All thenations of Western Europe protest proudly how “democratic” they are. In theUnited States we never cease talking about how precious “our democracy” is(just witness the ceaseless verbiage spewed forth during the recent impeachmenthearings). In the rest of the world no country ever boasts of being anauthoritarian state: when was the last time we heard a nation’s leaders waxingeloquent about how totalitarian they were? Even the most autocratic Islamicstate now declares itself “democratic.”
Has notthat word lost its savor and meaning altogether?
Democracy—therule by the populace, as defined by the ancient philosophers—does not existanywhere, save perhaps still in a few Swiss cantons, or on the lowest levels ofgovernance in some faraway communities in Wyoming or Idaho. The rest isfraudulent, bought and paid for by major financial interests and lobbies, andon a supra-national level by the likes of globalists such as George Soros,whose Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) now reach into nearly American cityand county of any size, handsomely funding candidates who will do his bidding.Just ask the voters of Virginia.
Theestablished church—at least in America and Western Europe—seems to havesurrendered to the most diabolical and anti-Christian forces: the majorProtestant denominations have all joined in the mad rush to become more “woke”and more revolutionary, adopting the slogans and platforms of theProgressivists who seek nothing less than the abolition of historicChristianity and the civilization which is based on it.
In largepart, the visible Catholic Church—once the stalwart opponent and beacon ofChristian counter-revolution against demonic Progressivism—has followed theleftist course mapped out at the Second Vatican Council, with its present supposedhead acting as a cheer-leader for revolutionary change on every level.Opposition to his lunacy is rising, but the formal elements of power are now inthe hands of Progressivists.
Perhapsonly in Eastern Europe and in Russia do we see a coherent resistance,religiously and politically, to the madness that afflicts us. Ironically, itwas the separation from America and from Western Europe—the Iron Curtain—thatin a way
saved those countries fromthe poisonous infections coming from our nation which was dominated in largepart by the victors of 1861-1865, and which had become the “Typhoid Mary” ofProgressivism.
For thedefeat of the Southern Confederacy on the field of battle was not just amilitary reverse; it signaled the defeat of a major outpost of Westerncivilization and its vision of society which was distinctly connected to andannealed by 1,500 years of traditional Christianity. This was the realizationof thousands of European volunteers to the Confederate cause—from Naples, fromSpain, and from other countries of the old continent. What they saw in the Confederate crusade wasa continuation of the struggle against liberalism which raged throughout thenineteenth century. The Southern cause was the cause of legitimacy, oftradition, of the old established order, of the survival of a Christianinheritance vouchsafed to those warriors at Manassas and Gettysburg.
And now,after more than 150 years of subjugation and indoctrination by the scions ofthe Yankee victors, there is perhaps “a light coming from the East,” a message ofresistance telegraphed to the descendants of the heroes of Chancellorsville. Hopeexists always as long as there are men standing forthrightly for it, willing togo to battle, willing to teach others, willing to pass it on. As the Spanishphilosopher Miguel de Unamuno once wrote: “our life is a hope which iscontinually converting itself into memory and memory in turn begets hope.”
Thus, whenthe yoke of Communism was lifted in Eastern Europe, it was to the wellspringsof national identity, to national heritage, to pre-Communist religious faith,that many of these nations turned. They had largely escaped the forty-fiveyears of “Americanism”—in the worst cultural sense—that Germany, France, andItaly had experienced.
Yet, itis this same narrative, this same globalist “Americanism” that today’sconservative movement—Neoconservativism—continues to push on the rest of theworld, just like their uncomfortable bedfellows a bit further to the Left. Boththe Establishment conservatives AND the open Left share the same postulates andobjectives, differing only in degree and expression.
AsSoutherners the lessons we glean, then, may come from Eastern Europe and fromRussia, and they remind us of who we were as a people, of the inheritance whichin so many cases we have discarded. Those former Eastern Bloc nations, inparticular Russia and Hungary, stand as “signs of contradiction,” and offer tous lessons, if we would only examine them.
Despitethe Swamp and the Deep State—despite the future technological tyranny whichstares at us in the face—despite the assaults in every aspect of ourlives—despite it all there is Hope and the vague but very real awareness thatwe are human, creatures made by God, and that our role is to stay the course,remain true to the faith and to our inheritance.
Myfavorite Psalm is number 26, in particular these words (vs.3): “Si consistant adversum me castra, nontimebit cor meum. Si exurgat adversum mepraelium, in hoc sperabo”: Even if entrenched armies were to stand againstme, my heart would not fear. If a battle would rise against me, I would havehope….A veryhappy and blessed New Year in the Hope that never dies!
