based on wealth; while for some small-scale societies something like popular government may work, though the history of such experiments is not encouraging. Similarly, secession, although it is often a workable response to tyranny and oppression, may not be the right answer in all cases. Kosovo Albanians, who invaded the region, oppressed the Christians and burned their churches, though they now constitute the majority, should not be rewarded for their centuries of terrorism, first under the Turks, then under Tito, and now with the encouragement of the "International Community," that is, the US and its puppets. It is a terrible charge to make against any nation, but the Kurds are the Albanians of the Mideast.
The supposed right of secession is a part of the imagined right of self-determination, a fantasy drawn from the absurd political theories of Locke and Rousseau and given immortality by Jefferson's utterly fatuous platitudes with which he began the Declaration. Applied universally, it means Montenegro--backed by foreign interests--had the right to secede from Yugoslavia, the Brda region on the border with Serbia to secede from Montenegro, and any three-man pro-secession village to secede from the Brda, until the Russian Mafia owned every square inch of the county. To speak of rights, in such circumstances--that is, when American corporations are busily breaking up nations and federations into weak little entities they can exploit--is not only nonsense but dangerous nonsense.
The Kurds are a classic example, where secession--which the anti-Christian US only favors when it hurts Christians--may never work. From the beginning, I warned that the Turks, who have had a bellyfull of the Kurdish PKK's terrorism, would not be willing to play along. I said repeatedly that the Kurdish government would do little or nothing to repress the PKK or shut down its bases in Iraqi Kurdistan. (Why is Ms Rice saying nothing about Kurdistan's manifest complicity with the PKK?) Predictably, the PKK has received a big shot in the arm from the creation of an autonomous Kurdistan under US auspices and with US support. Now, Kurdistan may be facing a potentially serious invasion from Turkey at a time when the US has completely used up any credibility it ever had with either the Turkish government or the Turkish people. In the worst case, Iran might be drawn in.
The Kurds were a nasty violent people when Xenophon ran into them 24 centuries ago; they were rough customers when they fought for their leader Saladin; and they played very rough when the Turks turned them loose against the Armenians, inaugurating the genocide that Turks refuse to discuss. If the Turks would ever come clean about the Armenian genocide, they would be able to point an accusing finger at their hatchet-men, the Kurds.
Yes, the Turks should have their noses rubbed in their genocidal crimes--to say nothing of their oppression of Greeks, Serbs, and Bulgars. The Turks will come clean the day American conservatives begin talking about the curious lack of Indians in these United States. But at this point, when America has a large army in Iraq, the Democrats--led by such specimens as Ms Pelosi and the unspeakable Tom Lantos--are proving once again how much they hate their country: They hate it so much much they are willing to jeopordize the lives of soldiers and weaken our national security just to make a few headlines and win a few cheap votes.
The war was and is an act of folly and injustice, but the stupidities continue pile up. With the Democrats assailing the bloody Turks and the Republicans catering to the vicious Kurds, we are setting the stage for an armed struggle that may make us look back on the current troubles in the Middle East as minor conflicts in a peaceful region. Of course, we have to get out of Iraq, and some day we might even hope that our (and Israel's) best Muslim ally can be forced to quit shooting down Greek planes or fomenting troubles in the Balkans. In the meantime, someone in this hapless administration is going to come up with a formula to prevent the Turks from taking a justifiable vengeance on Kurdish terrorists. Oh I forgot, the PKK are now rebels. Perhaps next week we'll have to call them "freedom fighters."
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The notion of Kurdish independence doesn't shock my conscience. The Kurds were part of two multinational empires (Ottoman Turkey and Iran), and Gertrude Bell and others divided them among four countries (setting aside some who found themselves in the USSR).
When the hideous Wilson was preaching, and the Brits were promising national states to all kinds of nationalities, the Kurds got left out. Perhaps the sermons should have been left unpreached, but the world has nodded to the concept of self-determination. Why should the Kurds be an exception?
If there were a semi-decent multinational empire or a Middle Eastern confederation in the making, I'd be more sympathetic to your viewpoint. The Kurds certainly have a tradition, ties to the land, and a distinct way of life; they are also quite a few of them, not three villages worth. As for bloodiness, I doubt you would deny Germans or Russians their independence, despite their history.
Of course, one need not support Kurdish independence at any price, especially if paid in American blood and treasure. That's a prudential judgment about which reasonable minds can differ. I don't see why the concept of an independent Kurdistan, however, is so horrifying.
If the real issue is defense of Christian communities against their oppressors, your case may be stronger, but then you should make that case and consider the risks and costs of a general policy of that kind.
I don't think the GOM has read what I have written. He certainly has not followed the argument.
I did not say there was anything particularly horrifying about Kurdish independence. What I did write was that the Kurds are historically violent people who have been used to kill and oppress Christians. Since defense of Christendom is the primary object of our organization, the point hardly needs to be spelled out.
It is entirely illogical to say that something is a false principle, but, oh well, so many people think it is true we may as well cave in one more time. Hit your foot with a hammer five or six times in the belief that you are curing gout. It doesn't work and causes harm, but, oh well, let's give it another whack. Or, if you like analogies, a man blames blonds for the murder of his wife and goes about the world murdering people with blond hair. In fact, as he discovers, the murderer was brunette and hair color has nothing to do with responsibility for the crime. Or, to bring the argument closer to politics, Marx's theories tend to impoverish and enslave the people ruled by Marxist governments, but, since there have been so many experiments, why not try one more? If you wish to defend an abstract right to self-determination, defend it, but do not expect to finesse the point by saying it has been used in the past.
Historical generalizations are easy to make but not so easy to sustain. We don't have a 3000 year history for Germans and Russians as we do for the Kurds and their ancestors, and even looking only at the past hundred years, the Kurds have been a violent people. I don't know that either Germans or Russians are particularly more violent than good old Americans. But suppose they were. What possible relevance is there to the question on the table?
During the US occupation and with the help of US troops, Kurds have terrorized, robbed, and expelled one of the most ancient Christian populations of the world. This may mean nothing to the GOM, but it does mean something to Christians.
If Kurdish independence serves the American interest, then it should be considered. If it does not, it should be rejected. What seems foolish in this case is to argue, as the administration is doing, that a) we need the Turks as our allies for the great patriotic war against terrorism, and b) we should alienate the Turks by granting the Kurds a safe haven for their terrorist activities.
One more and more sees the wisdom of Washington's farewell address, which warned against involving ourselves in the affairs of other countries, and of the futility of expecting anything from them but transitory and self-serving alliances.
On the point of the 'centuries of terrorism' attributed to the Kosovo Albanians: in his history of the Venetian republic, Lord Norwich discusses the troubles the Venetians had, in their possessions on the eastern littoral of the Adriatic, with a brigand people then identified as "Uskoks." Does TJF or one of the more ethnologically learned readers of this site know whether the Uskoks are the same as the Kosovo Albanians?
Uskoks were Slavs,mostly Croats. A word of warning,though. Lord Norwich's history of Venice is very poor stuff. He likes dramatic stories and seems not to understand the larger context of Venetian history. In particular, his account of Venice's trans-Adriatic Empire is not only thin but embarrassingly inaccurate. This is nothing, however, compared to his wretched history of the Byzantine Empire.
"This is nothing, however, compared to his wretched history of the Byzantine Empire."
Hear, hear. I read the bloody books and the only thing I honestly enjoyed about that trilogy was Norwich's descriptions of all the horrible ways emperors were maimed, killed, blinded, castrated, lost their noses and so on.
I have said a few times in the past, here and I think other places, that Southerners should be careful to avoid sounding like Lockean contract theorist when they discuss secession.
But I don't think "self determination" is necessarily equivalent to contract theory. It could also be a principle based on the conservative and historical idea that like should govern like. And that like generally does not appreciate the rule of the other. That organic government grows up from the people and is intrinsic not imposed by others and extrinsic. I think this idea is actually illiberal. When many people talk about self-determination they probably are invoking Locke whether they know it or not, but I don't think everyone who invokes the concept is?
This way of looking at self determination actually represents a threat to the liberal modern nation state.
What is the demographic make-up of the area of Turkey in question? Do the Kurds actually have a reasonable claim that it rightfully should be part of greater Kurdistan? We should condemn any Kurdish mistreatment of Christians, but I am not inclined to defend Turkish territorial integrity either if the Kurdish claim is valid. (As best as these always murky claims can be determined.)
The fact that we now bear some responsibility for the displacement and worse of Christians in Kurdistan and Iraq is one reason we should have followed Washington's advice. Christians in Iraq actually had it pretty good under Saddam by Middle East standards if I am not mistaken.
Perhaps I didn't follow your argument.
If the issue is the fate of Christians, which is a concern I do share, we should first of all avoid poking hornet's nests with a sharp stick. We don't know how the hornets will react, but they probably won't be having us to tea. (Incidentially, I hadn't heard about recent Kurdish anti-Christian violence. Reference?)
I'm no fan of a universal rule of self-determination and the division of the world into "democratic" nation-states, as the wretched Wilson advocated and in so doing helped perpetuate slaughter and oppression. And I take your point that we need not adopt a universal principle for organizing polities.
Unfortunately, however, in the contemporary world there aren't many alternatives to ethnic nationalism that people will accept. Of peoples of their population size, it seems the Kurds are about the largest to whom a state has been denied.
Reject the general principle, but in the particular cases you are concerned with, Kosovo and Kurdistan, for example, what do you suggest as a general proposition, and as US policy?
The right of self-determination is a component of the right of self-government.
The object of this sort of discussion, at least as I have conceived of it, is not to find theoretical principles that can be put to use in an ongoing quarrel with the Left. To say that like should govern like is to make an abstract assertion for which there is no obvious justification, philosophically or historically. We might say that we often--though certainly not always--prefer to be governed by people like us, but that is like saying we like chocolate ice cream. In fact, alien subjects have often defended the empires that ruled over them because they were better off than under the capricious rule of a local warlord.
Besides, the right of self-determination is, in fact, a development of social contract theory and natural rights. Therefore, it is no use trying to make up another justification for the notion or for finding a "way of looking at self determination." This sort of argument is, to but it bluntly, a complete waste of time.
Americans won the right to determine their destinies after years of fighting and when the French outnumbered the English in Virginia. Period. The Serbs won their independence by fighting for it. This is universally true. The only exception is when some hypocritical young empire pretends to embrace some theory of human rights, which it uses, as Wilson, Clinton, and Bush have done, to justify aggression. America had no business in entering WWI, attacking Yugoslavia, or invading Iraq. To speak of Kurdish rights, when they have not been able to make good their claims even by frequent acts of terrorism, is to speak of something that not only does not exist but also gives the neoconservatives one more justification for keeping troops in the Middle East. The result is to damage American interests. Enough is enough.
Imagine a criminal Islamic gang moved into your neighborhood. Once their numbers reach a certain level, they begin demanding independence, sharia, and the right to abuse you. Do you stay and fight? Run? Capitulate? Numbers mean nothing; that is the problem with these theories. I feel the same way about the cracked Evangelicals in California and Kansas who are invading Anderson County, South Carolina, or the equally cracked libertarians who tried to take over a community in New Hampshire. The whole repulsive idea of democracy--the right of a tiny minority of the population to win an election, claim a mandate, and revolutionize other people's way of life: It is based on utterly unproved theories of majority rule, human rights, and the social contract. These ideas have nothing to do with natural reality (where only force rules) or with Christianity (If you try to find democracy in the Scriptures, you will be wasting your time. When the majority ruled, the majority cried out "Crucify him!)
The Turks ran a rotten empire, as corrupt and inefficient as it was brutal. They only sporadically managed to impose order in their farflung provinces and had to rule through local elites who abused their subjects from Egypt to Serbia. They were kept in power by brilliant Western statesmen like Disraeli, who hated the Russians and apparently wanted the Turks to provide a homeland for European Jews in Palestine. (This is a disputed point but there is a reported conversation by a reliable source confirming what had been said shortly after the Congress of Berlin). In other words, Westerners with a theory perpetuated Ottoman injustice, just as other Westerners with another theory today are backing the Kurds.
While there have been Kurdish strongmen and rulers, there has never really been a Kurdish state. Spread across the borders of Iraq, Turkey, and Iran, they pose a threat to the territory of three countries, not just one. If they did not have a history of anti-Christian terrorism, one might pretend to sympathize, but why waste the false tears? If without our help, they can achieve their independence, then it is up to Turks, Iranians, and Iraqis to do something about it. Giving these people a homeland is none of our business and cuts against our interest. The zanies in the Bush administration let this evil genii out of the bottle. It is amusing to see them all looking for the cork.
To my good friend Dr. Wilson. Where does the right of self government come from? I have never seen, heard, tasted, or felt such a right; I have not encountered one in the Scriptures or in the earliest traditions of the Church; and I don't recall running across such an idea in the writings of the political writers I most admire, Aristotle, Cicero, and St. Thomas. Most people in most periods of history, especially our own, are manifestly incapable of managing their own lives, much less of governing themselves. Self-government, then, would appear to be one of those liberal aspirations that spring from a noble people and should be cherished as a cultural heirloom by their descendants. The US government, however, discarded this quaint notion about 1861 and has been acting on the contrary hypothesis with increasing vigor ever since. I deeply admire people who can govern themselves--the Spartans, the Romans of the early republic, our ancestors--but such models are as remote from the experience of people like the Kurds and Albanians as they are from our own.
To GOM. It hardly matters what policy I propose, since the people who make decisions are too busy consulting their personal interests to listen to anybody. In the case of Kosovo, we signed a treaty, guaranteeing it would remain a part of Serbia, as it has always been since being liberated from the Turks. We might, as a once Christian country, be justified in directing our troops to pacify the violent and criminal Albanians who have established a reign of terror as they dynamite ancient churches and cemeteries in order to eliminate every trace of Christianity from a land once held sacred by Balkan Christians, but to protect the Albanians as they go about their dirty business and to lay plans to give this criminal state--whose incomes are based on heroin trafficking and white slavery--is among the most despicable things this despicable administration has done.
The ongoing Kurdish expulsion of Christians is a well-known story, documented in many journals and websites. The facts are not in dispute nor is the complicity of US troops. At Chronicles we have published several stories, but we are hardly alone. Syria has received, I believe, the largest part of the Christian refugees. Google news should get you started
The US, over the past few decades has had a consistent policy of backing Islamic terrorism against Christian and European nations: In Agfhanistan, we have armed, trained, and paid the followers of Osama bin Laden, who then went to assist their co-religionists in Bosnia and Kosovo. I would be content if we just quit braying about the war on terrorism and contented ourselves with ending our support for Islamic terrorists, starting in Kosovo.
PS I should have also explained that Christians have been fleeing Baghdad and going to Kurdistan to escape the war. The Christians expelled by the Kurds were the victims not so much of religious prejudice as of ethnic hostility and, even more, of greed: Kurds wanted their homes and property.
I'm glad Grumpy Old Man is back as i recall him from the old sf site, and i selfishly got a pleasant wave of nostalgia.
"As I recently explained, in a speech that antagonized a group of secessionists meeting in Chattanooga, there is no such thing as a universal political system or principle that applies to all peoples in all situations. " -TJF
also i have to agree that there is no such thing as a 'right' to self-government. All there really is is a dynamic - inevitable oppression and/OR the experience of such vis a vis fact or perception - and the inevitable response for better or worse. That is the dynamic of human life itself. Which also means there is no such thing either as the lack of the power to self-government... if you can to the extent you can you do. 'Rights' suggest so-called "gimmes" ... in that dept. all we really have or don't have are powers.
This is because OF COURSE absolute or perfect balance in a living world is not possible (only as statues on a pedestal) and for this same reason approximate balance is requisite - i.e. opppression or perceived oppression and a response to it - is a given - over and over again... the 'right's' thing is romatic if taken literally, usually it's a cover for either aggression or the inevitable response to it.
Life. Love it or leave it?
________________________
I am inclined to think that the right of like to be governed by like is implicit in the "morality of everyday life." Most certainly not all peoples are equally capable of self-government---most are not and it is doubtful that Americans--at least in the mass--are any longer. However, I much prefer the Swiss Confederation or Carolina in its best days to the Byzantine Empire at its most glorious. Is it not better that the Turks, the Kurds, and the Arabs are at one another's throats than united against what is left of the West? That might not be in the interest of the U.S. imperial machinery but on the whole it seems better for us.
The history of Christianity is the history of Christian monarchy. The decline of monarchy went hand-in-hand with the decline of Christianity. It seems to me that the hostility towards Christianity manifested by the secularized political elite of America and the West in general is merely a special case of their general anti-monarchism. Republics (Rome) and (pseudo) democracies (Athens) are the product of pagan cultures and the attempt to re-create them is likewise a pagan impulse. While I might admire some republics more than others (Prof. Wilson's examples, for instance), the trajectory of republicanism is unmistakable. As for the Christians of Iraq, nothing we do now is likely to improve their lot. It is likely that the general exodus will continue and that many of them will end up here. As a matter of fact, a number of Iraqi Christians live in our county and are well-liked and valuable citizens.
Every time Tom posts an article about anything, he soon becomes busier than a one legged man in a ass-kicking contest defending it. But to his credit, he is better with one leg than most ass kissers are with two or three. ( a third being possibly a cane, crutch, stick etc.. ) It is a joy to watch, even if you are too ignorant, too slothful or simply too timid to join him. Keep up the good work, Dr. Fleming. It is good exercise for you and great fun for we lurkers.
"Lord Norwich’s history of Venice is very poor stuff. He likes dramatic stories and seems not to understand the larger context of Venetian history. In particular, his account of Venice’s trans-Adriatic Empire is not only thin but embarrassingly inaccurate. This is nothing, however, compared to his wretched history of the Byzantine Empire."
Suggestions for other better stuff both Venetian and Byzantine would be welcome, the more so with brief notes on their virtues. English only need not be assumed. (And speaking of Uskoks -any thoughts on Ms Bracewell's Uskoks of Senj?)
Dr. Fleming, this is an excellent article. I agree with most of what you wrote, except that Uskos were Croats. Uskos, particularly those of Senj, were mostly Serbians who defended Austrian Empire and cowardly Croats from Turkish onslaught.
Here is one of many examples:... "The migration of Zumberaks into this area started in 1530, continuing on for approximately 10 years. According to Lopasic, Zumberak people are the oldest immigrants of the Eastern Church (ie Orthodox). These people came in large groups, known as Vlasi, less as refugees, and in Zumberak as Uskoci. Lopasic further says that the Zumbercanski people came from Serbia, Paska, Leta and Albania; then again, the monuments in Karlovac state the Zumbercani were Serbs or Rasans.http://www.sandsmachine.com/hist_001.htm
It is said in 1530, Croatian Torkvat Karlovic reported from Mutnica to the Kranjska country captain, that about 50 Serbian families were asking for land. Then too, it was mentioned that Uskocia head man, Vladislav Stephovic, went to Emperor Ferdinand, seeking land for his people. ..
"With the Emperor’s grant, it is known that Uskoks arrival into this area was one thing and land allocation the other. King Ferdinand, knowing who the Uskoks were and what they did, supplied Stephovic with documents indicating his satisfaction for the assistance these people gave him. The King further advised Vladislav that his Uskoks would receive additional beneficial assistance. Supplied with sufficient documents, the Uskoks were enticed into settling in this area which to this day is called Zumberak. In 1532 Emperor Ferdinand, in giving the Uskoci this land, further granted each tribe the privilege to select a Count and a Duke. This was all done; and other land benefits were given, in return for the military service the Uskoci have given and could give the Emperor of Austria, then and in the future.
re: "just to make a few headlines and win a few cheap votes" Quite discreditable, but is it really credible? Occam's scythe suggests that Pelosi et al. are doing an end run around a policy which has proven too "political" to challenge directly. Speculative casualty tolls aside, the more chaos in Iraq, the more attractive her party looks in 08.
Laying the Kurdish question aside Dr. Flemming does get it right in terms of describing secession and self-determination in general. People everywhere, at anytime do not have "natural right" to abolish government at will. His is a very paleoconservative viewpoint in that regard. Important things are best guaranteed by an overarching order.
"I feel the same way about the cracked Evangelicals in California and Kansas who are invading Anderson County, South Carolina" -TJF
I believe you have missed the point of the effort of these people. Theirs is not to replace the current culture with a foreign one but to reinforce an existing culture, the historical culture of Christian morals and values that are currently in decline.
What is so "cracked" about that? What would you have them do, sit alone and divided in California and elsewhere waiting for all vestiges of this culture to disappear? The situation in NH is a bit different, these folks plan to move, achieve a majority and replace the system with something new. This is not at all the case in Carolina.
I agree with many portions of your argument, I did not see the proof of your description of the Kurds during the year I lived and fought with them - I became pretty close to them and found them very different that what you describe.
I am curious about your notion that nationhood has to be fought for and earned, not granted by naive and distant decree. I agree with this but why dismiss the notion that the Kurds are justified in fighting for their own nation? I agree that Kurdish nationhood would in fact cause great turbulence. All the same I am not at all opposed to supporting it from a philosophical standpoint - not with blood or treasure.
I'm inclined to agree with a recent column by Charlie Reese in which he expresses the wish that Pelosi and company will succeed in their antagonism of Turkey to the point where the Turks will throw the US out of its bases in their country and refuse to let their country be used in any way to support the war against Iraq. Just as (per Dr. Trifcovic) Putin is trying (for reasons of his own, of course) to save us from the folly of an attack against Iran, perhaps Gul and Erdogan can force US withdrawal from the meat grinder of Iraq. Dare we hope?
"If man cannot govern himself, how can he govern others?"
Jefferson
Somewhere C.S. Lewis points out that democracy properly reflects Christian brotherhood. I am always amazed when people say they are monarchists. One cannot be a monarchist in general, one can only be loyal to a particular ruling house. It is nonsense to talk about being a monarchist today.
To say that people do not have a right to abolish government is to say that some people have an inviolable right TO GOVERN. How do you determine this?
"... To say that people do not have a right to abolish government is to say that some people have an inviolable right TO GOVERN. How do you determine this? ..."
By the Who Is Stronger method. Has there ever been a single case in history where "good prevailed" - without backing of the sword (excluding, of course, infectious diseases, rat invasions, floods, earthquakes, meteorites and ... ergot poisonings)?
If Red Phillips' belief that "like should govern like" is nothing but an abstract & unfounded assertion, then I'm not sure how I might argue against parental authority being transferred from parents to educrats.
Aside from the bonds of "likeness" -- heredity, shared experiences, etc. -- I don't know of any other empirical value that would give families more authority than bureaucracy, in the rearing of offspring.
Does subsidiarity -- a topic on which I confess extreme ignorance -- come into this secession-discussion somewhere?
I want to thank my esteemed leader Dr. Fleming and others for this most thought-provoking discussion. It seems to me: that which may be said to have a right to self-government and self-determination is the organic community---which is, after all, something created by God through history. This does not involve any absurd assertions of individual natural rights, but is merely in accord with "the politics of human nature." This is the very essence of "conservatism." How do you define the organic community---it defines itself by the consciousness of its existence and the unity of its actions. Where many go astray, I think, is in conflating the organic community with government. They are not the same thing. In fact today, and throughout most of history, government is the primary enemy of community. It is always potentially so. To such thinkers the defense of governments (rulers) becomes the essence of "conservatism." I become uneasy when people deny a right to self-government. If some men do not have a right to govern themselves, then it follows that some men have a right to govern others, which may be in accord with nature but is not in accord with civilization or Christianity. To maintain that Christianity and monarchy are linked is a serious misreading of history, at best only paretially true for a few centuries of European history.
" My county, it has been proved in the life of every man that though his loves are human and therefore, changeable, yet in proportion as he attaches them to things unchangeable, so they mature and broaden.
On this account, Dear Sussex, are those women chiefly dear to men who, as the seasons pass, do but continue to be more and more themselves, attain balance, and abandon or forget vicissitude. And on this account Sussex, does a man love an old house, which was his father's, and on this account does a man come to love with all his heart, that part of earth which nourished his boyhood. For it does not change, or if it changes, it changes very little, and he finds in it the character of enduring things. "
Hilaire Belloc in Preface to," The Four Men."
Of ocurse there is no public for this truth in an age that would prefer owning our neighbor's property than having a neighbor. The sooner we paleos realize there is no public for this scale of human truth, the sooner we will find our real audience. They are closer than we might suspect.
It does seem that some people have a *duty* to govern others. St. Paul writes that the magistrate wields the sword for the chastisement of vices. If that does not give him some "right" (ius) to do so, I don't know what would. This does not entail any "consent of the governed." As for monarchism, I don't see how someone "cannot" be a monarchist. If the person simultaneously holds that governments should vary with the traditions of countries, then he cannot be a "monarchist" strictly speaking at the same time. But not all people hold that the best government for each people is the traditional one. Some people really hold that monarchies are more stable, productive, effective, and just governments in general. That is an observation which *can* be made and a position which can be argued for or against. That does not entail devotion to any one particular dynasty. Someone can promote republicanism in general, or aristocracy in general. That may put them outside the realm of Dr. Wilson's definition of paleoconservatism, but it does not make the position illogical or incoherent.
My, you all have been busy overnight while we were entertaining guests until much too late. I don't think Dr. Wilson and I disagree about much, even in this case. Self-government is a splendid ideal for those who can govern themselves. That lets us out. Small commonwealths are certainly better than great ones, though even there I am inclined to think that the conquered Gauls gained more than they lost.
I see no evidence, either in nature or in the great political thinkers of the past, for any rights that are not civil, that is guaranteeed by law and tradition. The legitimate power of government is an extension, as Aristotle and Filmer recognized, of the power of a father over his household and a clan or tribal leader over his extended kindred. We do have duties that our station in life assigns, duties as parents and children, duties as neighbors and fellow-citizens or subjects. Rulers too have duties, and if they do not attempt to carry them out, they may forfeit their legitimate right to rule. But before speaking, if we should agree to speak in this confusing way, of a people's right to self-government, we should first have to know what and who a real people is, as opposed to an aggregation of lost souls.
The Evangelicals who are invading South Carolina are not, in fact, going there to strengthen an existing culture, about which they know absolutely nothing, but to impose their own subculture on people with whom they may well agree on a number of theological points. In Chattanooga, one of these yokels--a Kansan, I believe--argued that they shared a common philosophy with Carolinians. Now, in the first place, it was clear he had not spent much time reading philosophy and did not in fact know what it is, but, much worse, the poor guy thought Christianity is a philosophy. It made my skin crawl to hear this kind of talk. Fortunately, my laryngitis prevented me from correcting him, and I had to wait until my after-dinner talk. He and his buddies got hopping mad when I explained to them that Christians, since the time of St. Paul, are not permitted to take the OT literally, and when Judaizing heretics have done this, it leads immediately to grave mischief. The history of the first several centuries of Christianity is a history of the Church's liberation from superstition.
Uskoks were a mixed bag, since the name denotes more a profession--piracy and banditry--than an ethnicity. Besides, in some parts of the Adriatic coast, the modern distinction between Serbs and Croats is more tenuous: There were Catholic Serbs, for example, who would now be counted as Croats. In Senj, yes, mostly Serbs and perhaps Albanians, with whom Serbs intermarried in the Middle Ages. Farther north, however, probably mostly Croats. If my good friend Boba knows some good historical sources, on this I hope she will share them. I know in general she knows more Serbian history than I ever will.
Constitutional monarchies work well for many peoples in many circumstances, where they are actually freer than under the theoretical tyranny of the majority. I am using "constitutional" as shorthand for the Aristotelian understanding of a ruler who exercises power according to law and custom and on behalf of his people rather than for his own benefit. This was the claim Charles I made before the Roundheads murdered him--in the name of the king!
I do not know a good overall history of Venice. I don't think there is one in English. There are many monographs, however, on different aspects and different periods. On Byzantium, one should ask Daniel Larison, who is a graduate student in Byzantine studies. I started with Gibbon (in Bury's corrected and annotated edition) and went on to popular works on late antiquity such as, again, J. B. Bury. The best single volume I know of is Ostrogorsky's History of the Byzantine State, which concentrates on big-picture political history. Runciman has written some popular things though his focus is more on the Latin West. The Byzantine historians and chroniclers are a good place to start--Procopius, though testy and personally motivated, is the best witness to Justinian, and his largely first-hand (he was personal secretary to Belisarius, the commander) account of the Gothic wars makes wonderful reading.
PS to GS: The duty of parents is exclusive and unique. It cannot be transferred to a others unless the parents agree to an adoption. The trouble with universal theories of rights is that they encourage us to ignore particular duties in our pursuit of a universal law.
There is, it goes without saying, nothing unChristian about monarchies, whether they are traditional dynasties (Merovingian Franks) or autocratic empires (Rome). Most of Christian history has been lived under such regimes, and neither our Lord, his Apostles, nor the greatest fathers of the Church, ever expressed hostility toward kingship or empire per se. But, Dr. Wilson is perfectly right to complain of monarchists they they too turn a peculiar loyalty to king, empire, or dynasty into an abstract principle. Here's a proposal though. Let us go back in time and achieve Hamilton's dream by making George Washington King. He had no sons. Eventually, I like to thing, the throne might have passed to the husband of one of his wife's daughters. I like the sound of King Robert I a lot better than that of Father Abraham. I must get back to work, undeterred either by this spirited discussion or a mounting headache produced by two martinis, much good Italian wine--including a fine Amarone--much too much Old Overholt and the final coup de grace, a grappa to put out the lights.
(Re. comment #30)
Correction:
"... which is, after all, something created by God through history ..."
which is, after all, something created by _men_ through history
There was a time, a time of my youth, in which I like the fellow males of my tribe, full to the brim and overflowing with testosterone, enjoyed ass kicking in almost all of its forms, from winning petty arguments to knocking one another's teeth out over a comment that one hand made about another’s girl. Although I am not totally devoid of testosterone at the age of fifty-eight, I have long ceased to have it as my master; therefore, I do not frequent fora such as the one offered by Chronicles in order to lurk and experience ass kickings. I come rather to discuss intellectual, spiritual, philosophical and political matters somewhere across that spectrum which we think to identify as "conservative." At the end of the day, some of us have made better arguments than have others, and we have hopefully become more aware and sharper as we take what we have encountered here into other domains of our lives. I, however, unlike a lurker on this particular forum do not frequent this site to experience the cock of the walk kick ass. If I wanted to do that, I'd go to one of the cock fights which, despite having been just recently declared illegal in Louisiana, still go on and where, unlike here, the beer and the barbecue are better. (That is a response to one post on this thread!)
I am not a paladin of life, liberty and property because John Locke once championed them. Those "natural rights" are important to me because I see them as fundamental gifts and tools from the Ontological Absolute - God; for He is the Author of life and where He is there is life and where He is not there is not life, but decay and ultimately death. He is the Author of liberty; in the Christ He has truly set us free, and it is in the exercise of liberty that we can act as accountable moral agents. Property, in the Christian context, is held in stewardship and is the means by which we demonstrate our charity, i.e. we give of God’s property entrusted to us in stewardship not by coercion of the state or some polity but of our volition (liberty) motivated by God’s love. I hasten to add that unlike some libertarians I do not hold that “natural rights” can be “found” in nature or that they are “sacred” manifestations of some form of social positivism. Nor do I hold,, as do most libertarians, that “natural rights” are held in existential isolation, i.e. for the vainglorious individual, but, to quite the contrary, they are applied by the individual in his duty to the communal – family, church, his Gemeinschaft (I don’t have an English word for it) and his society. Natural rights are as gifts and obligations from God are real and very necessary and therefore must be cherished and defended. It seems to me that common law, negative law, which always strives to liberate is a natural ally of natural rights and that the right of association, individual and communal, flows out of these. (This is my response to a couple of posts on this thread.)
One needs to be quite careful not to confuse a byproduct of Christianity with Christianity itself. Old Europe for all of its glory is a byproduct of its encounter with the Christian faith. It is itself not Christianity. Monarchy is no more Christian than is oligarchy, republicanism or democracy. When the Christian meme enters a culture, it changes that culture. When the transforming power of the living Christ enters a culture through His Church and under the unction of the Holy Spirit, that society changes. Christian values are reflected in the broader society and in the polities which that society creates for itself. When the Church is absent or is kicked out or when the Church becomes apostate, then those values wane and the society and its polity decay. To worship the artifacts of a past “Christian” era – monarchy, traditions, great deeds chronicled - is to commit idolatry. It seems to me that many of us, myself included, who post on the forums of Chronicles, are on the cusp of ancestor worship which is, of course, also idolatry. Serbs, Armenians and we Southerners, to cite some examples, are not Christians because our ancestors were. When we make such claims, we are walking the road that the Pharisees walked, fools who counted themselves righteous because they alleged that Abraham was their father. We need to be a hair more sober and recall that the Pharisees were told that God, if He wanted, could turn the very rocks into the sons of Abraham.
The historical plights the Armenians or the Serbs of Kosovo do not undermine the notion of self-determination or of secession which is a manifestation of self-determination. It is obvious that the Ottoman Turks had no Christian sense of stewardship. One would not expect them to since they were not Christians. They also had no Christian sense of being peacemakers. One would not expect them to since they were not Christians. If one has a sense of stewardship and of being a peacemaker, one sees the wisdom of self-determination in autonomy or in independence. Parents who understand that they are God’s stewards of their children have a much easier time in allowing them to grow into independence than do those who think to own their children. It is not self-determination which has failed for the Serbs in Kosovo. The Serbs of Kosovo were simply for too many years under a polity which allowed for the demographic destruction of the Serbian community of the region. There is obviously no longer a viable Serbian self in Kosovo to do any determining. Again, where there is no life, i.e. a vibrant and dominant Serbian community, there is no liberty, i.e. a choice. A non-existent or mortally weakened community can make no choice. For instance, if Southerners who would hold to the right of self-determination and perhaps in that context, autonomy or independence, want to be able to exercise it, then we would be compelled to act before we no longer exist. We will become Kosovo, and it will be the aliens who replace us who will be seceding.
This is an interesting topic and quite worthy of the consideration it is being given.
Dr. Fleming and I do not disagree all that much, as he says, but are focused on different aspects of the question. It seems to me that the right of a real society to govern itself (i.e., to consent to its rulers) is part of the moral order. Otherwise, one is in danger of legitimizing all tyrannies, including that of the Turk.
"therefore, I do not frequent fora such as the one offered by Chronicles in order to lurk and experience ass kickings. I come rather to discuss intellectual, spiritual, philosophical and political matters somewhere across that spectrum which we think to identify as “conservative.” At the end of the day, some of us have made better arguments than have others, and we have hopefully become more aware and sharper as we take what we have encountered here into other domains of our lives. I, however, unlike a lurker on this particular forum do not frequent this site to experience the cock of the walk kick ass. If I wanted to do that, I’d go to one of the cock fights which, despite having been just recently declared illegal in Louisiana, still go on and where, unlike here, the beer and the barbecue are better. (That is a response to one post on this thread!)"
Am I the lurker, Mr. Peters? I often wonder whether I am quibbling, and sometimes I know for a fact I am. So if you would please specify whom you are criticizing, the rebuke would be more effective. Perhaps I am just confessing my own denseness merely by asking. Thanks.
Sorry I missed your talk Dr. Fleming. I could not make it until Sat. The reports I got on your talk on secession were uniformly positive. I did hear about the Biblical literalism dust up.
I don't have much time now for a long discussion, but I don't think either G.S. or Dr. Wilson or me are arguing for any sort of universal rights and certainly not for liberal democracy. It is the idea of organic and natural as opposed to imposed and foreign that I am trying to convey.
This is in line with the point you were making about Filmer and Aristotle I think. The power flows from family to village to district etc. Not from district to the district that just happens to be weaker and we can conquer. Of course this is ideal. Conquest has actually been the norm of human history, and every group could have a claim for autonomy if you go back far enough. I guess you could argue for some right of conquest, and just get it over with. (I'm not saying you are doing that.) But then conservatives would have no need to feel remorse for the lack of Indians. This is all complicated. A balance between recognizing the realities on the ground and how far back you can go to bring up injustices. I certainly am not in favor of all Americans of European decent packing up and going back to the Continent.
And I don't think it is merely an issue of pure numbers. That is what I meant when I asked if the Kurds had a "reasonable claim" to the land in Southern Turkey.
When I was in the employ of Uncle Sam, I had the chance to work with some Kurdish immigrants. (Long story that I can not elaborate on for several more years.) They did not consider themselves Iraqis. They spoke Kurdish. When asked they would say they were from Kurdistan. They generally didn't really look like the Arab Iraqis either. I think Kurdish identity is genuine and not phony and trumped up. There have clearly been systematic efforts to stamp out their ethnic identity in Turkey and Syria. In Turkey it used to be illegal to speak the language. I don't know what to do with all that information, but it seems an independent Kurdistan would be preferable to Turkey making it illegal to speak their language. And it seems like a Turkish nationalism, not based on true Turkish identity but on some somewhat artificial lines on a map, is what is standing in the way.
All that said, we should not have let this genie out of the bottle.
Caper,
I was lamenting that discussions and the well crafted arguments which are important parts of those discussions too often become competions which distract us from the issues. I am as susceptible to this distraction as the next. In fact, my own distracting reponse to your post is an excellent example of that.
An independent Kurdistan bordering a NATO country? No, Dr.Fleming is right: not in our interest in the present.
The Kurds, at least Lovecraft's depiction of them in The Terror at Redhook, are a mischievous and treacherous people, but they are survivors. Since stories of the Turkish-Kurds border going hot have been episodic over the last 20 years (I assume more), my real question is the coupled with the timing of the State Department more or less canceling Hunt Oil's (Texas based, friend of the Bush Family) contract with Kurdistan, was the permanent government looking for a two party distraction to keep eyes away from another change of teams, and Pelosi et al, willing to play a part, rather as good soldiers, then irresponsible muckrakers.
No doubt, the Kurds are playing all sides, just as their enemies are, but our folks have only heard of Machiavelli, maybe through an edited episode of the Sopranos on A&E, and don't really get it, while the Kurds, by their nature, their very survival, can play all sides at once.
I'll give the permanent government credit. The whole partition thing (pushed by Brownback-Biden in the Senate) gets people thinking about those "universal rights" or whatever, rather than: who got us into this mess?
The Turks will come clean the day American conservatives begin talking about the curious lack of Indians in these United States.
Priceless, though don't tell the eugenics conservatives the smart one's DNA walks amongst us. The cool ones were wiped out by our common enemies.
The discussion continues to be interesting, and, in the case of Mr. Peters, I find little to disagree with. My defense of monarchy was not that it is Christian per se but that it is not incompatible with Christianity, as for example, radical democracy is in principle. I say in principle, because democracies have functioned very rarely, but the ideas advanced by democrats constitute a denial of any value beyond individual self-assertion and nose-counting.
The problem comes in with that wretched and misleading term "rights." I understand there are rights given to me by law and custom, which vary from place to place and cannot be made the basis of any universal principle. Beyond that, the word is slippery, even in Latin. Properly used, a right or ius is that which is right, proper, normal, and lawful, but rightness does not entail a claim upon other persons or upon society or a government. Thus while it is right to take care of one's children, they do not necessarily have a claim upon the parents, much less one that can be exercised through the legal system or through government. In fact, St. Thomas uses this very example to demonstrate that rights do not entail claims.
Thus, while it may be right, ius, themis, nomos, etc., that a people govern itself, that rightness does not entail a claim against an alien ruler, e.g. Iraqis or Turks, much less on third parties (the US or the UN). We have absolutely no duty to the Kurds except for the negative duties of Christians not to do unjustifiable harm, such as the harm we have inflicted upon the Iraqis.
On the level of fact and history, the Kurdish question is complex, as most such questions are. Yesterday, I raised the question of Kurdish offenses against Iraqi Christians. I flubbed when trying to post a clarification to the effect that most of the violence seemed more due to greed (they wanted the houses and property) and nationalism than to religion. In fact, Kurdistan has taken in Christian refugees from other parts of Iraq--but they can be expected to go home, when it is safe, and play no part in a future Kurdish state. It is also true that there has been much intermarriage between Kurds and their overlords. A few years ago, I raised the question with a friendly waiter in the city the ignorant Turks insist on calling Istanbul (that is, pidgin Greek for Downtown). He turned out to be a Kurd married to a Turk and went on to describe all sorts of complicated mixed marriages within his family. He was perfectly proud of his Kurdish background, but he had little use for Kurdish nationalism and detested the PKK. (Similarly during the break-up of Yugoslavia, I met Serbs married to Croats, and with a Muslim brother-in-law.) So, mere numbers do not always tell the whole story.
Nationalism is not only not always a great idea, but it is often a wicked impulse that springs from a desire to elevate one's own group by denigrating or oppressing another's. I cite such obvious cases as Croatia in the 1940's and 1990's, the Czechs, who did not treat the Slovaks much better than the Hungarians did and who abused the Sudeten Germans whom, at the end of of the war, the expelled with no little violence, the Russian colonists of the Baltic countries who have been whining about their rights in Lithuania.
Perhaps I should clean up and abbreviate my talk on secession and post it.
"Caper,
I was lamenting that discussions and the well crafted arguments which are important parts of those discussions too often become competions which distract us from the issues. I am as susceptible to this distraction as the next. In fact, my own distracting reponse to your post is an excellent example of that."
Mr. Peters, not to distract any further, but thank you for the reproof. In the future when I step out of line, please do just address me directly and say "knock it off." Thanks.
Oh, and sorry for being distracting and rude. Dr. Wilson is always a good sport and Southern gentleman. {end current distraction}
Capers and Mr. Peters,
I enjoy all your posts. E-mail has no context and therefore must be tolerated as a poor substitute for conversation. Please don't mistake me for a prig or a cock fighting referee.( although most Chronicle readers have been called much worse by less men) I read this site because of the honest characters and cavaliers who gather here. You are part of the attraction , so please forgive any unwarranted, Okie, intrusions or my vulgar comparisons to bar room brawls. It was only a memory from the days of youth. Cheers
I agree that monarchy is not incompatible with Christianity. Essentially, the monarch, if he rules in a Christian tradition and if he himself is a Christian, is a steward of his realm. A true steward realizes that his stewardship and the wards over which he has obligation and the commensurate authority to fulfill that obligation belong to God and not to him. If he is a Christian king, with the law written in his heart, he will be the head of his kingdom as Christ is the head of the Church - the suffering servant, washing her feet, dying for her and becoming her advocate with the Father.
The temptation which the monarch must withstand and which few to none have managed to do is to turn the divine obligation into divine right. Once that step is made, then the next follows swiftly: the monarch no longer sees himself as subject to God and His law, but the monarch vainly believes that he has become the law. They then become vain enough to believe that their being the law means that they can make the law.
Of couse, the same can be said of a "collective monarch," i.e. a people in their sovereign capacity. I will assume that Jefferson was not being cynical when he, old deist that he was, wrote the line about being "endowed by our Creator" into the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, not wanting to put too much emphasis on that preamble since Lincoln turned it to his own Jacobin purposes and stood the whole document on its head. Jefferson was at least tipping his hat to the notion that "the people" receive a divinie obligation associate with life, libery and "pursuit of happiness," whatever that last one is. However, once the people emancipate themselves from the understanding that they are the stewards and come to believe that they are the owners, they are no better than the kings, perhaps worst because one can always hope that a new king will come as heir or by elector who will restore the old harmony; it is difficult, however, to hope for a whole new people. I guess that I could herein put in a plug for secession and say that those who have the authority to secede, at least in any divinie sense, are those who hold to the Chrisitian notion of stewardship of polity and who want to separate themselves from those who in their hubris and arrogance believe that God is dead and that they and their fickle wills have become god.
I close with a footnote. In central Europe, as God in the perception of the medieval mind (the more accurate from my perspective) receded and was replace by Providence, a more benign and more secular (Calvinist) understanding, the objective correlative of the Platonic dichotomy was weakened and finally broke. In the end, authority and power were seen to rest on the monarch and ultimately on the factions which replaced the monarch: political parties and "the people." In Prussia, there did remain a curious abstration, that hung between Wirklichkeit (the reality of the noumen) and Realität (the reality of the phenomenon): it was the notion of the Staat (state). This is the entity that both the Marxists and the fascists felt they needed to usurpe, take over and finally eliminate - the last fleeting vestige of God in an otherwise new secular order of things. Therein is an irony. Frederick the Great said of himself, "Ich bin des Staates erster Diener." (I am the first servant of the state.) Thus was articulated by the secular Calvinist, not to be confused with the more dangerous versions thereof which would arise in New England, an almost last homage of a servant king to his Lord, even if his Lord barely hung to existence as an abstration known as the state. Compare Frederick attitude to that of his French counterpart at the time.
Respect everyone. Cherish the faithful. Fear God. Honor the king.
1 Peter 2: 17
The last time I checked C.S Lewis was not a Doctor of the Church nor even much of a traditional Christian. Scripture and Tradition are filled with monarchical imagery and assumptions. The fact that the modern secular republics are hostile to Christianity even to the point of supporting Islamic causes against Christians should not be a surprise. They were founded in a revolt against monarchy and that includes the Kingship of Christ. I don't see why one cannot be a monarchist in theory while making the best of the present order. The soldier longs for peace even as he endures war. He knows peace to be generally superior to war.
Mr. Theodore Van Oosbree,
With your post supra, I agree in the most part. However, my ignorance wonders about your reference to C.S. Lewis. I would have some light on this matter if you would.
"My defense of monarchy was not that it is Christian per se but that it is not incompatible with Christianity, as for example, radical democracy is in principle."
Are we sure? If Christianity is the true and natural religion, and Christ the true and natural King of the world, then is it not so hard to conclude that the best and most natural social and political order is that which is modeled on Christ's Kingdom?
*Most* (it is impossible, as Dr. Fleming says, to make universal statements about the organization of human society) organized (i.e., post-tribal) societies have been governed by monarchies of some sort, have they not? That is not the case today, but it is certainly the case that most of the present non-monarchies (i.e., liberal or socialist republics or those attempting to ape them) became such through a radical interruption of the monarchical order--generally on principles that have their origins in the Christophobic enlightenment.
Dr. Fleming, of course, knows far more about history and literature than I ever will, but the older I get and the more good stuff I read, the more I truly believe that a monarchy is the best and most natural form of government--and in that sense, the most Christian.
"I much prefer the Swiss Confederation or Carolina in its best days to the Byzantine Empire at its most glorious."
Switzerland was and is in many ways a very fine place, but it has never been and cannot be a grand civilization on the scale of Rome, France or Britain. In some ways that may be a good thing. But the best of the saints were those who propagated the faith, and the richest historical legacy belongs to those countries that touched world civilization in a positive manner (even though France and Britain began spreading the seeds of their own destruction in the later days). Not everyone is called to be a prophet, and some obviously should never have tried--witness, obviously, the U.S.A., but I daresay it is not fair to compare our own experience in empire with that of the afformentioned three.
"Is it not better that the Turks, the Kurds, and the Arabs are at one another’s throats than united against what is left of the West? That might not be in the interest of the U.S. imperial machinery but on the whole it seems better for us."
Well, that's hardly based on any generalizable political principle. Pitting one's enemies against each other is a time-honored diplomatic tactic.