POINT/COUNTERPOINT

By Ronald C. Tobin, Editor

What follows is a continuation of the in-print debate on monarchy and the republic that started in the January/February 1998 issue (copies of this issue are still available for those of you who did not see the first installment). Once again, Julian Tebye challenges, and Marc Eric Ely-Chaitlin responds.

As I said last issue, comments from others about this topic can be sent directly to these gentlemen, or can be sent here for possible publication.

That said, back to the debate . . .

A CRITIQUE . . . OF THE RESPONSE TO A COMMENTARY
By Julian Tebye

Mr. Ely-Chaitlin a.k.a. Augustus Rex: Now that I have your attention . . . My better instincts counsel me to follow a policy of laissez faire, but there are a couple of your statements I feel I cannot let pass; and, while I'm at it, I must apologize-but I simply can't resist. Let me assure you that I am not necessarily opposed to your ideas (nor do I necessarily agree with them). I primarily object to your sweeping assertions which you fail to back up with any evidence other than your well-meaning assumptions. For example: "... the (American) republic, which has always been a tyranny imposed by force." And:

"...degrading torture inflicted by the republic, as it works people into becoming the slaves of the republic through mocking their self-confidence."

Is "the republic" really mocking your self-confidence? Or mine? That suggests that "the republic" is a thing-in-itself which is willfully doing all these awful things to us poor, helpless victims. You mention: "In genuinely advanced societies, government is actually not an adversarial force imposing its will on the society with force; that is only true in societies wherein a substantial portion of the society is not voluntary participants (such as class-based societies, with a slave caste)." Sounds great! What do you have in mind when you speak of these (since it's in the plural, I gather you refer to more than one) "genuinely advanced societies?" Please name one!

Again, you write: "The Federal Government is nothing if it is not a military dictatorship." And: "The Founding Fathers INVENTED corruption as it is known by modern states." I suppose you could argue that Waco and Tiananmen Square were virtually identical occurrences. But, the point is that you can publish a book in this country equating the two and damning the action of the Federal Government. Try that in the "genuinely advanced society" of present-day China!

You also write: "...World Wars would never have occurred had it not been for the republics let loose on the world by the slavemasters who designed them." Am I to infer that you actually would have us believe that Kaiser Wilhelm and Kaiser Franz Josef were leaders of republics? Or that Pearl Harbor was instigated by "President" Hirohito?

"The police of every town, county and state not only decide what laws will be enforced, but how and upon whom." True enough! But I search in vain for a nation in this world without a police force. Is this selective enforcement of the laws true here and not in other nations? Please note that, in this country, the District Attorney then decides whether or not to prosecute (if the "crime" is more than a simple traffic violation or a misdemeanor). After which, it is a judge who makes the final interpretation of the law (with or without a jury trial). (Do they really do this any differently under a monarchical system?)

"I embrace the law," you write, "because it is a discipline that serves the civilization of mankind." Great! But it is still a human being in the person of a judge (or several humans/judges) who interpret the law. And, for that matter, it is one or more humans who make the law in the first place. Having embraced the law, you then write, "...the law has no mercy, where men do." No comment!

You are upset that there are "1.6 million Americans in jail and prison; two-thirds of them are there for the political crime of using, possessing or selling 'illegal' drugs." I will accept your figures without checking. But... isn't this simply an argument for legalization of such substances? After all, these people would not be in prison if such substances were legal. And I agree with you that all such substances should be legalized (and regulated).

Consider-you seem dead-set against voting. "Why in the world should any of us vote in fixed, rigged elections?" Are you suggesting that Dole and Clinton got together and-beforehand-decided that Clinton should win? I think we all agree that the voting system is absurd. We are presented with the choice of "the lesser fool." (You probably don't remember the 1960 election. Despite the trend, now, to make a "folk-hero" of Kennedy, the popular slogan in 1960 was, "Vote 'no' for president!") I would like to point out that, in many elections, there are issues on the ballot asking whether we (the voting people) should authorize a(nother) bond issue to set aside a few billion to build more prisons. It seems to me you should get your f___ing ass out there and vote "no" (as I do)--or shut up about all the damned prisons in this country!

You mention the public school system along with "the Federal Government" and "the Republican Party." Please be aware that what is or is not taught in the public school system is decided not by the Federal Government, but by a local school board. Recall the ban against teaching evolution in Tennessee. I happened to be present at a meeting of the Los Angeles School Board some years ago, when the members quite matter-of-factly voted themselves a 5% raise in salary. (Amazingly, the proposal passed by unanimous vote!)

And do you really blame the Federal Government for suicide and drug addiction? (According to figures some years ago, Denmark has a much higher suicide rate than the U.S.) You also mention: "...the will of the people...," an idea straight from Rousseau. I consider that concept as more-or-less on the level of the phrase, "dictatorship of the proletariat." Is it your will or mine? Which particular member of the proletariat is going to be dictator?

Then, you mention "...the thousands of years of custom and tradition that derive from the ancient right of the people to freedom that was enunciated and practiced centuries before men ever heard the word 'America.'" And: "If you want to find the origins of your freedom, look to the Magna Carta, not the Constitution of 1787, or the bill of rights." Well, now-your time scale is a bit off. "Thousands?" Maybe 1500 years, if you push it a bit. The Magna Carta of 1215 was signed by King John against his will! (And the pope ruled that it was illegal.) John was the legal sovereign and his rebellious subjects were led by Simon de Montfort, a Frenchman, who did in his time essentially what the Founding Fathers did in their time. Among other things, he safeguarded the property of the rebels. As for the bill of rights, I'm sure you must be aware that it was incorporated into the Constitution as the first 10 amendments.

What you call "freedom," I would call "liberty." "That which is allowed by or is not denied by the law." Freedom, on the other hand (in my opinion), I have spelled out elsewhere as "Personal Responsibility." I see freedom as an individual thing. It is not something which can be given to you. It is something which each of us must gain for him/herself. A matter of semantics, perhaps. I will not quibble. More than that, I feel that there are crucial errors in your ideas of far greater significance. You speak of the Duke of Marlborough and his descendant, Winston Churchill, and comment: "...proving that the qualities that make certain families heroic and others obscure are partially hereditary." A short while later, you state: "...equality does not entitle stupid people to ignore good advice from intelligent people, it only gives them the delusion that it does."

This strongly suggests (to me) that you sincerely believe that a noble family is superior to a mere peasant, such as myself. And, since I am stupid, I labor under the delusion that I have the right to ignore the good advice of an intelligent (titled) individual such as yourself. I wonder...is it not a simple step from that belief to racism and anti-Semitism-and the Bell Curve? And you mention, "...our people..." who overthrew the royal government of the king, and "we wound up with the military dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell." (No matter that you elsewhere claim, "the office of fascist dictator did not originate from monarchical roots, but from the precedents of this modern national executive, the office of president of the republic.") (Of course, you say fascist dictator, which might, specifically, refer to Mussolini. But...he ruled in the monarchy of Italy. Or-you might point out that, from 1649 to 1653, England was ruled by a Council of State, and that the military dictatorship of Cromwell developed from that, rather than from the monarchy directly.)

I don't know. But I, personally, resent your words: "our people" and "we." My mother is Black; my father is Chinese. In 1649 to 1660, "our people" were establishing the Manchu (Ching) dynasty in our country, and "our people" were planning a rebellion in western Africa against Morocco (a monarchy), which had ended the Songhai Empire by force of arms. Not true about my parents, but have you considered that Black and Oriental Americans who read your statements will be unable to truly relate to what you say? (Or perhaps you don't consider them to be "true Americans?") And I feel compelled to vehemently challenge your assertion concerning slave owners that "...men knew what they were doing was morally wrong, and they did it anyway." If only that were true! These people, in general, did not know they were morally wrong. On the contrary, they sincerely believed they were morally right! There was "evidence" available to "prove" that Blacks were not members of the human race: Homo sapiens. (See, e.g., RACE AND HUMAN EVOLUTION by Wolpoff and Caspari.)

The Holocaust was, in my opinion, the most horrible thing in all history that one group of humans did to another! But it can (and, unfortunately, probably will) happen again! Those who perpetrated the Holocaust did not believe they were morally wrong! That is the truly frightening aspect of it! They sincerely believed that what they were doing was the highest moral accomplishment any human being could do! To me, it is that which is truly terrifying! Somewhat akin to the cold and extremely logical thinking of some of the Inquisitors, that if there were any doubt of a person's guilt, kill him anyway. Send his soul to God and let Him decide!

I suspect that you tend to view history (and life) as a matter of "the good guys" versus "the bad guys"; "us" versus "them." Unfortunately, "we" are not always all that good, and, generally, "they" are not all that bad. And monarchy may sound delightful- but what if the monarch turns out to be a Nero or a Caligula? After all, the heir and successor of Marcus Aurelius was Commodus. (And why bother with the added expense of supporting a monarch in all of his/her ostentatious splendor?) And please don't mistake my argument that "this is the lesser of various evils" with "this is the best of all possible worlds." The U.S. is beset by a myriad of ills and shortcomings, and I, as a practicing anarchist, do not condone this government. But, thus far, you have failed to convince me that returning to a monarchy will alleviate any of these problems.

Julian Tebye
Los Angeles, CA

IN DEFENSE OF HISTORY
By Marc Eric Augustus Rex

I find it ironic that in one sentence you accuse me of being racist and anti-Semitic, when in fact I am of Jewish descent; and then you declare that you resent my words "our people," since your parents are "Black" and "Oriental." Then you step back with the equivalent of "Just Kidding, My Parents Are Not Black and Oriental." I find it odd for you to flatly declare that your mother is "Black" and your father is "Oriental," and take offense, and then state that this is not true. How can you take offense when you are in fact not black or Asian? Are you taking offense on behalf of black and Asian people? Did any black or Asian people ask you to do that for them? Your "indignation" on their uninvited behalf insinuates that you feel that you need to speak for them, that they would not appreciate my including them within the phrase, "Our People." But I think you underestimate the sentiments of the minorities, because they would be the first to claim an equal right to American nationality.

The people to whom I am referring are the American people, and I am assuming that you are an American. American nationality does, indeed, include all the ethnicities of America, including Black, white, Native American, Hispanic and Asian; but I think that you should realize that Asians don't particularly like to be referred to as "Orientals." Some of them regard that usage as racist. And I think that you believe that our American nationality is intrinsically tied to the republic, while I do not. Prior to 1776, the United States was a monarchy. While the English king did not bear the title of "King of America," he was in effect king of New York, king of Virginia, and king of each colony independently, and it was as king that the majority of the American people were loyal to him. This may be hard for you, but the public are generally conservative at any time, and they tend to side with the established law; the real turmoil that surrounded the crisis of independence is not addressed in most American scholarship on the period, but it is covered in generally available references, and it is well-documented.

Civil wars are fundamentally fratricidal, and the so-called Revolution was, above all, a civil war. When we talk about our community, or our people, I am speaking of the social and political culture, and our social and political culture is Anglo-Saxon in origin, as informed by "Judeo-Christian" values. Ethnically, there are non-Anglo-Saxon members of the body politick, for example black or Hispanic or Asian Americans, who benefit from the rights of American nationality, but those rights are definitionally derivative of ancient Germanic and Roman legal principles. I find your lack of depth and insight mind boggling. Either you have no real conception of the sweep of history, or you are merely intent on winning some debating pin by trying to pierce a hole in my logic with "facts" that are taken out of context. You say I must have a world-view in which people are either good or bad, but in reality I recognize that conditions and qualities merge, and there is no black and white; that is why I trust a man to have compassion and mercy, rather than rely on a "rule" enforced by a massive bureaucracy, that you call "law." The republic is illegal, therefore, it cannot make law. But then you are an avowed anarchist, oddly enough, an anarchist who defends the President of the United States! The Most Powerful Man in the World (if you take NBC's word for it).

If you are a true anarchist, then you don't believe in any organizations or institutions. Then there is no convincing you that some traditions have value to the human community. A true anarchist believes that the very concept of a community of any kind is an illusion, if not a delusion. The very word anarchy means without an arch, the arch being the basis of rule, like the foundation of a building. Ultimately, it means one who does not believe in any rules. But I have to be totally honest, and disclose that I am not an anarchist. I am a monarchist. However, I think that the anarchists make some very sound points, because I personally feel that one of the leading causes of dysfunction in our modern industrial society is the over- institutionalization of everyday life for the average individual.

When I speak about the community, I am speaking from the position of chief of the Americans. But, really I am saying that to incite you, to tease you, to invoke you to challenge me. However, I don't feel any pressing need to win you over, because I know that you are dead set to defend your position against what I have to say, regardless of what I have to say. That is my experience of anarchists, they are in constant and perpetual opposition because that is what turns them on. Don't get me wrong, that is okay, but when the kids stop playing, the adults have to sit down and arrive at an agreement about how the society is going to be conducted.

I don't see the human race divided into an "us" versus "them" dichotomy, so when you said I must see things that way, I recognized how little you understood my response. The human community has had the same basic dilemmas all along, ever since the first human being walked erect, and reason and virtue have been known to mankind since time immemorial. That is why I find your weak assertions about the Revolutionary Era laughable, because it was nothing glorious, but pathetic. Of course there were "scholarly" schools that thought that black people were not human at the same time that people were exploiting them as slaves; it justified what they were doing. When Hitler ordered all the mental patients exterminated in the first gas chambers, in preparation of the Final Solution to the "Jewish problem" (and remember, I am Jewish, and members of my family died during the Holocaust), there were Nazi doctors who taught Eugenics, or the science of human breeding. But the truth, then as now, is that those ideas were not only not universally held, they were looked down upon by the general academic community, and even the general human community, because they were mean-spirited and WRONG.

White people and black people have coexisted since Classical antiquity. The continent of Africa is named after the Roman province of Africa. But slavery in ancient Rome was not as bad as slavery in the so-called New World. But then, if you are knowledgeable about European history, you know that. Slavery in the ancient world was not based on racism, and slaves actually had legal rights; they did not rank the same as a lord, or a free peasant, but they did have rights that were legally defendable. In the colonies of the Founding Slavemasters, the slaves were little more than livestock, and slaves could be murdered in cold blood, but it was not prosecutable because only human beings could be "murdered," and in the legal codes of the early republic slaves were not defined as human beings (they were not even defined as citizens of the United States, entitled to the protection of the law, see Dredd Scott). Yet even in ancient Rome, it was understood that slaves were uneconomical, as they had a tendency of being lazy, there being no incentive for the slave to perform; even so, some slaves rose to great prominence in the ancient world, as leading members of the households of important men. (George Washington, on the other hand, could never turn his back on any one of his 390 slaves, because every one of them was there in the capacity of a utility, as a piece of property).

I get the impression that you want to call me a fascist, yet you defend a fascistic institution, the Government of the Federal Republic. You have this second-hand opinion that it is somehow a good institution, that only needs a little housekeeping to make it if not perfect, then acceptable. You EMBRACE the tyranny as the least offensive compromise, and tack on the label of anarchist. (I always found the definition of anarchist to be rather fluid, enabling anyone at any time to call himself an anarchist, in defense of any principle). While I don't think any institution will be perfect ever, I do believe that the safeguards in the ancient constitution are really effective in the protection of the independence of individuals; whereas, the republic was actually set up with the purpose in mind of curtailing the principles of personal independence that are the core of ancient constitutional law.

When you suggest that my time scale is off by looking back only to 1215, suggesting that I am saying that the ancient constitution was formulated in 1215, it reveals that you have no notion about the nature of the ancient constitution of America. Also, the events surrounding Magna Carta-while historically and constitutionally significant-define legal principles, and the innermost intentions of anyone at the time are really not relevant. But to return to the point, the ancient constitution is an unwritten body of law, and we call it the British Constitution, yet up until 1776 it was the Anglo-American constitution. Well, in case you didn't notice, it is still the supreme law of our land, America, because not being enclosed in a neat enactment, it cannot be "repealed." This constitution began to be formulated in ancient pre-Britannic Germany, in the mists of pre-history, long before the nation-state of Germany was formed in 1870. It was from the tribes of the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and the Danes, that the earliest principles of Anglo-Saxon law were derived, and the legal rights we enjoy today are directly inherited from them. And I use the term inherited deliberately, because we do not owe our rights to the Bill of Rights, or the Founding Fathers; we owe our rights to "our" ancestors, and really, this is true of every person of every ethnicity, because the principle of inheritance runs within every human society.

We think of the idea of civil rights in a purely legal sense, but in a sociological sense rights are necessary because individuals have "natural powers." A natural power is the ability to act. The fact that a person has the power of speech, necessitated a legal principle that enabled individuals to use that power; it was only reasonable. This is because in the earliest human societies, there were no classes. There were ranks, like parent and child, and this led to the creation of clans, tribes, and chieftains, but nothing on the order of social castes, such as we have in the United States. In a tribal society without social castes, there is no reason not to allow individuals personal independence. You may define this as freedom or liberty, or personal responsibility, or whatever, but what it came down to was that earliest mankind was hard pressed defending himself from the elements, and so morale was important; and morale was best served when individuals had freedom of choice. Remarkably, this can be found in every tribal society throughout the world.

I found it tactless for you to insinuate that I considered persons of noble lineage superior to peasants. Then followed by your personalizing, in which you caste yourself, the commoner, in a position contrary to me, a prince. To you, the prince is a person of grandeur, of ostentatious splendour, a possible Caligula; you are not familiar with the reality of the prince, which is a reality of responsibility, a burden of duty, and an obligation to exercise discipline, upon himself above all. The prince is a lifelong prisoner of his position, isolated by his role and yet obliged by honor to protect the people of the nation without regard to profit or expense. Government is not a business, and it should not be dominated by the mindset of shopkeepers. This does not mean that there is no place for shopkeepers. But it does suggest that the head of state should be a professional, and constitutional monarchy gives the state a long-term quality at its core that is missing in the republic. (The only long-term interest in the republic is the faceless bureaucracy, which has the same sensitivity of a bulldozer).

Your understanding of my use of the term republic is remarkably limited, as was revealed by your statement, "Is the republic really mocking your self-confidence? Or Mine? That suggests that 'the republic' is a thing-in-itself. " Apparently you have no understanding of the principles underlying the formation of corporations. A corporation only has existence in "the law," that is why corporations are called "legal persons." A real person is called a "natural corporate person," because a real person exists in nature. Incidentally, I did not invent this, rather it is the kernel of the "law of corporations," which reached its definitive form here in the United States, under the auspices of the republic. The republic was the original corporation in the modern context. Of course, when fascism came to power in Italy it represented the cutting edge of modernist thought, evolving the notion of the corporate state; but nowhere has that corporate state come into being more successfully than under the auspices of the Commander-in-Chief of the Federal republic of the United States. The republic is not only a corporation, it is a corporation of corporations. Within its enabling charter, the Constitution of 1787, there are defined three centers of power, each of which is a corporate entity invented and devised by the founders, plantation aristocrats. When understood legally, the Congress exists in the same way that General Motors exists, or ITT. It is an invention of men, like a machine, a device. As is the Presidency, and the Supreme Court: these are not organic entities, spawned by some organic process, rather they were meticulously thought out and empowered through the machinations of the most powerful slaveowners in the land. You may balk, but the way the Constitution was drafted and imposed, if reenacted in equivalent terms today, would be like attorneys from General Motors, DuPont, Time-Warner, Disney, and Exxon meeting behind closed doors and writing a new charter of government, and once ratified by captive assemblies of their employees, declaring it to be the final law of the land.

The ancient constitution is defined by what is called constitutional history. This includes the migration of the Germanic tribes to the post-Roman island of Britannia, at which time they carried with them the ancient "folkright" of customs and traditions. It also includes the Norman Conquest, the War of the Roses, the Regicide, the Dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell, and the Restoration. The British representative legislature is the oldest democratic institution in the world and is called the Mother of Parliaments, which is not for no reason. But you seem to think that the United States sprung from whole clothe, through the knightly deeds of the Founding Fathers. This is so preposterous you should have suspected its authenticity the moment you were introduced to it as a child. If you are half the peasant you say you are, then the Founding Fathers probably held your ancestors as indentured servants. The republic is the product of a class war in which the upper classes won. It incorporates the mindset of the powerful, facilitating their ascendancy through the process of pricing justice outside of the reach of the wage-earner. The System itself does not have a self to defend; rather, it defends the integrity of the billionaire class, who succeeded the original plantation aristocrats as the principal beneficiaries of the republic. The money is scrip, being issued and lent by institutions tightly controlled by the Federal Government. (Our family owns stock in a bank, and the political process of starting up a bank is completely dependent upon the favor one can muster with campaign contributions to politicians and outright bribery). And the value of the money fluctuates hourly with the market, which has a serious impact on the majority of the American people who are dependent upon their wages to survive; but real wealth is not held in money, but rather, it is held in land, paid-off debt-free land, land the size of a third world country (land often stolen from Native Americans). This is because ultimately, Julian, the rich did not get rich by working harder than anyone else, they did it the old fashioned way, they inherited it.

Additionally the way financing is organized, every dollar held by the billionaire, in the hands of the wage- earner, is worth only about 33 cents. Whereas the wealthy individual can buy the $100,000 house by handing over $100,000, the wage-earner has to enter into a federally insured 30-year obligation, at the end of which he will pay out $300,000 for the $100,000 home. This is not because of the "free market," or because someone saw a need to fill, for which he could ingeniously charge a fee, it is because of the federal government-sponsored and regulated money market.

Of course, the republic IS mocking you. It mocks you ESPECIALLY if you believe in it. When you go to the officials of the republic, they will use your best instincts to be honorable to betray you, to incarcerate your best friend, your mother, your brother, YOU. The individual means nothing, only the corporate marquee of the republic embodies anything significant, for which Americans are expected to sacrifice their lives. In the Civil War, one million Americans lost their lives to save the Federal Government; that is what Lincoln meant when he said he was prosecuting the war to SAVE THE UNION. To him the Union was the same as the U.S. Government, the institution. And yes, those 1 million dead were VICTIMS. As is anyone who believes in the republic, who is not moved by a sense of moral outrage to demand its retirement and dissolution.

You assume the pretense of defending the black and Asian Americans, but you fail to recognize how the federal republic, historically, treated black people, or Chinese and Japanese Americans. You forget the internment camps; the horrific exploitation of the Chinese in the building of the railroads; you forget about the Fugitive Slave law in the Constitution of 1787. You overlook the traditionally negative relationship the black community has suffered, with the Federal government, and its creatures, the state and local governments. I suspect they would want to be protected FROM the Federal government, and especially local police. But you ignore the history of their abuse at the hands of the Slavemaster State, so you don't think they need protection. Your outlook, additionally, is suggestive that the Native Americans don't feel like the victims of the Federal government. The only way anyone could realistically believe such a notion is if they took the old Western movies seriously, as history; of course, they were pure fantasy.

I personally hold the opinion that an "advanced" society is one that has its moral compass in tact; what I mean by this is the basic sense of conscience possessed of individuals in nature. This does not mean that all people behave morally all the time; what it means is that conscience is innate within human beings. If you want to examine an advanced society, look at the society of the American Indians. Of course, this is not the mythical "perfect" society you are persisting in trying to force me to identify, but it is an advanced society in the sense that the people in it achieved a balance between themselves and nature. In your earlier critique, you suggest that I am implying that we shall set up a utopian society, but that is not the case. Yet I also do not intend to allow you to imply that the dysfunctional society of the republic is any kind of Godsend. The mindless tyranny of the republican system in America is paralleled in history with the awful tyranny of Cromwell, and the source of each is derived from the same source, the destruction of the constitutional system for the benefit of the elite. You don't really acknowledge that America suffers under a caste system, so it is not surprising to me that you are unable to realize that the republic is a police state, as was the Puritan Commonwealth that followed the Regicide.

I am curious as to why you associate Waco with Tianamen Square. Why would a Chinese communist country with 20% of the world's population respond the same way as an Anglo-Saxon republican police state? So what if you can publish a book about the Waco Massacre? Does that change the fact that the Federal Government invented drug charges to justify a paramilitary assault on American nationals, after which every bureaucrat involved lied through his teeth to cover up his involvement? The blunt fact is that we are required to do as we are told, and obey the Commander-in-Chief when he commands us, and the bureaucracy does not feel threatened by our puny opinions, which are ignored and mocked for our pretenses of independence, even as we are "allowed" to publish them. That you then lower the tone of your response with "try that in the genuinely advanced society of present-day China" mystifies me, because at no time did I infer that China was a genuinely advanced society.

Your recognition that Austria and Germany were not republics during the First World War is perceptive, yet superficial. They were indeed, authoritarian monarchies; but they were also mass societies, formed in the image of the original mass state that was formed in the aftermath of the French Revolution. They were also German, Teutonic societies, which has baggage all its own. (In many respects the United States is very German, as is the United Kingdom). These are cultural characteristics, however, and even though some people object to characterizing anything based on cultural origins, it is a fact of life that cannot be set aside by the will of intellectuals.

When the first acts of World War I set everything in motion, it was in an environment of nation-states that were based on the dynamics of popular opinion and engineered consent. Nothing moved masses better than war, which was first discovered by the first French Republic, when the monarchies of Europe were trying to protect the French royal family, who were the prisoners of the revolution. It was not the king who did the first act of violence, it was the republicans. The martyrdom of the king led directly to the dictatorship of the Committee of Public Safety and the Reign of Terror, an integral component of revolutionary society (as is the tendency of republican supporters to characterize such things as a Terror as something attained by a Committee of Safety).

The revolution became the basis for the raising of the first mass army of all time, forever changing the way armies, and states, would be constituted. This was not an innovation of chivalry, it was an innovation brought on directly from the class war of the revolution, which introduced conscription to the modern world. Also, the original notion of the state of emergency had its origins in the French revolutionary response to the invasion of France by the armies of Europe, which forced the collapse of the ancient regime, and the raising of a one-million man army. The French revolutionary state met the threat of invasion of the Fatherland by arming the passive citizen and sending him out onto the battlefield filled with hate.

The immediate beneficiary of this was not the French, but Napoleon Bonaparte. The strategic and tactical innovations of Napoleon are still used today by modern armies, because he commanded a new kind of army, the revolutionary army, which was re-named the Napoleonic armies as a result of his coup d'etat; but his success in the field could be attributed more to the fact that he commanded some of the largest armies of all time, instead of to any innate military genius on his part. Napoleon used to brag that he could "spend 30,000 men a month," as if human beings were merely a resource; but this view had nothing to do with his acquisition of the imperial title, and everything to do with the revolutionary origins of his army. An army that was raised through the first ideological appeals to nationalism ever made, coupled with the intense hatred of class war. Unfortunately for Napoleon, the army that made it possible for him to conquer Europe, was also disseminating revolutionary ideas of nationalism, which was not all bad, but it did carry with it the implicit prerequisite that violence was a necessary part of social change. Ironically, in the struggle with revolutionary and Napoleonic France, France's adversaries learned the lessons of the French revolution, and the process began whereby all the nations of the world took on the characteristics of mass societies wherein the governments functioned through the dynamics of terrorism. The German Empire that fell in 1918 was only founded in 1871, when it was less than half a century old. The Austrian-Hungarian Empire was founded in 1806, when Napoleon was at the gates of Vienna, but it was just over a 100 years old, so it was hardly an ancient state. Great Britain, however, was "founded" in antiquity, and the fact that it survives is a testament to its flexibility, and its ability to meet the needs of the British people.

Before the French Revolutionary Wars took place, there was still a sense of professionalism and chivalry associated with the conduct of war. After the French Revolution war became an economic enterprise, and we saw the origins of the military/industrial complex, as armaments makers were commandeered for the purposes of the state. Inevitably, when women and children began directly aiding the war effort, they evolved into becoming viable war targets, which prior to the Revolution was unthinkable. Honorable warriors faced worthy opponents, and only the lowest scoundrel would harm clergymen, or women, or children, or senior citizens, because these people were perceived as being innocent. Not after the revolution and the innovation of Total War by the republic.

As for Pearl Harbor, you seem ignorant of the fact that kingship is not a dictatorship. The king does not possess absolute power, not even in pre-war Japan, in which the Mikado was believed to be a god. The king of Italy existed in a constitutional state in which the masses were roused by the demagoguery of Mussolini; demagoguery that took its shape from the mass states innovated by the French Revolution, and which the traditional states had to accommodate. But even then, the Kingdom of Italy was only formed in the 1860s, and was effected by the times in which it took shape. But most interestingly, you missed the most significant points of history, which was the fact that it was His Majesty, the Emperor Hirohito, who first turned against the war, and insisted that his ministers sue for peace; and it was the King of Italy who finally fired Mussolini, something that could not happen in Germany, where Hitler, as head of state under the Weimar Republic, was subject to no law other than his own. But I also sense in your comments the taint of national chauvinism, as if America (specifically America under the republic) is superior to foreign nations, and if you knew anything about history, then you would realize that nothing good has ever come from that kind of senseless rivalry.

You also confuse the existence of law enforcement institutions in other countries, with the domination of the state in our country by the police. The Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic is the senior law enforcement official of the country as president, or chief executive. Under the president exists the so-called Department of Justice (which upholds justice in the same way the Committee of Safety instigated the Reign of Terror), which is operated by the Attorney General, who does not bear the title of General out of some arbitrary or random selection process. He is in fact a general in the war between the republic and the people, the republic embodying the interests of the upper ruling class as it fights to maintain control over the lower classes. You don't seem to realize that in London, England, a major modern city, there are about 50 murders a year, whereas in New York, there are over 2,000 murders a year; and in England, the police didn't even carry guns until the last decade. What this signifies is a markedly different kind of society, in which the people feel as if they are partners in the society, whereas in America, under the republic, the people feel like the victims of the government.

You then fail to understand law as a scholastic discipline, instead referring to law as something made by humans, who must also "interpret" it, as if this makes it subject to relativities, as the end result of an arbitrary process instead of reason. It is the attempt at removing people from the process that bothers me the most, as if law is something that pops out of a computer. Ironically, the people who demand obedience and compliance to the law the loudest, are the first to dismiss the injustices that took place in the past. The history of the republic is a history of mercilessness, against the Indians, against the Mexicans, against the black people, and against the Asians; and if you want to really dig deep, against the poor white people, mostly of Scotch-Irish and Irish descent, who the blue-blood Mighty Rich so charmingly refer to as White Trash. But keep in mind, I am not an elitist; just because someone is wealthy, it does not mean that they are noble. Nobility has something to do with character, not merely the possession and use of a title. The ancient nobility usually attained their titles because they DID something for the benefit of the homeland. They made a sacrifice of themselves, for which they were rewarded with honor. Unlike the rich elite of the republic, who unabashedly enrich themselves at the expense of the nation.

Your reference that the drug prohibition is wrong, and that it is "simply an argument for legalization," dismisses the centrality of the drug issue to the police state as an institution. Without the drug prohibition, the Federal republic would cease to exist. Its principal officers would have to accept the idea that individuals have a RIGHT to ingest whatever substances they desire, something that is totally alien to the politicians and bureaucrats who earn their pensions telling us what is allowed and what is not. As for voting, I am all for it, in a legitimate system of government that is governed by the constitution; not the faux Constitution of 1787, but the ancient constitution. If you vote in the current system, if you are not a member of either of the two major political parties, your vote is a wash out. The Congress is not a legitimate parliament, and because of that shortcoming, it can never actually represent the people of the American nation. The entire electoral process is dominated by a collusion between the media, which is the beneficiary of free broadcast licenses, and the insiders of the political parties (who make all the major political decisions behind closed doors in smoke-filled rooms). You obviously don't really understand how the system works if you think that Dole and Clinton had to get together in order to rig the election; they could be the worst of enemies, because what is important is that no HONEST man can survive the nominating process. That way it doesn't matter who gets elected, because the fact that the only really viable candidates are the major party candidates guarantees that party insiders can control the outcome enough that someone won't get elected WHO WOULD CHANGE THE SYSTEM. Perhaps one party may be out of power for a time, the way the system is rigged if they wait long enough things will swing in their direction again, and this way the two parties share power in a symbiotic relationship, while excluding third parties (often unfairly).

As for voting, I do indeed vote, but only for measures, not for candidates. I do not think that it is responsible to form a government that will arrest and imprison people, and control property, and dictate policy, based on a selection process that disconnects the principals (the voters) from the "agents" (the politicians). If the government were truly a government of law, then there would be no problem with voters using powers of attorney, and being publicly known, instead of making electoral choices through a secretive process that is designed to shield the politicians from the real opinions of the people, and especially when they turn against the politician, and desire to rescind their votes. The idea that balloting is secret because it shields the voters from retribution is a clear signal that there is a powerful elite that controls affairs here, that powerless and poor people need protection from (which, unfortunately, they have never been able to get from the republic). Your insinuation that my voting has anything to do with the imprisonment of 1.6 million Americans by the republic is astounding. The only way there will be a reversal in the imprisonment industry is if the republic is challenged, and subjected to the corporate dissolution of its affairs, so that it can be succeeded by a legitimate and legal government.

I have to admit mild amusement at your suggestion that the American school districts are locally controlled, and that this somehow makes tyranny impossible. The republic originated the idea of a federal state in which the central state shares the burden of power with state and local authorities, largely by inducting local authorities to the fraternity of power, which gives them an interest in perpetuating the division of the classes. Local aristocracies sustain the local status quo, giving form to regional structures of authority, and ultimately to the national structure, all of them focusing on social control through blunt police power. Your defense of these institutions insinuates that I prefer foreign countries to my own, and that my unwillingness to embrace the Commander-in-Chief as my personal sovereign somehow taints my patriotism. The bottom-line is that the entire republican social system is based on training individuals from childhood to believe in the republic, so that they can be entrusted with "responsibility." Anyone who does not believe that the republic is the "best system of government in the world" is deliberately shut out and is never heard from in the mass media. This does not come from the air, but from the cradle to grave conditioning that starts in the childhood of all Americans when they are forced to attend "public schools" where they learn all the state capitals, and all the names of the presidents, but somehow they never learn how to read or write. The whole economic and political process involves the slow introduction of the individual to the benefits of the system ONLY once the individual surrenders all independence. The web of institutions includes the republican government, the educational institutions, the corporations, and even the churches, all of them feigning loyalty to the republic because under its auspices the institutions have a free reign to use the population any way they choose. This web represents an underlying collusion and virtual conspiracy, but it is not a conspiracy in the sense of that which took the life of President Kennedy; rather, it is a continuation of the conspiracy that ended the connection between the United States and Great Britain, a conspiracy of interests that results from agencies reaching for the same goal, rather than any actual coordination of plans.

I do blame the Federal Government with the rise in suicides, as well as the incredible scope of the substance abuse crisis that also represents the drive for self-destruction, because both are products of the slavemaster mindset of the republic's chief officials. When people are treated like objects, they begin to think of themselves as objects, and then they begin to think and act dysfunctionally. The only parallel can be found in attempts by striking workers to get at the boss by sabotaging the boss's machinery; once the individual begins to view himself as an object, suicide takes on the characteristics of sabotaging the boss. It's sick and twisted, but then so is class domination and subjugation; it can be successfully "gotten away with" for a period, but the end result is confusion, self-contempt, and helplessness. But the government is not alone in causing these problems; the republic did not "create" slavery, it merely made it feasible as a commercial institution. Once it was feasible, millions of people began to use it, and eventually became invested in its perpetuation.

I find it ironic that you equate the idea of the "will of the people" with the "dictatorship of the proletariat," but then you fail to recognize that the President of the U.S. republic is the living embodiment of dictatorship! Indeed, the notion of equality invented by Rousseau is fascistic, and was the inspiration for the Communists upon their seizure of power in Russia, as well as the worst excesses of the French Revolution, but his ideas also influenced the American revolutionaries in their conspiracy to overthrow the legal government of the king. But remember, the king King George III was a constitutional monarch, and he did not control the affairs of the government, because he was no dictator (unlike the president of the republic, who has the power to make executive orders that have the force of law). It is the power of the president as an executive that is the basis of the model of the fascist dictator, the executive who issues decrees, whose elective position makes him a representative who cannot be challenged. If it were otherwise, then there would be no controversy about Imperial Presidents, and whether or not presidents are ordinary citizens. The overwhelming evidence is that they are NOT ordinary citizens, and after Paula Jones and her attorneys get done, more Americans will probably be wishing that America was, once again, under the laws of a genuine kingdom, where at least the chief of state has genuine majesty, and is not the laughing stock of the world community.

The president around the world is seen as the chief jailer of Americans, and the chief spokesman for international corporations. The same international corporations that sell arms to both sides in conflicts; the same international corporations that sold poisonous gas to the Nazis, or that built the gas chambers in which the Jews and the Gypsies, and all the political undesireables, lost their lives, and which the Nuremburg trials allowed to stay in operation. For us the holocaust was a moral collapse, but for the industrial giants that sold the German government apparatus, it was a boon. For an anarchist, you definitely seem to have a knee-jerk reactionary response to many of my comments, as you bounce between being radical and almost rabidly reactionary. What I don't find in your comments is a line of reasoning based on a consistent system of logic.

You say monarchy may sound delightful, and then you raise the old phantom of the idiot in the line of succession, as if monarchies are plagued by idiots, when in reality, that has not been a problem. I find it incredible that you don't see, in contrast, the line of imbeciles and mediocrities that have served in the revolving executive office of Commander-in-Chief, which has only proven the old adage correct, that any moron can grow up to become president. Then, in one final blow, you criticize the idea that a monarch would represent an extravagant expense, supporting his or her "ostentatious splendor." When Dictator Clinton had his inaugural, we spent $42 million dollars on balls and dinners. Over the 8 years of his dictatorship, he will earn over $1 million, and he will enjoy a pension and Secret Service protection to the end of his life. While in office he commands us all by executive order, and he enjoys yachts, a private fleet of aircraft, and an executive staff of about 2 million employees. While a monarch of a rich and powerful country such as America will cost something, it will cost nothing near what the British spend to support their monarch, and we will certainly spend less than we do now supporting the president as the Last Dictator of the World.

Of course, I realize that all of this won't change your mind, because you have been charmed into the tomfoolery of the republic, the illusion of the revolutionary cause, of the desperation of the colonists, who suffered under the heavy hand of the tyrant-king, the blood-thirsty George III. You cannot imagine it another way, you cannot imagine Lincoln as the cold-blooded corporate lawyer he really was, or George Washington as the mean-spirited slavemaster he truly was. You ignore the facts of history that wreck your illusions, because you CHOOSE to wallow in powerlessness, which you call the philosophy of anarchy, but which probably no card-carrying anarchist would claim as his own. (Of course, I am employing a pun here, because the concept of being a card-carrying member of anything runs against the grain of anarchism). I feel that you are really just against anything that does not pander to your personal viewpoint. And your sense of identity and self-worth are intrinsically tied to this viewpoint, and admitting that the Founders of the republic were actually bastards is just too radical and shocking for you. Additionally, what it all implies-that a traditional restoration may have some answers to our social malaise-I think REALLY threatens your reality, because it involves going out on a limb. Well, the purpose of this is not to persuade you to my way of thinking, but to open you up to the glimmer of possibility that your way of thinking is not the only way. That the situation in America is not utterly hopeless, and that the republic is not the "best system of government in the world."

Marc Eric Augustus RexEly-Chaitlin (of the House of David)
Stillwater Bay, California