Banishing Nostalgia
How do you handle a romance between a Europhile Yankee (from New York CITY, no less) who pines for the Habsburgs and a patriotic sorority girl from Texas? Gingerly, with generous quantities of wit and Belgian beer (though she prefers Lone Star).
The woman I love and I differ about a wide variety of things. We’re both orthodox Catholics who prefer the Latin Mass, and share the same (twisted) sense of humor, which is what has kept each of us sane throughout the decades. Those are the really important things. But we’ve got a fair bit to argue about, once you move to secondary and tertiary issues--and that keeps it all exciting.
You see, my intended is the daughter of the Founders, a direct descendant of Chief Justice John Marshall--whose life of George Washington I studied while co-writing a script on Col. Washington’s exploits in the French and Indian War (which young George personally STARTED, by the way) for “Gettysburg” director Ron Maxwell. On the other side, this lovely lady descends from prominent German-American journalists and doctors--including one friend of Mencken’s, and Louisiana’s first female professor of surgery-- who was also one of the earliest opponents of Margaret Sanger. She married a brilliant editor who led the fight in print against Huey Long. And then her family moved to Texas--where the locals can’t decide whether they’re Americans or Texans first. Happily, there hasn’t been a conflict between the two identities since 1865. But if someone doesn’t do something about the Border soon, the subject of boundaries might come up again. (Non-Hispanic whites are now a minority in the state. Nothing against the other folks--except how they tend to VOTE.)
Anyway, this lady and I like to argue about our political allegiances. While I gladly acknowledge what I think is great about America, and pray with regularity for our soldiers off in combat, I am, I fear, guilty of dual loyalty: I treasure a deeper fealty to the Austro-Hungarian monarchy from which my grandparents came, which was home to perhaps the liveliest culture in Europe. Except for a few dark moments, it was more tolerant than Protestant England or Gallican France, and served as home to a glorious panoply of races and religions--all bound together, sometimes a little reluctantly, by a dynastic ideal that was the furthest thing from an ideology. It produced many of our civilization’s greatest thinkers, writers, artists and musicians--and when it was replaced, every inch of its territory was occupied first by Hitler, then by Stalin. Yeah, that was a real improvement.
And I must admit I feel a certain resentment when I think of the man who decreed the destruction of that Empire--Woodrow Wilson. That messianic post-Protestant (as Pat Buchanan detailed in his latest book, Wilson informed the Paris peace conference in 1919 that he had come to complete the work of Jesus) made the dismantling of Austria Hungary one of his primary war aims, and intervened to prevent a peace proposed by Benedict XV and the Blessed Karl I. That delay claimed perhaps a million lives, let the Bolsheviks take power in Europe, and handed the Central Power for many months to the Reds. The Red terror led directly to the rise of the Freikorps and later the fascists.
For a wide variety of reasons, religious, aesthetic, and eccentric, I think of myself as a subject not of President George Bush, but of the man who should be king (and emperor), Otto von Habsburg. I have friends who’ve met him, but have never had the privilege. I would like to meet the man, bend the knee and kiss his hand. If he gave me an order that wasn’t sinful I would follow it. Period.
All of which leaves my Texas girlfriend pretty cold, as you might imagine. “That is so… weird,” she remarks. And I’ll admit it is. I have tried to transfer my sympathies completely to the U.S.--without success. I’ve concentrated on the issues where she and I agree: We each think that the American experiment was exciting and worth a try. To establish a large, decentralized Republic where local liberties could flourish, the common man could hold onto his property and rise in the world, and the state would largely leave him alone. A place where power would mostly rest at the county level, a little more at the state, and least of all with the Feds. That model perfectly mirrors--of all things--the teaching of the Catholic Church called subsidiarity, which calls for such decentralism. The foreign policy laid out by George Washington seems modeled on Just War teaching. The separation of Church and State, while condemned by Catholics at first, in practice (until the court decisions of the 60s) did a good job of freeing the churches from corrupting dependence on the state--in some ways helping to recreate the independence of the Church which helped keep the Middle Ages so much freer than the Renaissance or the Endarkenment. Indeed, as Michael Davies (ruefully) observed, the Vatican’s teaching on religious liberty, enshrined at Vatican II, is American-inspired, and was pushed hardest by bishops from the U.S.
And so on. There’s a lot about this country’s history to love. She and I agree on that. That’s the reason each of us has been taking part in Ron Paul’s money bombs, to support the one prominent figure in our politics who actually supports the policies and principles upon which this country was founded.
That’s the America my beloved’s ancestors helped found, and while it may not be a benevolent, liberal Catholic monarchy, it’s a pretty good second choice. Or was, while it lasted. As Thomas DiLorenzo and others have documented, the Civil War spelled the end of real initiative on the state level. The artificial “crisis” of World War I, Robert Higgs explains in “Crisis and Leviathan,” helped nationalize large chunks of our economy--which were never given back. The same thing happened with each ensuring war. The income tax legalized a level of confiscation no feudal king would have attempted, and the draft made Everyman a pawn in the imperial games of presidents like Truman and Kennedy. How free are you, exactly, when the president can force you to go fight a proxy war in Korea or Vietnam, in the name of preserving “liberty” for the citizens of U.S-friendly dictatorships?
No, the America loved by my beloved is long gone, and too little lamented. In Ron Paul she and I each see the last flicker of hope for that old vision. And it’s a stirring sight, all the citizens who are turning out to work for him. But in the end, I fear it’s just another piece of nostalgia for an America that was killed in 1917, by the same man who destroyed my ancestral empire. Ron Paul is the rightful heir to that Republic, as Otto is for the Empire. And each has about the same chance of coming to power.
So my love can listen to her Texas waltz, while I’ll stick to the Viennese. We can each speak with piety of what we lost, and light little votive candles to our respective ancestral gods. There’s nothing really to fight about. We’re just a pair of dreamers.
Comments
<<Non-Hispanic whites are now a minority in the state. Nothing against the other folks--except how they tend to VOTE.>>
You mean like my Southern Democrat Catholic family?!? Those bastards always vote for the Democrat candidate instead of the Republicans (as if it makes much of a difference!) My grandfather even told me once he just might vote for Jesse Jackson! To this day those Southern Democrat Catholics are voting for either H. Clinton or Obama! Why, the audacity! How dare they? Don’t they know that it is the responsibility of self respecting Southerners to vote fore “respectable” candidates like GW Bush or John McCain or Rudy McRomney?!
In the REAL reality, the people in the south that have been uninfluenced by both reality and Yankeeism still vote Democrat. This goes for both “White” Catholic Southern Democrats and the only “hold outs” I’ve found in the South: Cajun Democrats and Hispanic Democrats in the South. Everyone else are either carpetbaggers or scalawags, and I mean that seriously.
<<For a wide variety of reasons, religious, aesthetic, and eccentric, I think of myself as a subject not of President George Bush>>
That, sir, makes you un-American. You HATE America. Why? Why do you hate Democracy, that is “God”. After all, God is Democracy, God is Liberty, God is Equality, why God is even Fraternity! Right? Oh, maybe not...Surely you don’t oppose the Revolution, do you?
<<establish a large, decentralized Republic where local liberties could flourish>>
You mean more like the EU and less like the USofA, right? No? Oh, where did you get confused? Was it 1865? How did that happen?
<<Indeed, as Michael Davies (ruefully) observed, the Vatican’s teaching on religious liberty, enshrined at Vatican II, is American-inspired>>
Er, uh, yeah...good job...OK...I get your point, it’s probably better not to mention it, thanks.
<<There’s a lot about this country’s history to love.>>
A slow, drawn out Revolution against the Church, founded by God Himself...hey, what’s there not to love? Is it the Liberty, the Equality, the Fraternity that you “love”? Is that it?
<<That’s the reason each of us has been taking part in Ron Paul’s money bombs, to support the one prominent figure in our politics who actually supports the policies and principles upon which this country was founded.>>
You mean the REVOLUTION??? Admit it.
<<the America loved by my beloved is long gone>>
HURRAH! Our champion has come to his senses!
<<my love can listen to her Texas waltz, while I’ll stick to the Viennese.>>
They are yet the same, at heart! Strive for the separation of Texas from America, and remember that Texas is Tejano! With God’s Grace, may the Hapsburgs rise again and rule Tejas!!!
VIVA CRISTO REY!!!!
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Mr. Z. I love your posts. I do think your reliance upon Michael Davies is unwise. He was spot on wrong about Dignatatis Humanae.
It is fair to conclude that, notwithstanding the very substantial contribution of John Courtney Murray’s thought to the Declaration on Religious Liberty, the document finally promulgated by the Council, understood correctly in the light of its textual history and the official explanations given to the Fathers by the relator, did not adopt Murray’s novel opinion - an opinion contrary to all Catholic tradition and to weighty pronouncements of the Church’s magisterium - that society’s public authorities in principle need not, and indeed may not, recognize the unique truth of Catholicism, and express that recognition appropriately in their official acts. Unfortunately Murray and many other commentators in the twenty-five years since the Declaration was promulgated have presented Dignitatis Humanae to the world as though it had endorsed this unapproved opinion, even though in fact the document ended up by reaffirming (albeit in muted tones) the traditional contrary thesis.
http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt34.html
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“the Renaissance or the Endarkenment.”
Ha. Endarkenment. I like that.
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THANK you, non-Spartacus! I just read that essay you recommended, by the worthy Fr. Harrison. It was quite definitive, to wit: The Church at Vatican II DID adopt the principle that states should be religiously tolerant (like the Habsburgs), rather than religiously neutral (like the U.S.). Score one more for me in my running ‘feud’ with the gorgeous Texas girl!
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Thanks for the assault on Woodrow the Worst. And thanks for plugging DiLorenzo; get ready for his new book on Hamilton the Horrible. And I’d gladly welcome a voluntary Confederation of Europe with Otto as Kaiser. From 1770 until 1933, Mitteleuropa was the center of our civilization.
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I have found my new king, Otto is his name. I think it is time for me to embrace my Austrian heritage.. Looking forward to the next money bomb on Martin Luther King day. Ron Paul is big on civil disobedience. This America thing has never worked for me either. It did for a long while as a child but I learned that there is something else at work here and it really isn’t all about bringing civilization to the rest of the world.
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I would think that anyone who admires the US founding would be horrified at the suggestion that a society needs to recognize the “unique truth” of Catholicism!! Thank god there were no ultramontanist theocrats among the Founders who would have confused liberty with license. As for J. C. Murray, he was as anti-American as any pre-Vatican II Catholic, since he argued that the Founders were woefully ignorant of Catholic Natural Law. My only advice: if the Catholic Right hates American traditions of liberty and republicanism so much, they can always retreat into the imaginary ancien regime of their minds and leave the rest of us alone.
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Well, Mr. Spinozist, those traditions of liberty and republicanism seem not to have survived here-- alas!--or Ron Paul would be getting more than 10% of the REPUBLICAN vote in NEW HAMPSHIRE. So your desired regime is every bit as imaginary as mine.
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Just a point to be made about the New Hampshire numbers. From what I understand it is an open primary and one can vote for any candidate they choose. A number of Democrats have supported Ron Paul as well as independents.
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I recall hearing Fr. Harrison’s discussion of Fr. Murray at a FUS seminar on the same in about 1990, complete with Fritz Wilhelmsen in attendance, too. I don’t have time now to go back to reread the RTF piece, but have kind of come around to the view that what is evidently does, that is providing a reading of DH in continuity with Tradition, is the necessary thing.
As a native (and still resident) Texian, while I would greatly prefer Otto as our King, I think we have to recognize that Juan Carlos has the better claim. And he has his good qualities as well. No doubt fostered by great Carlists like Fr. Suarez, his former tutor. And with him, we could have the Spanish Legion, another great plus.
I congratulate John on his good taste in intendeds and wish the both you all the best. A small cautionary note: to those of us who have grown up in the relatively wide open spaces of Texas, New York (or Boston, in my case) can seem awfully cramped and dirty. Y’all may have to migrate down here and help the rest of us stave off (or postpone) la Reconquista.
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But I would hasten to add, joining Mr. Capp, and repeating the words of Bl. Miguel Pro, one of whose relics is at our parish, and Bl. Jose Luis Sanchez del Rio,:
“Viva Cristo Rey!”
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Mr. Zmirak:
Yes, Ron Paul’s numbers are low. And, yes, that is not a victory for the cause of Protestant liberty in our time. My view, however, is that the tradition which Dr. Paul builds on has a better chance of winning more support among Americans than a romanticist return to an imaginary tradition that never took root in the US (not even the South, which has always been overwhelmingly Protestant). I doubt that Dr. Paul would have any more sympathy with a restoration of the ancien regime than he would with the neocon hegemony.
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Surveying the republics of the world shows them all to be in anadvanced state of decay (with the possible exception of Switzerland). This suggests to me that republics are inherently unstable and eventually land in the laps of the highest bidders (an unsavory class).
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“Religiously neutral (like the U.S.)” ? Religiously indiscriminate perhaps but hardly ‘neutral”.
Personally, I’m not neutral, I don’t like any of em but I’d still happily thump anybody who suggested theirs was better than anybody elses. Except perhaps for those new-age whiz-bangers who detect in the pleasures of the health spa some kind of Space Age Benediction.
Although I can think of few things more enjoyable than having an espresso in Adolph Loos’ “American Bar” in Vienna, pondering that magnificent cultural intersection of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, I don’t think it quite worth bending on knee to anyone simply by virtue of an accident of birth. Accidents of birth had no better record than the equally poor record of Democratic Republics because Humans, well..........they’re unfortunately human, fortunately.
Listening to a conversation between Mr. Zmirak and his Austro-Hungarian reveries and that of his Bride and her Texas Nationalism is just one more bit of quixotic pleasure that makes this land of mutts worth getting exercised over.
Still though, the “secular governments” of modern history, from the Bolsheviks to the Yanks.... aside from a technological ability that is breathtaking.... aint created much to speak of in the arts that will be studied much beyond the present era. One has to dig as much to discover treasure amidst the current output as did any of the original archaeologists of Rome or Egypt . Maybe because of the volume , there is a lot hiding in plain sight.
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Sounds like you’ve been reading Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn. His argument for a mixed system, incorporating Catholicism and monarchy while eccentric are also persuasive when taken in detail. It’s a shame most of his books are out of print.
He was once the European correspondent for the National Review long ago when it was a conservative journal. If you haven’t read him I suggest you do, if for no other reason than for his critique of democracy and post-Christian social thought.
I doubt that he is still alive. If he is he is very old indeed.
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Dear Mr. Meehan,
Ah, you spotted it! I read the great Ritter’s “Leftism: From de Sade to Hitler” when I was 16, including all the footnotes, and it shaped my views for life! I came across him in the good old NR, which also ran Molnar and Sobran--two major influences on my writing ever since. I wrote K-L a letter with a piece of my youthful prose, and he was kind enough to send me an encouraging postcard. I never met him until I was in my mid-30s and he in his late 90s--at a Philly Soc meeting hosted by ISI in honor of Ropke, about whom I was just finishing a book. Here’s the pic:
http://www.phillysoc.org/zmirerik.jpg
A great moment for me! I’m now co-editing a Molnar book, and hope to help bring some of K-L’s books back out in future.
Prost!
John
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Dear Dr. Zmirak:
You are lucky to have met the great Knight of Lans.
I have only visited his grave.
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