The Death Penalty, and the one thing we should all agree on

The Death Penalty is an awkward thing for many of us in the modern period, (or post-modern if you want to be pretentious), to discuss about, some of us support it, others don't, we necessarily must factor in religious, ethical, and moral questions and qualms about Justifications and the Humane manner of executions, leading to all sorts of divides in all sorts of camps about how far many of us will go to supporting the death penalty, or if we support it at all. If you're no stranger to the blogosphere you've likely seen this argument come up again and again, almost as often as hilariously under-informed debates, discussions and slander fests about Religion in the comments of Youtube Atheists and Religious. And like such arguements, the debate never seems to end.

As far as I've seen the same is no different in the Monarchosphere.

However I would like to propose the one crime we should all agree upon, as Monarchists, that should warrant the Death Penalty, the crime of Treason.

Now this opens up all sorts of questions and discussions over 'What is Treason?' and 'Who is a traitor in X scenario with X conditions?' Could Briton Rebel kings and queens that were brought to Rome for Judgement be considered 'Traitors'? Can Counter-Revolutionaries in Republics be considered 'Traitors'? I wont pretend that I will answer these for you, this post is about actually agreeing that the crime of Treason ITSELF be worthy of the punishment of Death.

Personally I say yes, (at great risk to my own legitimacy), if one commits Treason, such as assaulting a Sovereign with intent to Injury, defamation with intention to cause unrest, spying for a foreign power, etc, etc, etc, should truly warrant the Death penalty and here is why, in order of pettiest to severe:

-By these actions an Individual deceives his peers with no regard to their safety

-He ruins the good names of innocents connected to him by business dealings and Acquaintance

-He ruins the standing and risks the estate of his family, both immediate and extended, by his actions. Putting his own desires ahead of his House.

-His actions likely result in injury or death, or in the case of spying, risking the injury, death, and possible conquest of Thousands or Millions of his Countrymen.

-If he is a man of standing, he betrays the trust of the Lower classes, the trust of higher classes, and the trust of his Sovereign.

-If he is not a man of standing, he betrays the trust of all that he would be an upstanding Subject of merit, besmirching the image of the entire lower classes by his base actions, causing distrust suspicion and possible unrest within the nation.

-By endangering his Sovereign he not only shows his disloyalty to his nation and Countrymen, but a callous disregard for everything that Nation is, was or ever will be, by attacking and endangering the enduring symbol of the Nation's continuity, past present and future, that the Sovereign embodies.

All of these crimes show but a glimpse of the tremendous breech of justice that Treason causes, a breech that cannot be filled by simply languishing the Traitor in the worst jail in the Nation for his abominable crimes. Blood must be paid to satiate Justice in this regard, because it is simply not possible for Justice to be served any other way when the crime is against the Country as a whole, blood being spilled is an ugly necessity. It appeases the lower classes, and dignifies the upper classes, and all will know an ugly piece of history has been put to an end once this criminal has been killed. Obviously a Sovereign would have to careful that executing a traitor or rebel wont inspire something worse, as king George VI warned his Government against shooting the Easter Rising prisoners because he had the foresight to see what effect such an action would have, needless to say Parliament didn't listen to their King and here we are.

The rationale behind this would be lost on most republicans, (with the exception of the Americans), as they do not understand how Justice is done by killing the Traitor and not letting him suffer in jail for his whole life. Well, inevitable puns about 'Republican Justice' and the state of most modern Justice systems aside for now, Gents, the reasoning most monarchies, ESPECIALLY in Europe found behind this, was there was no more terrible a punishment for a Traitor's crimes then answering to the Divine for their crimes. And even then the condemned were given their chances to repent before God, not man for man could not forgive them, for their crimes before they met Him. Something that is lost on the modern world.

What do you say? Let us see if we can get another discussion going.

God Bless Geeks

Greetings all, sorry for the long bout of absence, I have had to deal with malware cannibalising my computer and it was an insidious beast. Had to phone a friend who is very tech-savvy and have him instruct me with a guide he found online as my internet was shot.

All is well now and I should resume regular updating soon.

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.

CFTHF - And so Judgement Rolls

Well University life is rough in some respects I guess, learning the fine art of eating various dishes consisting entirely of beans, differing only in when, where, and how burnt they are when you cook them, realising you need a car when you get lost in the city and it takes you a full 3 hours to get back to your place, getting a letter in the mail saying you need to resit this one coursework from the previous semester that up until this point you could've sworn you never even heard about.

But such is life.

So yes, essentially I have passed my exams and my University is fully prepared to welcome me back into its cold, heartless, smothering embrace of hatred lies and small pointy objects called pens - but only if I agree to resubmit this coursework at a fix maximum mark of 40%

Seems reasonable enough I guess, resit an assessment with an unfairly fixed pass mark in order to pay my University £1300 a year in order to gain access to an under-booked library and nothing else.

Wait...

Imperialism

I have read a very well thought out defence of Imperialism on The Monarchist Manifesto website, (What? You haven't heard of it? You disgust me, good sir), and it has indeed given me much food for thought, especially because as an Irishman my country has been a part of one of the Greatest Empires ever known for the majority of its time in existence as a Christian Nation. So that means that as a descendent of an Empire that I don't look upon too fondly for emotional-historical reasons, Black Baron's blog post has caused another confliction within me with regards to this topic. Normally I am quite lax with regards to Imperialism, for the simple reason it is as natural to Humankind, our collective civilisation as a species, and our history, as Monarchy is. I admire such Empires as that of the Empire of Ethiopia, the Shahanshah of Iran, Japan's and China's respective Ancient Empires, Russia, Germany and more besides, however, due to my background as an Irish Nationalist, I still retain many of such traits in my political and social thought albeit in a VERY different light to many other nationalists, as such I place such things as National Sovereignty, which in my mind cannot be truly achieved for any country unless they have a Sovereign to define it, and this is what creates a conflict between my view of Imperialism as a Monarchist, which is a positive view, and my view of Imperialism as a Nationalist, which is a negative view. I fully invite the other Irish Monarchists I have been delighted to discover reading my blog to fully chip in with their own thoughts on these matters after I have finished this post, because after all, we will have to face this issue as Monarchists sooner or later if our wish is achieved and Ireland has its own Kingdom once more.

Before I go in, we will first define what I will mean when I refer to Imperialism, in an attempt to keep this critique of Imperialism intellectual and not dominated by sneaking, unintelligent passion. By Imperialism I mean by its simplest definition, the Expansion of one's borders, for the security of your Nation, growth of one's economy, prestige and influence in world affairs. This is what I will technically call High Imperialism, because it is the most overt and image provoking type of Imperialism one thinks of. All other forms of Imperialism, Corporate growth, National Chuvanism, Jingoism, the emotionally-chargeddrivel-insult spouted by the left against anything that isn't left, etc; shall be ignored for this exercise. A least for now, I'll save them for later rants.

First I will get the emotional baggage out of the way and deal with the problem of National Sovereignty and Imperialism. The first issue is the most obvious; that of Imperialism being fundamentally the destruction of the cheapening of other Nation's Sovereignty by rights of Conquest, intimidation, or other means. Or in the case of Ireland, and Black baron's primary defence of Imperialism, Strategy. I am not so foolish as to not understand the Kingdom of England's real intent in Conquering Ireland, that of Security. England greatly feared the French or the Spanish, who Irish Tuathes were being unreasonably friendly with in English eyes, using Ireland as a base to launch invasions of England, (this is actually one of the reasons England sought to conquer Scotland as well, to prevent enemies getting in 'by the back door'), for centuries afterwards, (I'm going to skip over the second invasion of Ireland by England and the plantations that followed, that's an ugly bit of history and going over it will just raise passions in all), England has justified its conquering or Ireland by the excuse that 'the Irish could not govern themselves' that their ruling was an act of Mercy, for the most part we can safely say that is true, but only Because England destroyed all means of National Sovereignty for the Irish to begin with, we couldn't rule ourselves because our rulers were driven from the island. This also lead to a great level of clericalism in Ireland, were the peasants looked up to Priests and Bishops as rulers for lack of secular Lords, it was all we had left, especially after the plantations were most of our Aristocracy spent their time living in London and leaving their estates in Ireland in the hands of attendants to administer their rule. It was no wonder when the 18/19th century rolled around and one particularly educated priest began criticising England and saying 'They cannot rule Ireland effectively' Which caused a huge hullabaloo among intellectual circles for obvious reasons. Ireland is an example of 'Bad' Imperialism, not bad in the sense of being 'cruel' or 'evil' really, but bad in the sense of of just being poor, the population was of a different religion to the Aristocracy, had a history of poverty and poor administration, (tenet farming fiasco, random evictions which lead to controversial land law reforms which many British Monarchists today resent), and then had their parliament dissolved because 'they were unfit to rule themselves' Without even mentioning any atrocities, rebellions or whatever violence you care to mention, Irish resentment to British Rule is quite obvious, and in many respects justified, even if it wasn't poisoned by the vicious years of rebellion and the memories of the Arch Republican Heretic and Apostate, Oliver Cromwell, who's name is still quite literally used as a curse in some parts of Rural Ireland. Ironically this is also the reason why when I refer to British Rule, I refer to Parliament, after all, the Monarchs of England often bore no ill will to Ireland, except for that one rather hilarious episode involving Red Hugh and his outfoxing of the British Army, but yet again, that's another post.

I will concede however, in some respects, Imperialism has been known to instil a great sense of National pride and, ironically, Loyalty, and again as an Example, to prove my attempt at even handedness, I will use the British Empire. In this case, there is a great deal of National Identity and Pride in the cases of both India and Scotland, and these cases can be demonstrated the most clearly in respect to the Regiments of both Countries within the British Empire. Scotland has a long, illustrious and Enviable military history of tactical excellence, and stupefying feats of bravery, almost to the point were I'd dare to say the song Scotland the Brave doesn't do the Scottish justice! Someone once said; "I'd be terrified to fight the Scottish, not because they're good fighters, but because they're the only men, Man enough to go to war in sleet, hail or snow in a bloody skirt!" The uniforms of Scottish Soldiers were always recognisably 'British' but at the same time they were always recognisably 'Scottish', for centuries they have fought proudly in kilts and plumed berets and had bag pipers in their war bands instead of drummers, National identity and Pride was never dampened in Scotland even when bans on tartan designs on kilts were enacted, the Scottish wore their kilts proudly anyway, with or without their clan colours, (personally I feel the ban should be lifted by now and Scots should be allowed to wear their tartan colours on their kilts, both to bolster the sense of tradition and strengthen family values and pride, but that's just my opinion) and throughout all that time and even to this day, they see the Monarch of England as also the Monarch of Scotland, even Scottish Nationalists today, who are infamous for their disliking of the British parliament, (almost as infamous as my rabid dislike of Socialism and their affinity towards it, grrrr), bear no ill will against Her Majesty or the Royal family and many seem to even express affection for them. While India is an entirely different story to Scotland, many similarities can be seen, for a great deal of time, the King of England was also considered the Raj, or Emperor, of India, given His Majesty the hybrid title of King-Emperor. The regiments of India served the Empire with ferocity and great loyalty and courage and like the Scottish their uniforms were recognisably 'Indian', and added greatly to the tapestry of Imperial culture within Britain, in fact one of the most enduring symbols of British Imperialism that one can call to mind is an English gentleman being served by an Indian Butler/servant in full regalia and traditional Headdress, (this also goes for Sikhs as well), not the most flattering of images for Indians I grant you, but it is evident of the great cultural impact India has on the larger Empire as a whole. And India today is no worse for wear from British Imperialism, and is even expected to become a superpower in its own right sometime in the future.

Now let us come to more modern times, the age of America, the 20th and early 21st Century, and of the greatest hypocrisy of the world since the Religious Leaders of the Synagogue in the time of Christ. I am of course referring to the empire of Revolution, the domination of contemporary spiritual and intellectual cultures of Liberalism, Socialism, Environmentalism, of self hatred, of undermining one's pride and culture for the sake of one's own aggrandised version of a Utopia, that which cannot exist, that which should not exist, a Want for a land of no conflict, of communes and Peace among all, of boundless wealth and no greed, no morals. A land of Robots. A land of the dead.

Of course my boundless hatred of the liberal disease of the mind cannot be summed up. At all. And this post is hardly the best place to put it, especially since I promised to be dealing with the traditional sense of Imperialism, but it just seems so fitting to make mention of the Anti-Imperial culture. The hypocrisy of such is that it is a form of Imperialism in its own right. It seeks to expand its influence, its prestige, and seeks to destroy its enemies by means of intimidation and influence. The Empire of Revolution is, in the truest sense, an Evil Empire. An empire of falsehoods and lies, of stealth bigotry, self hatred and self destruction, an empire that has turned the once vaunted academia into a mass hive of idealogical think tanks, where true objective study is thrown out in favour of an ideologically bent lens through which to view the world, and is called Objective. Of all forms of Imperialism, this is the most despicable, and is our enemy. Its hypocrisy stems from its own denunciation of pride yet swims in its own vanity, it denounces all forms of righteous and justification for anything as wrong and invalid yet it is nothing but self-righteousness, it is this imperialism and pride that will kill us all. Literally.

I realise the above paragraph was wildly out of context but I still felt the need to express it.

Of course there is still the lingering malaise that haunts all Empires, the single greatest criticism of Imperialism and greatest argument against a nation becoming Imperial. It is an argument I expect many of you not to call to mind if you objectively considered Imperialism in the scope of history, the single greatest threat to an Empire's existence: Stagnation.

Stagnation occurs when an Empire, a social-political entity that has thrived on expansion, rapid development, progress, conquest, domination, glory, danger and respect, runs out on all of the above. This happens first when an Empire grows contented, secure in their borders, their majesty and power, there is no enemy who dares oppose it openly, there are no more lands worth expending the resources to bring under the flag, as a result the population becomes bored, and lazy, and as the population becomes bored and lazy, moral impairment occurs and this leads to a number of social ills which just harm the morale and the mentality of the empire even further, this is, I argue, what killed Rome. It turns an empire that seems like it should stand forever, into a brief, but glorious flash of history, and all that lies in the wake of its passing is crumbling moments, forgotten glory, and sadness. It killed Rome, it Killed the Ottomans, and it will kill America and its own Empire. This is, I feel, the greatest reason for me not to be supportive of Imperialism, simply because all empires fall, it is in their nature, if possible I would prefer us all to be kingdoms, or if we must have imperial styles, to be like the Empires of Japan and Ethiopia, contained, and contented, so that we would last forever. I do not want to look down upon the earth centuries after my time and see a man walk in the desert and see a ruin of King Ozymandias proudly boasting;

My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

as a traveller simply walks on by.

Nobody likes the EU

Personally, I think its about time it dawned upon the lefty Europhiles that nobody likes it, let them delude themselves into thinking more 'openness', more 'integration', more 'softness' and more ethnic diversity of the European Commission will solve the problem of making everyone else in the world hating europe for being the ghost of what it used to be, Europe.

I dont know if my fellow Europeans agree or not, but I really am foreseeing a catastrophe of WWIII proportions sometime in the future if a Miracle doesn't happen to fix this mess of a continent.