Chinese Nationalism

The Acceptable Enemy by James Lawrence
A Chinese perspective on the problem of White pride

I suspect most, if not all, of what he says about Chinese nationalism is true.

Responding to Madison

Thomas Storck, Government, Society, and the Human Good
Patrick Deneen, Beyond Wishful Thinking: A Response to Schlueter

Both contrast James Madison's theory of government with an Aristotelian-Thomistic one. But can Madison be used to represent the Anglo-American political tradition in its entirety (and thus "prove" that the tradition or the American founding was liberal in its "essence")?

If Madison's theory of government is applicable at all "levels" (most importantly, to the sovereign states), then it should rightly be criticized. But to link Madison to those who presently oppose the Federal government from expanding its reach beyond the Constitution? Not all Constitutionalists are principled libertarians.

Another "Conservative" Feminist

Conservatives, Women, and Votes by Ashley McGuire

"Conservatives need to expand their favor with women voters by investing in female candidates and spokespeople, and by reframing their social policies in pro-woman and pro-family terms."

No thanks. How's this instead? To be pro-patriarchy is pro-family.

From the Editors at Ethika Politika

Is Chivalry the Natural Choice? Or Something Else?

They give some suggestions as to what needs to be clarified based on Smith's article in The Atlantic.

A critique written within the androsphere would be more illuminating.

How much money was wasted on creating that crap.

SFGate: UC suspends use of logo - distracting

In other news...

Seven Days: R.I.P. Thomas Naylor, Founder of Vermont Secessionist Group, 1936-2012

Kyrie eleison.

Some More Critical Reflections on Zero Dark Thirty

Fabius Maximus: Bin Laden won, with our assistance. Our applause shows the scale of his victory.
Save The Cat, Kill The Prisoners by Noah Millman
Zero Conscience in Zero Dark Thirty

Related:
Report finds harsh CIA interrogations ineffective

The third trailer for the movie:


Empire
JoBlo
HuffPo

Another Interview with Fr. Gabriel

Pravmir: One Cannot Be Anything More Than a Christian: A Conversation with Fr. Gabriel (Bunge)

Pontifical High Mass at the 15th Cologne Liturgical Conference

Excerpts: Pontifical High Mass according to the book of divine Worship
Pontifical High Mass according to the Book of Divine Worship in the Parish Church of St. Gertrud Celebrant: Monsignor Keith Newton, Ordinarius of the Ordinariats Our Lady of Walsingham, London Music: Capella Aquensis, Aachen, Director: Thomas Beaujean; - Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611): Missa "O quam gloriosum" - Julius van Nuffel (1885-1953): Ave Maria - Hermann Schroeder (1904-1984): Siehe, die Jungfrau wird empfangen 15th Cologne Liturgical Conference

Distributism, Quasi-Marxist?

Dr. Fleming's comment in the latest entry in his paleocon series: "On the other hand, their own distributist/Third Way arguments are far closer to Marxism than to the Gospels or to Leo XIII."

I think he would agree that the right to property is not absolute and that there should be a wide distribution of property in order to safeguard economic and political liberty in a republic? So with what part of distributism would he disagree? The proposition that the government can foster the redistribution of resources (such as land), indirectly or indierctly? Or the proposition that the government can redistribute wealth in general? I wonder what the arguments of the two gentlemen were.

Related:
Which Capitalism? A Brief Defense of the Supporters of the Free Economy by Dylan Pahman

KBS Star Date with the Cast of Iris 2

The main characters from the first series are not back. My interest in the second goes only as far as Kang Jiyoung is in it. The drama will be like the first, with the soap opera overwhelming the action (which as generally choreographed poorly, by contemporary American standards).


"Iris 2" is on a different scale

Christian Masculinity

Actually, one Christian man's understanding of interacting with women (but also with others), and the consequences of his success in teaching other males how to be men: A reader teaches some aspects of “game” to men in his church and now faces possible expulsion. Please pray for him.

Kyrie eleison.

Language Creation in Tolkien's Mythmaking

Medievalists.net: Language and Legend in the Fantasy Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien

Vox links to an article by a sci-fi author and both note that Tolkien's success as a fantasy author is due to his knowledge of history (and languages).





Related:
Is there hope for Latin? Latinitatis Corpus, Reginaldo Procuratore We need more Latin teachers who are as zealous as Fr. Reginald.

Obama is a Believer in the Proposition Nation

No surprise, right?

Steve Sailer: Proposition Nation v. Preposition Nation

Msgr. Ma Daqin, Bishop of Shanghai, Under Arrest

Rome Reports: Vatican concerned over Shanghai auxiliary bishop dispute


Under arrest, Mgr Ma Daqin is stripped of his title as Shanghai bishop
Fr Lombardi: Ma Daqin case shows how serious the Church's situation is in China
Abp. Savio Hon: dismissal of Shanghai bishop an "abuse”. Churches of the world pray for him

Zenit: Vatican Official Denounces Decision by So-Called Episcopal Conference of China
Expresses Support and Admiration for Persecuted Auxiliary Bishop of Shanghai

Related:
Five years on, the Pope's letter to Chinese Catholics still relevant
China's green tea tainted by pesticides
Cardinal Scola: Ensuring religious freedom for social peace by Card. Angelo Scola

Ravi Shankar

NPR: Remembering Ravi Shankar





His website.

Some videos:

Judge Napolitano: How Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson Destroyed Constitutional Freedom

Book trailer:


Google Books
Lew Rockwell Interview - Part 2 (podcast)
Article at Lew Rockwell


Related:
Reflections on the Loss of Liberty
What Ever Happened to the Constitution?

Byzantine Catholics in Italy

NLM: Byzantine Christians in Italy: From the Archives of the Instituto Luce

Self-Government

Some thoughts from Mr. Peters in response to the Abbeville Institute video on the size of the United States. It does repeat points that he's made before at FPR and on other websites.

To be a republic in the classical Aristotelian one has to have self-government in what ever form that may be; the rule of law and a demographic and territorial scale in which common traditions, customs and habits can determine the common good as far as culture or social order is concerned.

Self-government does not mean even representative government in the sense that representatives are elected by any popular means and certainly not democracy. It means that the polity expresses the traditions, customs and habits lived out by real people in a real place, whatever the mechanism of that expression. To govern against the lived out customs and habits in a real place is to be a tyrant, whether one is a dictator or a democratic majority.

The rule of law does not mean a strict adherence to some “due process” and the statutory laws from which it springs; it rather means that statutory law, however, it is made is in harmony with the prevailing traditions, customs and habits of the social order. Thus, Creon is a tyrant when he refuses to allow Antigone the tradition duty of burying, in her case, Polynices. Anglo-Saxon jury nullification is predicated on an awareness of traditions, customs and habits, embedded and lived out in the people, with which even the king’s law can be nullified.

There is little chance of there being commonly held traditions, customs and habits which define the common good, the expectations of polity and the rule of law if a given territory is too large or if the population is too large.

Now, one can can an aardvark an ant; or one can call an abstract corporation with a monopoly on coercion, with the ability to define the limits of its own power and with the impetus of a power will, be that one of a dictator or a democratic majority, ruling a massive territory with millions of people a republic; however, but an ant “ain’t” an aardvark; and a Hobbesian state “ain’t” a republic. At least the old Soviet Union was less disingenuous than Mao’s China. The Soviets at least made a pretense in that they named their Hobbesian state the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics whereas Mao’ named his The People Republic of China.

We were once, before Lincoln and the Republicans “these United States,” a union of constitutionally federated republics. Today, we are a Hobbesian state, consolidated and centralized. Our President, in a post-election speech spoke of “this colony,” in the singular, gaining its independence from Great Britain. Once there were thirteen colonies and King George, in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, named each of them. He did not make peace with the American people in the aggregate, with the Continental Congress, with the so-called “Founding Fathers” or with some overarching government. He made peace with thirteen unique and sovereign republics.

The New UC Logo

The Thinking Housewife: The Meaningless University

It looks outdated, like something from the 70s or the 80s. I think it unwittingly represents the further commodification of higher education (with the need for costly "marketing") and a turning away from older notions of the university. The UC Brand? How stupid. But it is inevitable when a university education is marketed to the masses? No awareness of the higher education bubble.

The UC logo: It's all about the branding
New UC Logo—Keep It or Dump It?


Vimeo

Visual Identity
University of California Graphic Identity Guide and Resources
UC Berkeley Identity

Michel-René Landry: Clear creek monastery

(via Chant Cafe)

Interview with Peter Hitchens in the Warwick Boar

Here (link via his blog).

But clearly something has changed. Hitchens is hardly practising class war these days, and the Mail has never exactly been hospitable to the practitioners of revolution. He explains: “During my life, the establishment that I imagined I was fighting in the late 1960s and early 1970s was already dying - in fact it was really already a living corpse.”

For Hitchens, the 20th century has been the story of the death of the old British establishment - indeed, of Britain itself - and its replacement by a new, more liberal elite. His writing is shot through with the theme of moral decline. His new book, though it concerns mostly drugs, includes a chapter sternly entitled ‘The Demoralisation of Britain’ and from the earliest pages he thunders that the worship of a new hedonistic creed, the lamentable trilogy of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll, is responsible for many contemporary social ills.

“What all this is really about is the collapse of Protestant Christianity as the dominant system of thought and belief in modern England over the course of a century”, he elaborates, dating the start of the rot at the beginning of the First World War. “In many cases people have found the constraints and what they would call the repressions of Protestant Christianity irksome, and taken the opportunity to throw them off in many parts of life.”

Anthony Gregory on "Liberty"

(via C4SS)

Elias Crim Reviews Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy

by Fr. Robert Sirico - Are You Better Off Now?

Dr. Fleming on Property

Back to the Stone Age II F 2

I shall be content to use it, here, in a basic etymological sense as that which belongs to us (proprius is a Latin adjective meaning one's own), but not (even though a case could be made for such usage) including our physical or mental attributes.

Property, as Aristotle observed, is natural because it is essential to human functioning and thriving. We have to eat and shield ourselves from the elements, hunt animals with weapons and grow food with implements. I am going to postpone an extended discussion of property until later because I do not wish to lose the thread of this albeit simple argument.

Property is universal in human societies and claims to the otherwise, put forward by Marxist and feminist anthropologists, can only hold up if we insist that property be defined in Anglo-American terms. It is true that in a tropical climate a hunter-gatherer people needs little property: privileged access to watering holes, spears to hunt with, perhaps baskets to store the nuts and berries our women gather, but anything a man makes or improves or finds can be (though it is not always) property, even if he is expected to share its use with his relatives.