On Parliaments

(I'll save my disgust at the behaviour of my fellow Irish Nationalists here in the north recently, for another post)

Ah what a blessed, ugly thing, that great and fantastic, necessary evil for running any modern nation of peoples; that towering, rotten leviathan that has the audacity to refer to itself as the State.

Oh wait no, that's the supreme court I was referring to, my apologies, this post is actually about Parliaments and how I despise them.

I will admit from this point on I am, for lack of a better term, an Absolute Monarchist, after my hatred for the audacious and preposterous idea and notion that the King would ever need to bow to parliament to perform the simplest of His duties won the war of my affections over the notion of a long lasting Nation.

I will be the first to admit that the Dail in Ireland is necessary as a legislative body for the herculean task of managing the laws of the land, but by God it should not rule the country.

My rage at Parliaments, or in America's case, the Senate and Congress, stems not only from my utter distrust of politicians for the simple vice that they are politicians, but also for the more practical reasons that every Parliament in almost every monarchy actively seeks to silence the voice of the monarch, be it Luxembourg, who's Sovereign is to have his signature revoked from the necessity of passing legislature because Grand Duke Henri dared to act upon his constitutional and just role as head of state to disagree and refuse to sign into law a piece of legislation he disagreed with, or let us go to Spain, who's evil socialist government is even now actively trying to rid Spain of its Monarchy, or how the coalition government in Britain is now pondering constitutional changes and at the same time absent mindedly forgetting they have a Queen. Or in Norway where the Monarchy is absolutely hamstrung by the ban on all noble titles by the parliament save for the monarch himself, endangering the Monarchy to an overnight destruction at any given moment in the future.

How I utterly despise the notion of parliamentarian ism, I am firmly and utterly convinced that any ounce of power given to the parliament will always form into a dagger in the back of the Monarchy, I make no apologies from my utter dislike of the idea that Parliaments should be trusted with any length of power in Constitutional Monarchies, for was it not in an emergency meeting with the French equivalent of an assembly, where His Majesty King Louis was ready to give in to some reforms that the revolution truly begin to take place? And was it not through the greed of the Parliament in England that the Stuarts had to flee from the land and brought that Arch-Heretic Cromwell to blight my own country with his own reign of terror in the name of liberty and Justice?

Parliaments are a necessary evil, and are only good when muzzled and leashed, filled with statesmen and not politicians. Otherwise they are a slow, wasteful pox eating at the organs of Nations.

Oh, and with that said, happy First annual Counter-revolution day!

Happy Annual Riot Day

Saints, how I hate the twelfth...

For those unfamiliar with Irish History... Just go look it up, I have no humour to recount past history this day with regards to the Orange Order marches on July 12th here in Northern Ireland.

What I will talk about is the riots you'll sure to be hearing about soon enough, wherever you are, with regards to the parades.

Where do I start? First I guess, lets start with the parading tradition here in Northern Ireland, Parades and 'Marches' are a long standing socio-political tradition here in Ireland for damn near everyone, and alot of care and effort is put into the Cumanns who do the marching tunes and melodies for the Nationalist and Republican parades and Marches, (Please Note, although all Nationalist parades are mostly attended by your average Paddy McSeamus, similarily enough ALL said parades are distinctly Militaristic in character), the same could be said for the Orange Order Marches our Unionist counterparts, with their impeccably well dressed manner displaying their medals and tokens of office and station. These parades are always a popular sight to see for tourists, be it the shamelessly political and overtly emotive and beautiful tapestries and banners carried in Nationalist parades upon spears and Halberds, or the rousing and hypnotising order of the Orange Parades.

So whats the problem? Simple, the Orange Order Parades march through predominantly Nationalist neighbourhoods and areas of Belfast. Causing a great deal of consternation all around. And no, the Nationalists dont do likewise on similarly important holidays, such as Easter or some such. This is why I hate the 12th, I don't hate it for the History, nor do I hate it for the pride that the orange order and Unionists in general display in the parade, they have the right to do so on their own holiday. What I bloody well hate is the sheer ignorant arrogence of marching through areas where they know they will cause an uproar. My apologies to unionist readers of my blog but my anger must be made known. And to those viewing history of this island from the outside wondering why riots such as these haven't happened in a long time and that nationalists are being overall rotten about this, the nationalist community has in fact been simmering over this issue for quite some time throughout the peace process. I still remember scenes from a few years back where several nationalist residents attempted to blockade their streets or otherwise tie themselves to lamp-posts in peaceful protests of the march going down their streets, (before you ask, yes, Northern Ireland is EXACTLY as tribal as I am making it sound to be, on both sides). I know full well that the Order marches down those particular streets for tradition's sake, but I also know full well that there are indeed a great many in the Unionist community who take great joy in the anger and irritation this causes their Nationalist counterparts. Because that's exactly what this miserable little statelet needs right now, isn't it?

Oh it reminds me of that time the Orange Order tried to organise a march through Dublin city one year, (on what logical grounds no-one can tell you I assure you), and the riots and anger that ensued were LEGENDARY, and did seem to provoke a surge of National pride in the south, (despite the Irish Times trying to pin the entire riots' organisation on the provisional IRA so as to make it appear that Southern Irishmen were not nearly as hot blooded as their northern counterparts, which is of course hot bull-dung, as there were more rioting in Dublin then I have ever heard about here in the North, and caught me quite by surprise) So much drama and anger raised when the March could just take the street slightly to the left of the one it goes down, and everyone can have their traditional marches with minimal consternation. I am usually never a peace activist but this nonsense has been going on long enough.

A very Royal World Cup

For those of you watching the World Cup final, I hope you, as well as the Royal families present in Johannesburg this evening, enjoy a truly great and enjoyable game, as the national teams of these two Monarchies battle it out for one of the highest sporting glories the world has to offer.

May the best team win.

They're not even trying...

Every now and again, myself and my good friend Mars, who I have made mention of every now and again and who gave me the inspiration for the Pan-Monarchist flag I have put at the bottom of my blog, amuse ourselves by studying the republics of Europe in depth and realise how many trappings of the Monarchical era still remain and how deliciously oblivious many revolutionaries seem to be the are essentially walking, working, living in breathing in what is essentially 'Tory country' on a continental scale, and then bemoan how the ordinary folk are equally oblivious, for example, in France you take an investigation into its component provinces and counties you will see a WEALTH of flags, and coats of arms, most of them medieval in nature decorating France in a tapestry of colour. The same could be said of other nations.

But let me point out those who are REALLY not trying that hard to be republics,

Let us start with the federal Republic of Russia and how its office of president has the coat of arms of the Romanov Dynasty blazoned across the colour of the Nation itself. Or again, a little closer to Home, how In the Irish Republic we have the office of Uachtarán having the presidential standard consist of the Royal Blue field with the Golden Harp emblazoned upon it, the traditional royal standard of Ireland you can see still incorporated in the Royal standard of the British Royal family.

Hey, why don't we just go even further and point out how San Marino, the Oldest Republic in the World has a bloody Royal Coat of Arms and Standard.

This is not to mention the regional coats of arms of the mention Nations which I assure you also have monarchical meanings, (Ireland's provincial flags especially), why this amuses is the inescapably of Monarchism, and how the fact that all these things remain are evidence in and of themselves of humanity's longing for Monarchy, tradition, honour, grandeur and all else besides.

If only people stopped and looked hard enough.

The Irish Inquisition

Something is very strange with regards to the attitudes of lay Catholics in Ireland towards the Church Hierarchy, very odd indeed.

For those keeping track with the Clerical abuse scandals should know by now that there is an Apostolic Visitation due to visit Ireland soon enough to investigate into abuses of the Church, specifically; the abuses of Priests and Bishops.

So why is this being viewed as a bad thing among lay Catholics as well as several in Religious Communities?

While reading the Irish Catholic the other day I saw an article written by a nun, supposedly passing off the Apostolic visitation as nothing more then a petty inquisition that will be both useless and will result with nothing more then an odd one sentence report filed away in'some desk drawer somewhere' and is only occurring 'because someone, somewhere decided something was wrong.

Which is something I can agree with, that someone somewhere was likely a whisper from the prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith, or His Holiness himself, and that some drawer somewhere could be the office drawer of said Prefect of what is essentially the Holy Office of the Inquisition.

Oh! So that's why they're so keen to pass it off as nothing. It is clear that even among the conservative Catholics of Ireland something is still very wrong, when an important action taken by Church Authorities, at long last, to do something about the priestly abuses, is viewed as pejorative because ''they aren't being told the results of what the Investigation will be'' until long after the Visitation is completed and said results are reviewed. I say if the religious congregations are living good and Holy lives among their lay brothers and sisters, why would they be worried?

This has similar hallmarks to the reactions of some religious communities in America after it was announced an apostolic visitation would be investigating them, where they openly advocated policies of non-co-operation, these same communities were being shown as 'undeserving victims' as they were 'working tirelessly to bring communities together of different creeds, faiths genders, etc' regardless of the heresies and lapses in honest Christian charity that were replaced good dishonest social justice. Oh wait, they didn't mention that last part, that would've been a bit honest. I am only dealing with the religious attitudes of Ireland in this post, as there was a great deal within this newspaper which angered me with their views towards the black nobility of Italy. But that is anger best reserved from a time when I need it. Like down at the shooting range.

If I am coming across a bit bitter in this post over this topic, its only because I am. The religious attitude in Ireland has been lax or even rebellious all around the population, and I have wanted something done about the priestly scandals FROM the Church Hierarchy for a great while now. And now that its here, and it is deathly serious, the seeds of discontent and dissension are beginning to blossom. As soon as the Church, after such a long, slow reaction, is attempting to do something meaningful and Genuinely Catholic about the issue

Quite frankly, the Inquisition couldn't come soon enough.