An Inconvenient Miracle
Earlier this week, I mentioned the latest attempt by Michael Gerson to demonize conservatives by reviving the “Social Gospel,” a fuzzy pink mass of “idealism” coughed up by progressives who quickly mistook it for Jesus. And so they began to worship it instead. Along the way, Gerson tries to polish up the tainted name of Woodrow Wilson. In the past week news has emerged that Jesus seems to disagree.
On February 1, the Orlando Sentinel reported that the Catholic Church has recognized the final miracle required to make a saint of one of Wilson’s greatest enemies, Habsburg Emperor Karl I. It seems that a Florida Baptist from Kissimmee, at the encouragement of a Catholic friend, invoked Karl’s intercession for help with metastatic breast cancer. As the Sentinel notes: “A judicial tribunal convened by the Diocese of Orlando and officially concluded Thursday has found that there is no medical explanation for the woman’s dramatic recovery, and more than half a dozen doctors in two states—most of them non-Catholics – agreed.” That makes two miraculous interventions attributed to Karl, enough for the pope to certify that Karl is in heaven.
It’s rarely remembered now, but Woodrow Wilson set as one of the primary war aims of the U.S. as she entered (thanks to his careful maneuvering) World War I the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. As a multi-ethnic state based not on 19th century nationalism but ancient dynastic loyalty cemented by a majority Catholic faith, it offended his modern notions of what should constitute a country—and as a good Princeton academic, who was in addition convinced that he personally embodied the Will of God, Wilson knew that he could do better.
On the other side of the conflict was Austro-Hungarian emperor Karl I, who took power during the war, and strove mightily to end it by negotiation. As I wrote in The Bad Catholic’s Guide to Good Living:
Karl is known for abolishing flogging, dueling, and other abuses in the army he briefly commanded, restricting the use of poison gas and civilian bombing, and attempting to decentralize power among the ethnic groups of his polyglot monarchy, which he came to rule in 1917. Karl insisted on eating the same rations as an ordinary civilian—refusing even white bread, which he handed out to his troops. His court photographer reported seeing the newly-crowned emperor visiting a battlefield full of corpses—and collapsing into tears. Karl murmured, audibly: “No man can any longer answer to God for this. As soon as possible I shall put a stop to it.”
Almost immediately, Karl began attempts to negotiate a “peace without recriminations” to end the criminal slaughter of World War I. He was the only sovereign in Europe to attempt such a peace. Had he succeeded, the world might never have witnessed a Bolshevik or Nazi regime, a Holocaust, a Ukrainian famine, a Dresden or a Hiroshima.
Karl’s clarity and charity, alas, were no match for the war parties that ruled in London and Berlin, Paris and Washington, from 1914-1918. President Woodrow Wilson insisted personally on the dismemberment of the Austrian monarchy. Fighting dragged on another fateful year—giving Lenin the chance to seize power in Russia—before it ended with the collapse of Germany and Austria. The victors’ peace imposed by the Allies sowed the bitterness which would someday bring the Nazis to prominence. The weak republics carved out of Austria’s corpse would all, one day, fall first to Hitler’s armies—and then to Stalin’s. So went this world “made safe for democracy.”
Exiled on the wintry island of Funchal with his young family, Karl soon succumbed to disease, and died while still a young man. The night before he passed, he whispered to his wife Zita: “All my aspiration has ever been to know as clearly as possible the will of God in all things and to follow it, and precisely in the most perfect manner.” By the Church’s infallible judgment, he succeeded.
Soon the Blessed Karl I will be St. Karl, while Wilson’s name continues its slow decline into disgrace. (Kudos to Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism for giving the toilet one more flush.) But not everyone is happy about this new canonization. The Sentinel reporter quotes leftist Jesuit Thomas Reese, whom the Vatican forced to resign as editor of America, emitting the following whine: “This is the kind of canonization I don’t think is terribly helpful. We don’t need any more kings or princes or bishops . . . We need to find saints that connect to ordinary people. The cult of beautiful people and royalty and superstars—that should not be what the church is about.”
Leave aside the fact that when Pope John Paul II was canonizing thousands of “ordinary people,” Reese’s modernist friends complained that John Paul had turned the Vatican into a “saint factory.” What about the fact that Karl I was not a “beautiful person” when he died, but a hunted exile trying to keep his family alive—persecuted for having followed his beliefs, and for interfering with Woodrow Wilson’s vision?
Let’s remember what the likes of Thomas Reese regard as “helpful.” Reese was one of the theologians involved in leaking criticisms of the comprehensive Catechism of the Catholic Church to the media—even as bishops were still examining an early, secret draft. Reese led a campaign to try to sink the Catechism, apparently concerned that it would clear away the fogs of obfuscation he and his faction had been wafting since Vatican II. It certainly is less than “helpful” to the likes of Thomas Reese for modern Catholics to see examples of sanctity like Karl—men who weren’t contemporary liberals, or progressive “reformers,” but rather sternly brave, true to the institutions to which they were born, and humbly loyal to the teachings of their Church. Such men no doubt scare the skin off creatures like Reese, as they appalled Woodrow Wilson. Against their sterile sophistry, we now have the verdict of sanctity.
Comments
“This is the kind of canonization I don’t think is terribly helpful. We don’t need any more kings or princes or bishops . . . We need to find saints that connect to ordinary people.”
This kind of comment always causes my blood to boil. Who is this “we” that Fr. Reese speaks for? He certainly does not speak for me.
A man who did everything in his power to bring about peace and reconciliation in a time of war? And his life and virtue are not “terribly helpful” to us modern men and they world in which we live? But then why would they be? Its not like we have to worry about things like wars anymore.
Blessed Karl of Austria, pray for us.
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“Against their sterile sophistry, we now have the
verdict of sanctity.”
Amen. And against their heresies and armed doctrines
we have the Gospels, Magisterium and Sacraments.
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No arguments here! I think the “saint factory”
will someday be retooled and reorganized and
downsized but, until then, we can quite properly
pray to St. Pio of Pietrelcina and Blessed Karl
of Austria.
And where, may I ask, is Church discipline with re
to the likes of such individuals as Thomas Reese?
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Blessed be the saint factory, which gives Catholics
a sense of their own history.
The saints do not need the Chruch to proclaim their
glory. We need them to know what to strive for.
(Psss… John, one day I would like to see you write
about one of my favorite Blessed, Blessed Catherine
Jarrige, Catinon Mennette.)
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And where, may I ask, is Church discipline with re to the likes of such individuals as Thomas Reese?
“The Sentinel reporter quotes leftist Jesuit Thomas Reese, whom the Vatican forced to resign as editor of America...”
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Outstanding, attacking Woodrow the Worst, and praising the Austrian Empire, an noble institution destroyed by one of Satan’s tools: Nationalism.
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I support the canonization of His Imperial and Royal Highness Karl I,and i agree,Nationalism,a tool of the Devil!
my strong disliking of Wilson roots from the fact,that the dismantelation of Austria-hungary was one of his war aims!,by his hand he made possible for another world war to happen and millions to suffer
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I love to see the Catholic Church stick it to the ‘reformers’. Any one else notice the fury when they canonized the martyrs of the Spanish Civil War?
The hard left has a love affair with the Spanish Civil War. To me it is too close to approving of the Catholic genocide that occurred.
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The Neo-Cons will not be amused by any of this.
http://www.dioezese-linz.at/redaktion/index.php?action_new=Lesen&Article_ID=39194
When my son had to register with the selective service system (SSS) he wrote them a letter informing them he was a conscientious objector.
The SSS responded with a letter declaring that C.O. status was kaput due to no draft etc.
He still has a copy of his original letter.
The Catholic Church is a magnificent institution. Amongst all institutions on the planet,it alone deserves love and respect.
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To the People of the United States:
On Sunday, 28th of this present month, will occur the fourth anniversary of the day when the gallant people of Serbia, rather than submit to the studied and ignoble exactions of a prearranged foe, were called upon by the war declaration of Austria-Hungry to defend their territory and their homes against an enemy bent on their destruction. Nobly did they respond. (On June 28th, 1914 Gavrilo Princip Bosnian Serb assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand during his visit to Sarajevo)
So valiantly and courageously did they oppose the forces of a country ten times greater in population and resources that it was only after they had thrice driven the Austrians back and Germany and Bulgaria had come to the aid of Austria that they were compelled to retreat over the Albania. While their territory has been devastated and their homes despoiled, the spirit of the Serbian people has not been broken. Though overwhelmed by superior forces, their love of freedom remains unabated. Brutal force has left unaffected their firm determination to sacrifice everything for liberty and independence.
It is fitting that the people of the United States, dedicated to the self-evident truth that is the right of the people of all nations, small as well as great, to live their own lives and choose their own Government, and remembering that the principles for which Serbia has so nobly fought and suffered are those for which the United States is fighting, should on the occasion of this anniversary manifest in an appropriate manner their war sympathy with this oppressed people who have so heroically resisted the aims of the Germanic nations to master the world. At the same time, we should not forget the kindred people of the Great Slavic race–the Poles, the Czechs and Jugo-Slavs, who, now dominated and oppressed by alien races yearn for independence and national unity.
This can be done in a manner no more appropriate than in our churches. I, therefore, appeal to the people of the United States of all faiths and creeds to assemble in their several places of worship on Sunday July 28, for the purpose of giving expression to their sympathy with this subjugated people and their oppressed and dominated kindred in other lands, and to invoke the blessings of Almighty God upon them and upon the cause to which they are pledged.
Woodrow Wilson, President,
The White House, July, 1918.
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Mr. Samuel Gonzalez you wrote:
“I support the canonization of His Imperial and Royal Highness Karl I,and i agree,Nationalism,a tool of the Devil! my strong disliking of Wilson roots from the fact,that the dismantelation of Austria-hungary was one of his war aims!,by his hand he made possible for another world war to happen and millions to suffer”
It was both Serbia and Wilsonian America working together during WWI for the destruction of Austrian Hungarian Empire. WWII saw the Nazis continuing this policy of destruction of the Austrian Hungarian Empire with the implementing of a project called Case Otto,it’s aims were to make sure that the restoration of the Austrian Hungarian Empire never materialized:all three destroyers of the Hapsburg Empire: Serbia, Wilsonian America,& Nazi Germany succeeded:
3 April 46 Nuremberg Trial Proceedings:
DR. NELTE: But in it you find a reference to a “Case Otto,” and you know that that was the affair with Austria.
KEITEL: Of course I remember the Case Otto, which indicated by its name that it concerns Otto von Hapsburg. There must have been — were of course — certain reports about an attempted restoration, and in that case an intervention, eventually an armed one, was to take place. The Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, wished to prevent a restoration of the monarchy in Austria. Later this came up again in connection with the Anschluss. I believe that I can omit that now and perhaps explain later. In any event, we believed that on the basis of the deliberations by the Army some sort of preparations were being made which would bring into being Case Otto, because the code word was “Case Otto comes into force.”
DR. NELTE: You mean to say that no concrete orders were given in regard to Case Otto on the basis of this general directive?
KEITEL: You mean the Anschluss at the beginning of February?
DR. NELTE: I beg your pardon?
KEITEL: I can state here only what I experienced when Hitler sent me to the Army. I went into General Beck’s office and said: “The Fuehrer demands that you report to him immediately and inform him about the preparations which have already been made for a possible invasion of Austria”, and General Beck then said, “We have prepared nothing; nothing has been done, nothing at all.”
Again from the Nuremberg Trial Proceedings:
Directive from General Von Blomberg states….
“And the directive finally indicates that there might be special preparations for war against Austria. I quote from Part 3, (V Special Case Otto, Page 4 of the English text, and Page 19 of the German text.) “Case Otto”, as you will repeatedly see, was the standing code name for aggressive war against Austria. I quote: “Armed intervention in Austria in the event of her restoring the monarchy.”…..
“The object of this operation will be to compel Austria by armed force to give up a restoration.”….
“Making use of the domestic political divisions of the Austrian people, the march in will be made in the general direction of Vienna, and will break any resistance.”
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Blessed Karl of Austria Emperor and King Beatification and Canonization site:
http://emperorcharles.org/index.html
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“As a multi-ethnic state based not on 19th century nationalism but ancient dynastic loyalty cemented by a majority Catholic faith”
Except it wasn’t a state, it was an empire, held together by the same vicious methods of all such multi-ethnic empires, and the subject peoples pretty much demonstrated their “dynastic loyalty” by departed from this glorious union at the earliest opportunity. It was also, of course, the same system that started the war in the first place.
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@ John Smith
No Mr.Smith Serb aggression started WWI. Nationalism in it’s purest form,all for greater serbia. The Serbs did not want to be ruled by the Austrian Hungarian Empire. THe Serbs wanted independence from this Hapsburg rule.
Re-read President Wilson’s address above:
“the self-evident truth that is the right of the people of all nations, small as well as great, to live their own lives and choose their own Government, and remembering that the principles for which Serbia has so nobly fought and suffered are those for which the United States is fighting”...which is the the destruction of the Old Westphalian order to usher in the New World Order.
Mr Smith (is Smith a serb name now?) How times have changed. I hate political hypocricy but it’s fun to point out the errors of the nationalists.
Here goes:
“...to live their own lives and choose their own Government, and remembering that the principles for which Serbia has so nobly fought and suffered are those for which the Kosovo nation is fighting for..... Ha ha ha ha
What goes around comes around. What? Serbs get to determine their own government and declare their independance from the Austrian Hungarian rule, but today the Kosovars are not allowed to chose their own independance from Serbian rule? If this is not political hyprocricy I don’t know what is. ha ha ha So long Serb Smith…
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Mr. Smith, if he reads much of this site, knows that my heart is with the small statelette, the polis, not the centralized “Nation” of the Whigs, assorted Nationalists, and the Jacobins; nor is it really with empire. Still, his facts are wrong in two ways.
1. The Austrian Empire was held together by
i. the most prestigious royal house in Europe
ii. a common religion—the Catholic Faith and (during the 19th C) toleration for Jews
iii a common culture with related folkways
iv. common enemies.
During World War I, there was really no ethnic rebellion against the Empire, except in Bosnia. The British, on the other hand, and an ethnic rebellion in Ireland, the Turks in Palestine and Arabia. And we know what happened in the Tsar’s empire.
2. These factors (i-iv) did not cause the Six Weeks War or World War I. Nationalism did. In general, anti-Royalism, Nationalism, Judeophobia, and secularization have been scourges.
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Dear mufti:
Reese spent a year-long sabbatical at Santa Clara
University before being named a Fellow at the
Woodstock Theological Center in Washington, DC,
a nice modernist, ecumenical, global, interreligious
institute at Georgetown University [allegedly
Catholic], where he will continue to spread his
poison garbed as a Jesuit in “good standing.”
Yeah, that’s discipline.... Maybe he got a cut
in pay and has to wear a hairshirt once a week?
And what a perfect place Santa Clara was for him:
http://www.traditioninaction.org/RevolutionPhotos/A210rcJesuitDragShow.htm
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Shorter Zmirak!!
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Gerson is full of beans.
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The destruction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was
a catastrophe for Europe, and Wilson was something
worse than a scoundrel, he was an utter fool who
thought that the world was his toy to do as he wished.
The world is still paying for his mistakes.
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Dear Jet,
Alas, I would like to have a written a shorter blog, but I did not have the time, so I had to write a long one.
I do hope the readers enjoy my occasional self-deprecating asides. I would write self-aggrandizing ones, but I do not have the material.
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Dear Jet,
Alas, I would like to have a written a shorter blog, but I did not have the time, so I had to write a long one.
Yes, Im sure editing takes time...=P
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John, I certainly recognize your literary and intellectual talents and I agree that Gerson is rather wrong on many points.
Yet, I fail to see how rehashing Woodrow Wilson helps to push ‘the crazies’, as Powell called them, out. The crazies see religion as a tool to yoke the masses. Wether St. Karl made it to heaven or not is, to them, a moot point.
To them, you/we exist in a ‘reality based’ existence of religious/media smoke and mirrors. Truth is objective to them and lies are useful.
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Yes, Jet. Editing does take time. That is why editors are hired to do it. Edited copy is what you expect to find in ARTICLES, in magazines and on Web sites where people are paid by the word, and editors are hired to edit them. I have been an editor, for many years. What I am writing here is a BLOG. It is meant to have a certain spontaneity, which brings with it a bit of RAWNESS. Indeed, by reading a blog, you are essentially eating straight out of the refrigerator. If you prefer restaurant food, please go visit one.
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If you prefer restaurant food, please go visit one.
Posted by John Zmirak
I despise it. BTW how was the food on your trip?
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I understand that blogs are spontaneus, but you seem to dwell in history, and which I said before, you are intellectually correct in, but trying to apply then to now, I feel is a mistake that causes humanity to repeat said history and subjects your cause to the whim of those who wish to use it for their gain.
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By Rawness I ‘spose you mean Gerson is full of beans? =)
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ZMIRAK: John Zmirak is a conservative who misses the days when the left and the right could talk to each other. Nowadays, it’s a constant screamfest, and in our niche media, partisans of both sides can hide in their own echo chambers to avoid having to confront arguments they don’t like…
John????
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Dear Jet,
I’ll answer in another blog, okay? Later this week. Thanks,
John
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I have no clue about Karl, as he is pretty much a non-entity as far as Balkan history goes. I have no doubt he loved his wife, was good to his children, and kind to stray animals. But this Hapsburgostalgia is abolute crap. The Empire was originally a grouping of several differing Kingdoms in order to fight the Turks. It succeeded, but sort of like NATO today, lingered on, lookin for a purpose. The subtlety of the history might escape some of you wackier Catholic traditionalists, but by the late 18th century the Old Empire was one of the primary supporters of the ‘Enlightenment’. Wiki Maria Teresa and Joseph II. By the 19th century it turned its back on Christians of the Eastern Kind, being more concerned with its state interests than with its original purpose. It was neld together through spies and censorship. It tried to impose German language on a both the Hungarians and Croatians (eliminating not Hungarian or Croatian but Latin as the language of politics, btw). When it occupied Bosnia it systematically favored the Muslims to the detriment of both Catholics and Orthodox.
The late Austro-Hungarian empire was evil.
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Very nice work. John. Thank you for reminding us of Blessed Karl’s progress toward sainthood—and of the nature of his detractors.
Blessed Karl, ora pro nobis.
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It’s worth noting that General Patraeus earned his Ph.D. (1987) in International Relations from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University (see Wikipedia). Catholics in Iraq may want to implore the intervention of Blessed Karl to protect them from further evangelization of “democracy” of the Woodrow Wilson variety.
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It is as if protestants like Wilson don’t have/believe in the Church and resort to vain sacrifice in the world.
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Stari momak:
The Austro hungarian empire evil? Compared to what?
Ethnic-cleasning Serbia with its rape camps?
People who live in glass houses should not get stoned.
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I landed in your religious muck of a blog via Rockwell and I have to ask myself what sort of sin I must have committed to have been subjected to the rotting goo that apparently is your mind and soul.
So religion isn’t about giving voice to the voiceless, caring for the poor and all of the other ‘Progressive social gospels mistaken for Jesus’ eh? It is, rather, about wondrous miracles! “Scream the name of Jesus and fall backward! Halleluyah!”
Allowing billions of human beings to suffer in agony while you freely go about singing “greed is good!” and amass your fortunes is all right with the Lord so long as you believe every cockamanee bullshit story of miraculous salvation to come down the pike. Why pay for the healthcare of the poor when Jesus himself can heal them?
Sweet bleeding Jesus on the cross,,, your pseudo-religious squeals make a cruel mockery of the sigh of every prophet. Go buy yourself a camel and a pin—barring that, I’m pretty sure I’ll see you in hell.
mnuez
http://www.mnuez.blogspot.com
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“Ethnic-cleasning Serbia with its rape camps?”
Adriana: I don’t care for what this poster posted about the Habsburgs, but your above post is <a href=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/may/19/usa.comment>a dirty lie</a>!
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Thanks for a fine post, Mr. Zmirak.
Blessed Karl, ora pro nobis.
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The Austro-Hungarian Empire was held together by brute force, the way all such empires are held together, and, as I said above, those being crushed by the oppressors in Vienna took the first opportunity available to throw off the yoke of “The most prestigious royal house in Europe”; they voted with their feet and that cold, hard, fact makes silly meanderings about the voluntary nature of the empire meaningless. A common culture with common folkways! And toleration for Jews held the empire together! It is to laugh.
Karl is known for abolishing flogging, dueling, and other abuses in the army he briefly commanded [which obviously existed till that late date], restricting [but not ending] the use of poison gas and civilian bombing, and attempting to decentralize power among the ethnic groups of his polyglot monarchy[in an attempt to stave off its fragmentation as the subject peoples naturally strove for freedom] ,which he came to rule in 1917.
No serious case can be made that nationalism causes more wars than, say, religion and certainly not more than either imperialism (which, by definition, is built on war and oppression) or internationalism. The nation isn’t going to disappear as an entity any time soon. It exists because it has survival benefits, the organized have an advantage over the disorganized. All the is really happening is that the West is disappearing and its place will be taken by those nations that don’t by into the suicidal beliefs of multiculturalism, and (THIS IS WHAT REALLY MATTERS) the destruction of the West and the extermination of its peoples is the sole, real goal of those who quack on about nationalism. They are white hating racists advocating genocide by other means. Internationalists just as genocidal as Nazis. There is simply no chance that some pie-in-the-sky “polis”, or statelets or international order is going to replace the state anytime soon, and when you take away that little bit of ridiculous fiction all you are left with is the advocacy of destruction.
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