Thursday, November 24, 2011

"Throughout most of history, governments -- usually monarchies headed by kings, emperors, pharaohs and other major or minor tyrants -- actually owned everything under their rule, including, believe it or not, the people. In those regimes the population was considered to be subjects, not citizens. That means that the people were treated as the underlings, subjected to the will of the ruler."

Tibor Machan; The Orange Grove; The Orange County Register (California); Apr 15, 1999

People are more likely to be “treated as underlings, subjected to the will of the ruler” under democracy than monarchy. Tibor Machan may want to consult fellow libertarian Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s ground-breaking Democracy: the God that Failed if he disputes it.

Citizens under a democracy identify with their leaders. “We are the government!” they tell themselves. The mantra frees the heavy hand of State, which never needs much prodding.

Compared to their democratic counterparts, medieval monarchs faced stauncher resistance when pushing tax increases and wars of choice. The reputedly benighted masses knew the king’s interests were not their own. As Goethe once noted, “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”

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Tuesday, November 01, 2011

People were far more scandalized by Mel Gibson's *Passion of the Christ* than they were by cultural gems like Andres Serrano's *Piss Christ*. Just as they're far more likely to object to "Holocaust denial," whatever that means, than Resurrection denial.

That's what it's come to. The latter is widely accepted as an expression of religious liberty. The former is The Thought Crime that Dare not Speak its Name.

I can mount a soapbox and spout the vilest blasphemies against God, Christ, His Blessed Mother and His Holy Church. I can do this in London, Paris, Rome, Brussels, Berlin--any of the leading centers of what we now quaintly refer to as Christendom. If I am noticed at all, it will be in expressions of admiration for my hip and sophisticated derring-do. Now try disputing the existence of the Nazis' homicidal gas chambers or the canonical six million felled by them. Those same post-Christian civilian authorities who shrugged off your anti-Christian venom will proceed to toss you in the hoosegow for hate speech.

Hollywood had it in for Gibson before he even released his movie. They made no bones about it. "He's an anti-Semite," they said. "He'll incite pogroms in Pittsburgh!" Then the coup de grace: "His father's a Holocaust denier!"

When, pray, has a director ever had to defend his father's views on anything?

So a Jewish cop arrests a drunken Gibson. Gibson unleashes his filthy anti-Semitic venom--totally out of the blue of course.

Christ is a divisive figure. He said He would be.

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