Monarchs, Emperors and Madmen

 Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain died this week.  Our TV coverage has been extensive, more than any other foreign dignitary that I can recall.  Britain has, perhaps, the best, most stable monarchy in the world. It is also true that Elizabeth was a great monarch; steady, smart and measured.  She deserved all the accolades she has received.  Under the British Parliament system, legislative power rests with it, not the monarch. This has been the case since the early 18th century.  

When the monarch ruled he/she had all the power.  The monarch was the king, the legislature and the judge.  He/she could order anyone to be killed at will, as did King Henry VIII.  I've always been fascinated at how a country, of say, 60 + million people can be ruled by one person as was the case prior to the parliamentary system.  The king/queen was selected by accident of being born to the right person and place.  No experience necessary.  No rationality need be demonstrated.  In many cases, as with Henry VIII, you could be insane and could be killed at will.  He could order your people to go to war, whether it was necessary or not; just on his/her whim.  Indeed a tyrant.  Tyrants are with us today.  Just look at China, North Korea, or Russia.  The people have no voice, only the tyrant.  The British corrected the sinking ship when they started the parliamentary ship.  Very few other countries has been able to throw off the tyrant.  For this reason, the British throne stands out as the best possible monarchy.  The rest of the world should take some lessons; few will ever do.

The Roman Empire started with a Republic, which was very successful until the time of Julius Caesar.  Most of the territory of the empire was already in place by the time the Emperors started, with Caesar Augustus who reigned from 27 BC to 14 AD.  Augustus was a good emperor but many who followed him were not.  Nero who was probably insane, as was Henry VIII of Britain, ended up burning Rome.  Other Roman emperors were equally bad.  These men were tyrants with total control.  They could order the murder of anyone who may be a threat to them, whether real or imagined.  

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th century, the Eastern Roman Empire took over and lasted another thousand years.  The Byzantines, as they were called were ruled by emperors, or tyrants.  By the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 with the fall of Constantinople by the invading Turks, the empire was left with the city of Constantinople by itself.  Each emperor, ran it down.  Suffice it to say, emperors and tyrants do not have a successful history of rule.

Three Examples of Man's Inhumanity to Man

In the sad story of man's inhumanity to man, there are many examples.  For this piece I will concentrate on three such examples:  The Jewish holocaust of World War II and related Jewish oppression, the oppression of blacks in the United States and the outrageous incarceration of Japanese-Americansd by FDR in World War II.

There is no denying that Jews have been one of the most oppressed and brutulized people in our world.  You need look no farther than the Nazi holocaust, in which more than six million of our brothers and sisters were murdered simply for having a religion different than ours.  To put it in perspective, that would be the equivalent of, say, us rounding up all Baptists, or all Catholics in America and sending them to a death camp.  There can be no rationalization of what the Nazis did. The rational person, looking at history, would have to conclude that Jews were and are some of the best citizens any country can have.  They are self-reliant, law-abiding and successful people any country can have.  Look at industry, art and music.  There you will find that Jews are dominant.  Many have considered this as a reason to discriminate against them, but that would be just jealousy and envy.   There are so many examples.  The Spanish Inquisition of the 15th Century was one of them.  Many Jews were forced out of their homes and country just for being Jewish.  In my small little home town of Geraci Siculo, Sicily, it is estimated that during the Spanish Inquisition there were 53 Jewish households in a town of about 2,500 people.  They were all ordered deported by the Spanish authorities of the day.  The result being a loss for the country that ejected them. 

Blacks in the United States were legally discriminated against from the beginning of slavery until recent times.  If you were black you could not attend the same church, the same restaurant, the same hotel, the same bathroom, etc. This is akin to, say, doing the same to all people with red hair, or all people that are darker in skin color than you; its so preposterous that it takes your breath away.  Most societies have their own social ladder and  to a certain extent, discrimination.  So, in Italy, for example, the Sicilian is considered lower than the northerner.  This about as equal as saying that your neighbor across the street is lower than you because he/she livers across he street and all who live across the street are not as good as you. Insanity. In England, for example, if you're Catholic you can't be the Prime Minister to this day.  In the United States, up to 1960, if you're Catholic you could not be elected to high political office or belong to a certain country club.  In the academy, if you don't follow Darwinian evolution, you cannot teach there, to this day.  Now, I just heard the other day in the news that unless you have a "woke" world view you cannot apply to a college job.  I know, I know, that this sounds crazy; it is.  Click here for the story.

The third example is the incarceration of innocent Japanese-Americans in World War II by Franklin Roosevelt.  These were the country's best citizens; successful, law abiding, industrious and self sufficient.  How many Japanese Americans are in your state prisons?  Not that many.  How many Japanese Americans are on welfare?  Not that many.  Upon signing of Executive Order 9066, over 110,000 innocent Japanese Americans were rounded up like common criminals, and put in concentration camps. The camps were in the worst part of the country, such as Manzanar in in the cold/hot windy California desert.  I know, I know, relocation camps they called them.  Well that is akin to calling Guantanamo Prison in Cuba a nursery.  In July 2021  I visited Manzanar; the temperature was 105 and the wind so strong I could not stay outside of my car.  Heart Mountain in Wyoming was in the cold, freezing and unforgiving part of the state. Be sure to watch the video documentary of Heart Mountain by David Ono. Most, if not all, lost their house, their business and all they owned.  Very little was returned to them.  President Reagan in the 1980s, over 45 years later, apologized and gave the survivors $20,000 in compensation, a pittance to what most had lost.

The Evil of Religious Hate: Why Can't We Just Get Along?

 England and/or Britain ruled Ireland for over 700  years.  The Irish were their closest brothers in terms of culture or ethnicity.  The British, however, were the most brutal to their Irish brothers; ruling the island with an iron hand.  After the Reformation Penal laws were passed against Catholics in Ireland banning all forms of Catholic worship.  The British were so brutal to the Irish that in the 19th century they allowed the Potato famine.  Over one million Irish perished.  The British Empire, at the time the dominant world power, could have easily stopped the famine but chose to let their Irish brothers die instead.  This is one of the best examples of man's inhumanity to man.  King Henry VIII started this avalanche of hate.  If you study his history, it's not hard to figure out that he was probably clinically insane.  Killing his closest advisors just because he could, as he did to the brilliant Sir Thomas More; two of his wives and many others. Yet the British followed his insanity as if it was handed down by God.  Over 500 years after the crazy Henry VIII, his legacy lives on in Britain.  Catholics are still second class citizens.  Although the monarchy has been defanged, the sentiment started by Henry continues.

On our trip to Ireland in 2011 we had a terrific bus driver who told us Irish stories and played Irish music on our journey.  Some of the stories were so compelling that it brought many of us to tears, especially after hearing the song, such as "The Rose of Tralee."  Stories of people not being able to fish or find other sources of food.  Stories of priests risking their lives by saying Mass in hiding.  You keep asking the question, why?  Why were people so cruel to each other as the British to the Irish?  The short answer is religion.  But why must religion make you hate your brother?  This question has no short answer.  It is a sad tale of our human condition.  

So the question, for me, is why does Northern Ireland choose to stay with its oppressor of old and not join the free Irish state?  Again, religion comes to mind.  Catholics and Protestants.  Both Christians, both follow the same Bible so why the hate?  To this day the British still consider their Catholic brothers and sisters as some sort of enemy, or second class citizens.  When the British Prime Minister was Tony Blair - one of my favorite politicians of all time; he wanted to convert to Catholicism but had to wait to do it until he left office because you cannot be a Catholic and be the British Prime Minister.  Is this insane or what?  Up to 1960, if you were Catholic in the United States you were looked upon as not desirable to hold high office.  

Today we have the Muslim problem with 9/11 and the war on terrorism.  Even inside Islam you have inner struggles and hate among the Sunnis and the Shiites.  Why?  As someone suggested in the 1990s:  Can we just get along?  

A House Built on Sand: The fall of the Soviet Union

"But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."  Matthew 7:26

Just finished reading a fine book, "Collapse the Fall of the Soviet Union" by Vladislav M. Zubok, about the shocking collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.  I was a witness to this historic event.  I never imagined that a giant like the Soviet Union would fall in my lifetime.  I recall, in the 1960s, there was a hysteria about the US being attacked by the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons.  People worried about it on a daily basis.  At the suggestion of President Kennedy, many had underground shelters, preparing for it; it was a scary time.  The leader of the Soviet Union until 1964 was Nikita Khrushchev, the very evil looking and threatening person. He threatened to destroy the US from within.  Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis?  The Soviets were threatening.  They came within 90 miles of our shores. They were on the march.

As most events, they don't happen in a vacuum.  The Soviet Union was started after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the World War I.  It lasted 73 years.  The reasons are many and varied and it takes a book such as the one mentioned to explain it in detail.  Suffice it to say that Socialism and Communism have been proven to be a bankrupt system.  This book gives detailed analysis of how it developed.  Not only for the tyrannical rule and the suppression of its people but because basic economics just do not work well in such a system.  As the book describes, the communists had no idea how economics work.  The Soviet Union was a deck of cards waiting for the wind to blow them down.  

Many have speculated, and rightly so, in my view, that President Reagan and his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) had a lot to do with the fall of the Soviets; the author does not share this belief.  However, the seeds of its own destruction had been present since 1918.  By the mid 1980s the Soviet economy was in shambles.  They could not compete with the US; not militarily and certainly not economically. The Nobel laureate, and great American economist, Milton Friedman explains why a free market is ideal. Click here for this short answer (three minutes).  In short, free markets operate the best and are more efficient.  In order to have free markets you need freedom.  The Soviet Union had none of these, so the fall was very predictable.

The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, recognized that the Soviet Union was nearly bankrupt and could not stand on its own economically.  He was a committed communist and follower of Vladimir Lenin.  He proposed changing the Soviet economy into a free market economy.  He could not make it happen.  He proposed giving the 16 Soviet republics more autonomy and freedom.  Once he did this it opened a Pandora's box.  All the republics wanted to be free and independent.  He could not keep the genie in the bottle. Finally, in the fall of 1991 the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

With the Russian war on Ukraine that is currently going on, you get a glimpse of the Russian designs on Ukraine from before the fall of the Soviet Union.  The evil Vladimir Putin has been planning on the rape of Ukraine since he took power in 1998.  Written by a Russian insider, the book is a compelling story, with much drama and personal sacrifice by many who took part.  Highly recommended for history buffs.

No Pasaràn

 Shortly after the invasion of Ukraine by the Russians, I posted a comment on my Facebook page about the world needing to come to the aid of the Ukrainians.  A relative of mine from Italy posted a response to the effect that he did not believe that war was the answer and that the Russian people need to decide who leads them.  In other words, the usual hackneyed call of "war is not the answer."  Well, I agree, war is never the answer.  I participated in a war in Vietnam in the 1960s.  I know first hand what war is.  So what do you do when some hoodlums break into your house with guns with the intent of killing you and your family and taking your property?  Do you just say, I'm against war and violence?  What did the Europeans do when they were attacked by Adolf Hitler in World War II?  Do you not defend yourself?

In an interview with CNN and a piece in the Italian Daily newspaper, Corriere Della Sera, former Russian Oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, explains the mind set of Vladimir Putin, the insane tyrant of Russia.  Khodorkovsky explains that Putin only understands force, negotiations or diplomacy are useless. He knows Putin like no one else.  He was a close associate of his until he displeased him somehow.  He was arrested and spent 10 years in a Russian prison.  

Putin is not an isolated case.  Diplomacy was tried by the Europeans in 1938 with Hitler when the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain proclaimed "peace in our time" when they let him have part of Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland.  Hitler invaded the rest of Europe shortly thereafter.  Was "war is not the answer" then? There are dozens of other examples.  In short, "war is not the answer" is a fool's response to violence.

Before Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte tried to conquer all of Europe for France.  Should the Europeans have responded with "war is not the answer?  There comes a time when mindless phrases such as "war is not the answer" cannot be used because it represents wishful thinking and not based on reality.

Land Transfers that Boggle the Mind

 

Among the most bizarre land transfers in history is the transfer, after World War II, of what was the capital of East Prussia, Konigsberg, which was renamed by Stalin to Kaliningrad after his good buddy, Kalinin.  Stalin, as you may know, went nuts in renaming cities after himself, such as Stalingrad, and other Communists of the Russian revolution, like Leningrad, after his hero, Vladimir Lenin.  

                                                

 

After Germany’s defeat in WW II, the Potsdam Conference, which included three of the victorious allies, Russia, UK and the United States, decided to give this city of about 500,000 to the Russians, giving in to a demand from Stalin.  What is more bizarre is that this city is not contiguous with Russia but wedged between Poland and Lithuania.  This gives Russia a huge advantage of stirring trouble there with Poland and the Baltic states.  This has recently come home to roost after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022.  The Baltic states stopped having inter commerce transportation in and out of Kaliningrad.  This enraged the Russians who now threaten the Baltic States.  One of the threats, as reported in the Italian daily, Corriere Della Sera on 22 June 2022 was that Russia would declare the seceding of the Baltic states from the Soviet Union in 1991 as null and void.  Of course, this would obviously mean a Russian invasion of the states.  Play with fire and you’re sure to get burned, sooner or later.

 

The Catholic Church Social Teaching on Capitalism vs Socialism

Ask five Catholics what is Catholic Social Teaching, and you’ll get six different answers.  Similarly, what is “social justice"?  Different people will have different answers.  In this piece we will concentrate on the Catholic Church’s social teaching on economics, and specifically, socialism and capitalism.  In the last 150 years three different Popes have written encyclicals addressing the issue:  Pope Leo XIII in 1891 in his Encyclical Rerum Novarum, Pope Pius XI in 1931 and Pope John Paul II in 1991.   The second and third of these followed and built-upon the original of Leo XIII whereby he warned of the evil of socialism and the condition of the working class. 

After describing the oppressive conditions of the working class in 1891, Leo XIII asks whether socialism or capitalism is the answer.  It is important to note that the Church is not proposing any model of economic system. The Church is speaking out on the morality of each system.  Which one provides for the dignity of the human person?  Leo specifically condemns socialism as being contrary to the well-being of the human family.  Rerum Novarum is a brilliant piece of literature and a superb document; well written and argued.  He describes the faults of socialism: “To remedy these wrongs the socialists, working on the poor man’s envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State.”  Leo continues: “if these (socialist policies) were to be carried out, the working man himself would be among the first to suffer."

Leo argues that socialism deprives man of property, economic and political freedom. “Socialists, therefore, by endeavoring to transfer the possessions of individuals to the community at large, strike at the interest of every wage-earner and deprive him of the liberty of disposing of his wages, and thereby of all hope and possibility of bettering his condition in life.”  This remedy goes against justice, Leo argues.  Every man has the inherent human right of controlling his life.  This is a right that distinguished him from animals. He was endowed with this right from his creator.  He refers to a human being given dominion over the earth and all that is in it, including animals and the fruit of the land: “Hence, man not only should possess the fruits of the earth but also the very soil.  There is no need to bring in the State. Man precedes the State.”   

 

Leo argues that nature and the laws of nature go with man’s freedom to do what he likes with the fruits of his labor.  “Those who deny these rights do not perceive that they are defrauding man of what his own labor has produced. Is it just that the fruit of man’s own sweat and labor should be possessed and enjoyed by anyone else?”  Private property is in conformity with human nature, Leo argues. He makes the case that socialism is analogous to coveting your neighbor’s property;  a reference to one of the Ten Commandments.  The web site Prageru.com has a terrific five-minute video titled “Was Jesus a Socialist?”  Click here to view it.

 

Man freely must be able to offer his labor for just payment.  His labor will enable him to buy his own property.  This will enable him to support his family and pass on his property to his children.  Socialism denies this ability, and therefore is an assault on human dignity.  “Now, in no other way can a father effect this except by the ownership of productive property, which he can transmit to his children.”

 

Leo then makes a frontal assault on socialism: “The practice of all ages has consecrated the principle of private ownership, as being pre-eminently in conformity with human nature, and as conducing in the most unmistakable manner to the peace and tranquility of human existence. The contention, then, that the civil government should at its option intrude into and exercise intimate control over the family and the household is a great and pernicious error.  Paternal authority can be neither abolished nor absorbed by the State; for it has the same source as human life itself.”  Leo contends that socialism destroys the family and is against natural justice.  “Hence, it is clear that the main tenet of socialism, community goods, must be utterly rejected.”

 

Pius the XI in his 1931 Quadragesimo Anno Encyclical, building on the work of Leo XIII, is even more emphatic on the dangers of socialism. Pius XI updates Leo’s encyclical by talking about how socialism morphed into communism; a more lethal system than socialism.  He also attacks bad capitalism with the accumulation of wealth to the few in which free competition has destroyed itself and economic dictatorship has supplanted the free market.  “Communism teaches and seeks two objectives:  Unrelenting class warfare and absolute extermination of private ownership by employing every and all means, even the most violent.”  Pius XI goes on: “We make this pronouncement: Whether considered as a doctrine, or an historical fact, or a movement, Socialism, if it remains truly Socialism, even after it has yielded to truth and justice on the points which we have mentioned, cannot be reconciled with the teaching of the Catholic Church because its concept of society itself is utterly foreign to Christian truth.  

 

 Here is where Pius XI makes a bold statement that some, may have heartburn over: “If Socialism, like all errors, contains some truth (which moreover, the Supreme Pontiffs have never denied), it is based nevertheless on a theory of human society peculiar to itself and irreconcilable with true Christianity. Christian socialism are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.”  He’s not done yet.  Speaking of socialism: “We have found it laboring under the gravest of evils.  We have also summoned Communism and Socialism again to judgment and have found all their forms, even the most modified, to wander far from the precepts of the Gospel.”

 

Pope John Paul II on the 100^thanniversary of Rerum Novarum in 1991 published a re-reading of it.  John Paul II talks about the failure of communism.  He, again, confirms what Leo XIII and Pius XI stated in their two encyclicals.  As to capitalism he states that “if by capitalism is meant an economic system which recognized the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative.”   John Paul II argues that “man fulfils himself by using his intelligence and freedom. Man’s dignity is tied to his freedom. Like Leo and Pius XI, John Paul II rails against socialism and communism: “This, the root of modern totalitarianism is to be found in the denial of the transcendent dignity of the human person who, as the visible image of the invisible God.  Authentic democracy is possible only in a State ruled by law, and on the basis of correct conception of the human person.”

 

Milton Friedman, the famous American economist, in an interview with TV talk show host Phil Donahue in the late 1970s has a short answer on capitalism vs socialism.  Click here to view it.