What’s Wrong with the World

Heck, I feel that way today. That's partly why I bought a pistol and a shotgun. I'd like to have a good long rifle, but can't spare the cash.

But then I started a book where an Idaho Governor leads a rebellion against the Feds, raising a militia by taxes withheld from the Feds and the promise of land from Nat Forest and the BLM.

The problem is that if the Feds send in an army, they have drones, and air power with infrared detection not to mention night vision, artillery, and so on to pick any patriots off with ease.

My solution in how to neutralize the Fed Gov was that the Idahoans took possession of the plutonium kept at a small reactor in Arco. A few pounds of plutonium weaponized as an aerosol that could be spread into DC resevoirs or sprayed over the city is a deterrent. Also, taking control of National Guard armories provides a few tanks, artillery, jets and helicopters.

A small howitzer and a few mortars could easily be smuggled into DC to fire on the White House, SCOTUS and Congress.

I believe that if a state seceded today, though, the country wouldn't much care, nor call for a slaughter in war of rebels.

Still, patriots would need an ace in hole, some WMDs of their own to hold wannabe Lincolns at bay who think they want to be great uniters, too.

An American government that attempted to extirpate Christianity and impose a secular tyranny by violence is most unlikely, I think. It wouldn't be necessary in any case, because as successive cohorts of college students are taught to despise religion by a godless educated elite, a secular tyranny in the US would eventually arrive by default.

(I've made a note to see Cristiada when it's released. Until seeing the movie trailer this morning, I was quite ignorant of the historical events on which this film is based.)

Still, patriots would need an ace in hole, some WMDs of their own to hold wannabe Lincolns at bay who think they want to be great uniters, too.

If DC's performance in the last two were any indications, just wait until the most serious blizzard of the year to declare independence...

For those so inclined, a long essay on the history of the Cristeros: http://catholicism.org/valor-betrayal-cristeros.html

These persecutions, incidentally, created a new wave of refugees to the United States - around 450,000. I have some friends whose families arrived in California from Mexico at about that time.

I was totally ignorant about this - never heard of it. Thanks for the link to the history as well, Jeff.

I can't help wondering what the social justice/social doctrine of the RC leftist types make of this?

Kamilla

No doubt the movie will be sensationalized & historically inaccurate, but it will still be a good thing if it draws attention to this fascinating episode.

It's strange how little we in the U.S. tend to know or care about our turbulent neigbor to the South.

Thanks for the link to the history as well, Jeff.

You're welcome, Kamilla.

I can't help wondering what the social justice/social doctrine of the RC leftist types make of this?

Heh. Reality creates a few problems for them. It creates problems for others, too.

No doubt the movie will be sensationalized & historically inaccurate ...

Steve, I've been following the film's pre-release publicity for quite a while. I could be wrong, but my impression is that they are making a sincere attempt at historical accuracy. The events are fresh and recent enough that any egregious inaccuracies will certainly be called out.

Jeff Culbreath writes: "These persecutions, incidentally, created a new wave of refugees to the United States - around 450,000. I have some friends whose families arrived in California from Mexico at about that time."

Wikipedia says about 40,000 settled in Los Angeles, perhaps their descendants advocated for the movie.

Jeff, have you ever read "No God Next Door" ? It has a lot of information on the Cristeros.

Jeff C.,

I should also note that Andy Garcia is one of the lonely conservative voices in Hollywood. He actually got a movie made (which no one saw) about the brutal realities of the communist revolution in Cuba:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_City_(2005_film)

Anyone who makes a movie showing the brutality and duplicitousness of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara is probably going to do his best to strive for historical accuracy.

Stephen: No, I haven't, but thanks for the recommendation. I'm reading Blood Drenched Altars currently and find it hard to put down. The historical background of Spain and the Aztecs (it seems the Aztecs were likely descended also from Carthaginian explorers!) is likewise fascinating.

Jeff S.: Sounds like a film I need to see. Apparently Garcia worked with Nestor Carbonell in both films. I believe that Carbonell's father is prominent in Cuban-American anti-communist circles and is the author of a book about the Cuban revolution titled And the Russians Stayed. I recommend the book highly.

Our fathers, chained in prisons dark,
Were still in heart and conscience free:
And truly blest would be our fate,
If we, like them, should die for thee.

Jeff C.,

Both of your book recommendations are going in my queue. I have to admit I am fascinated by the Aztec/Carthage connection. GKC immediately came to mind:

To begin with, it must be noted that the relation of Rome to Carthage was partially repeated and extended in her relation to nations more normal and more nearly akin to her than Carthage. I am not here concerned to controvert the merely political view that Roman statesmen acted unscrupulously towards Corinth or the Greek cities. But I am concerned to contradict the notion that there was nothing but a hypocritical excuse in the ordinary Roman dislike of Greek vices. I am not presenting these pagans as paladins of chivalry, with a sentiment about nationalism never known until Christian times. But I am presenting them as men with the feelings of men; and those feelings were not a pretense. The truth is that one of the weaknesses in nature-worship and mere mythology had already produced a perversion among the Greeks, due to the worst sophistry; the sophistry of simplicity. Just as they became unnatural by worshipping nature, so they actually became unmanly by worshipping man. If Greece led her conqueror, she might have misled her conqueror; but these were things he did originally wish to conquer-even in himself. It is true that in one sense there was less inhumanity even in Sodom and Gomorrah than in Tyre and Sidon. When we consider the war of the demons on the children we cannot compare even Greek decadence to Punic devil worship. But it is not true that the sincere revulsion from either need be merely pharisaical. It is not true to human nature or to common sense. Let any lad who has had the look to grow up sane and simple in his day-dreams of love hear for the first time of the cult of Ganymede; he will not be merely shocked but sickened. And that first impression, as has been said here so often about first impressions, will be right. Our cynical indifference is an illusion; it is the greatest of all illusions; the illusion of familiarity. It is right to conceive the more or less rustic virtues of the ruck of the original Romans as reacting against the very rumor of it with complete spontaneity and sincerity. It is right to regard them as reacting, if in a lesser degree, exactly as they did .against the cruelty of Carthage. Because it was in a less degree they did not destroy Corinth as they destroyed Carthage.

And one more item from the current issue of TNR (only available to subscribers), concerning the question of whether or not Mexico should be considered a "failed state", David Rieff argues thougtfully for the negative and has this to say near the end of his essay:

The war of the drug cartels against the state and its people is scarcely the first terrible war that Mexico has endured. The Cristero rebellion of 1926-'29--which was a response to both a real and, even where it did not actually occur, perceived repression of the Catholic faithful by a central government in Mexico City intent on pushing the historic anti-clericalism of the Mexican state to its limit--cost the lives of nearly 90,000 people and sent another 50,000 into exile, mostly to Los Angeles; this, at a time when the population of Mexico was about 15 million. Of the 4,500 priests who had served the country before the uprising, only a few more than 300 remained eight years later, most of the rest having been expelled, and some--like the priest on whom Graham Greene based his novel The Power and the Glory--hunted down and killed.

The Spanish version of this story isn't well known either.

from the current issue of TNR (only available to subscribers), concerning the question of whether or not Mexico should be considered a "failed state", David Rieff argues thougtfully for the negative . . .

Here's a copy of the article. Not sure if it is legal. It is dead on in my opinion. I worked in Mexico for several years and traveled all over the country. It is a delightful place with such wonderful people and not at all like your local university La Raza activist. It is sad that Americans don't take an interest in their society of politics. It has changed dramatically over the last decades. It has a trillion dollar economy --the 14th largest in the world. They've got a long slog ahead of them unfortunately for the reasons the article mentions, but they'll make it without any doubt. It is only a question of how ugly it will be. If there is a historical precedent of a nation like this failing like the military claimed it could I'm not aware of it. The 08 report was irresponsible in my opinion. Military cooperation with Mexico is in our future I think and should be for training and logistical support.

I'll quibble with this from the article though:

Nor is it a country facing a population crisis: The average age in Mexico was 17 in 1980; it is 28 today, and Mexican birthrates are in free fall.

Sadly, one more problem Mexico has is that she was convinced by the Malthusian usual suspects that it couldn't modernize or succeed without lowering the birth rate. Indeed the birthrate is in rapid decline. Rieff thinks this is good! It isn't. Malthusians are evil. A nation's birth declining from prosperity is one thing (I'm not saying this is good either,) but declining while still in development is very scary and likely not to go well. The dirty secret is that in a couple of decades there won't be enough people to come to the US as illegals and the rate of illegal immigration will fall to the low levels of the past short of the governmental collapse of a failed state.

Jeff,

I was just reading through the link at catholicism.org and came across a mention of the involvement of the Freemasons. Do they had their hands in everything? What about the French Revolution?

Kamilla

I should also note that Andy Garcia is one of the lonely conservative voices in Hollywood. He actually got a movie made (which no one saw) about the brutal realities of the communist revolution in Cuba:

You guys need to check out this enterprise. I think the idea is great, and is exactly the sort of thing we should support.

http://www.declarationentertainment.com/

A friend of mine who is a writer in Hollywood put us on to this. Apparently there is a small but extremely dedicated Christian, conservative movement in Hollywood, and they are beginning to get the word out. Sounds to me like the above Cristiada movie is a sample.

I was just reading through the link at catholicism.org and came across a mention of the involvement of the Freemasons. Do they had their hands in everything? What about the French Revolution?

Kamilla, I really don't know. My uneducated impresion is that European Freemasonry is virulently and violently anti-Catholic, Anglo-Freemasonyy a little bit less.